Child Care is So Expensive -BUT WHY?
A graphic story explainer for the rest of us
My daughter is in a 12 month child care program, but the billing cycle runs through the end of May. So this month marks the last full-time child care payment I’ll make on her behalf.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m done paying for care. There are still summer camps to attend, days-off camps to fill, the occasional babysitter and anything else that goes along with kids.
But it’s a major milestone to no longer have a chunk of our take-home pay going to child care. And though I love where she goes to preschool and the friends she’s made and the teachers who have helped nurture her the past three years, I also know that it’s an expense that not every family can comfortably shoulder.
But why is that? WHY is child care so expensive?
The short answer is that child care is so expensive because unlike regular K-12 public education, child care is not supported by the federal and state government.
The long answer: our country doesn’t invest enough in families, especially young children. By refusing to invest in child care infrastructure and policies like paid family leave, we are making things harder than they need to be for families of young children.
This is one of many reasons we need things to change.
For this Substack, I wanted to share a graphic that my friend Dianne Kirsch and I put together for
. Dianne and her husband Jesse are the talented artists/illustrators behind No Plan Press, a letterpress and design studio based in Takoma Park, Md. (Check out their new website for some impressive local art - I’ve already ordered the Stumpy cherry blossom print to hang in our hallway.) Dianne and I teamed up on this graphic story to address some of the misconceptions that accompany the $$ surrounding child care debate. Notably: the educators still aren’t paid enough, federal investment is still too low, and the high ratios required mean that expenses will always stay high.It doesn’t need to be this way though.
Let’s keep that in mind.
Have any trouble viewing the images? Read the entire graphic story here at .
This illustration is SO good! And, I think we need to be considering all care, including elder and disability care in this messaging and political will. Many of us are dealing with both (or all three) simultaneously, and this is only going to become more common as people have children later and people live longer without enough savings to support eldercare.
I think one of the interesting questions is how to build the political will you write about. For me, this is where the tie to democracy is so key. Looking forward to collaborating on this soon!