My son asks me, what did people do before we had Google Docs?
I try to explain what floppy disks were, that we would have to save our work manually, or print out assignments to turn them in.
He thinks we are dinosaurs. There is no world for him that the internet has not made faster and easier and everything immediately accessible. I didn’t even tell him that once upon a time people were paid to take dictation and stories could be filed over the phone (that was before my time too, but I know of it).
As a reporter who has been covering child care for nearly four years, it’s tempting to rely on the ease of the internet, Zoom and Google docs to keep me ensconced behind a desk. If given the option of an in-person meet up or Zoom, the latter just seems easier. Faster. Quicker. We can schedule it, no problem, and don’t have to worry about pesky things like child care, provided our kids are old enough to stay out of the room.
But there’s a danger in falling into the easier - faster - quicker trap.
I’ve found that the time spent to arrange, show up and take the time for an in-person interaction makes the reporting and the subsequent story so much better. I don’t know if readers can discern how well the journalist writing the article knows the people they are reporting on - but as the author, I can generally tell when the extra effort to show up has made a difference in what I’m able to take back.
One of those in-person meetings I had this part year when covering child care is with Joanne Hurt, who runs the Wonders Early Learning + Extended Day child care program in the D.C. area. It was after talking with Joanne and her team that I got the kernel of an idea for a story about how child care centers are taking training to help identify symptoms of postpartum mood disorders in new parents. (The story is in the May/June issue of Bethesda Magazine, and though hard copies are out, a link isn’t available quite yet.)
Recently Joanne invited me to speak with the Wonders Board and Leadership Circle team about trends I’ve seen in child care reporting lately. There are few issues that have undergone such a radical transformation in media coverage as child care - and caregiving more broadly - since the pandemic put a spotlight on what had for a long time been invisible work.
But we are making it more visible, both the reporters who cover this and the readers - like you! - who follow the issue.
Child Care in the News: More, Different, Better
Four years in, here’s what I’ve seen shift in the way child care shows up in the news:
Child care is more in the news now than it’s ever been, with more recognition of the role it plays in our economy, and evolving views from Millenials/Gen Z of their expectations. We also have ample evidence that high quality child care produces well adjusted kids - refuting earlier generations' concerns of kids growing up unloved or being turned into Soviet-eta automatons.
Child care as a potential business model to improve upon - interest from venture capitalists to provide tech solutions and more ways to scale. Also a play by private equity to get into the human services sector - similar to the way they have been in nursing and assisted care with potentially disastrous results. (And in case you missed it, here is a deep-dive investigative piece by my colleague Elliot Haspel on the role private equity is playing in the child care industry. I’ll have a Q+A on this topic coming out soon).
These are some of the child care providers in DC who are fighting to keep their livable wages- read more about that here.
More stories are making the providers more visible - through storytelling and a focus on a livable wage. Seeing more stories that address this, and more efforts from localities to boost wages. Also more interest at the state and local level in creating a pipeline of future ECE educators. I recently wrote about the early childhood apprenticeship options from Neighborhood Villages in Boston, and how part of growing the pipeline to address this staffing crisis means paying educators a living wage. (And if you missed it in last week’s substack, this livable wage issue going on in Washington, D.C. also deserves attention.)
Evolution of paid family leave at the state level. Before I covered child care, I covered paid family leave. And paid family leave, I can’t quit you. I also wouldn’t ever want to. The evolution of paid family leave provides an interesting model for the expansion of child care, with some major caveats. States can’t quite serve as a substitute for federal investment, notably because states don’t have the ability to run a deficit and child care is very expensive. But there are some states, notably New Mexico and Vermont, that are showing they can provide near -universal care and it is a promising start to state level change. Paid leave had the same route - now 12 states and DC have laws, but paid leave doesn’t face the same challenges.
Also, a robust paid family leave program will help drive down the demand for infant care, which is the costliest to provide and the hardest to find.
This is one of my all-time favorite paid family leave stories I wrote for Roll Call, in which I conclude by explaining I was taking my own paid family leave for the birth of the aforementioned son who is now old enough to critique the floppy disk method. It’s also very out-of-date as the government now provides 12 weeks paid family leave for both parents and did not in 2013 when this piece was written. Another great line from the piece: “Telecommuting has become more popular.” If only 2013 could see us now in 2024…
But if we want things to change, we need to shift mindsets
Our country has some deep-rooted individualistic tendencies - we still see child care as the purview of families to figure out on their own without much support from the government, even as we know the existing market model isn’t workable for families or providers.
So this is one way we start to change it. We write and read about it. We share what we know. And we add care issues to one of the topics we put in front of policymakers as a major issue or litmus test when we go vote in November.
I agree with all of these trends. The individualistic view of childcare is why we are yet to make progress.