Child Care…and they don’t care

 

Pay Attention To Her. She Is the Future.

So I saw in the news the other day that people are leaving the childcare industry in droves. The reason? Mostly pay, which is abysmal. But there’s the also the issue of respect, of which many child care providers get very little.

I had a sense of deja vu when I saw this article. Just over 35 years ago, Martha and I were constantly, and desperately in search of care for our son, David, then but the proverbial slip of a lad.

Eventually, we found a couple of excellent situations, and David had different homes that he regarded as his extended families. We’re still in touch with one of the families that looked after him. 

But, I remember one day reading a very prestigious financial journal, a darling of MBAs and economists, which confidently predicted that if you were a child care provider, or a teacher, you should get out field as fast as you could. It had no future, said the experts who were quoted in the piece. People weren’t having children anymore. And besides, if they did, well, who would bother paying for child care when there were grandparents in the world? (My own parents were two thousand miles away, and so weren’t exactly on call. And Martha’s mother was, well, very sick. We would have sooner left David in charge of her rather than the other way around.)

The point being the article was bullshit and the “experts” in industry and government were spewing bullshit. Even while millions of people like ourselves were in desperate of childcare, even as the Baby Boom generation was having its own baby boomlet, they were confidently proclaiming the End Of The Child.

In retrospect, I think the reality was that the “experts” said what they said out of a vast, unconscious bias against parenthood. Having children, you see, gets in the way of efficient organizations. You don’t want mothers and fathers in corporations. They get distracted by the needs of their offspring. They have to look after kids when they get sick. Or they come in late because school was delayed because of snow. Or they get “mommy brain,” (daddy brain exists, too. I know. I’ve had it. But people talk about it less. You can guess at the reason. Take your time.)

But the point is, children do not increase Share Holder Value.

So, child care is, by definition, somehow wrong. Or, at least, very much a lesser thing, not to be taken seriously.

And here we are, a generation later, and the Baby Boomers’ Baby Boomlet has itself its own offspring…and is in search of child care. And, surprise, surprise, if you try to go through agencies or companies, you find that an ever shrinking number of potential providers.

I suppose, in the end, capitalism will work its magic. Wages will rise and respect will be given. Eventually the demand will be matched by supply.

But I can’t help wondering if things would not have gotten to this sorry pass, if Those Who Knew Best had valued children in the first place, and not regarded those who look after them as somehow lesser beings, to be disrespected as a matter of course, and paid a pittance for long and arduous hours, and no matter how grueling the labor.

~mjt

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Copyright©2021 Michael Jay Tucker

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