 Welcome everyone to another edition of crisis conversations live from the better life lab. I'm Bridget Schulte, director of the better life lab, and today we're going to be talking about probably one of the most enormous crises facing us right now in the middle of this pandemic economic downturn and racial justice reckoning, and that is childcare, childcare crisis. Every day about more than 12 million children need a safe high quality environment. While their parents work, we have a majority of children who's who are being raised in families where all available parents work. We have something like 41 million people who are working and rely on child childcare who have lost it in the pandemic. We're also talking about schools beginning to reopen but online childcare remains closed. There's pressure on people to go back to work or businesses to to to continue trying to get back to some kind of semblance of an economy going, and there is no childcare for people 0 to 18. So we're going to be talking about that today we're going to be talking about what how we got here about the crisis, but also the very fact that the before the crisis childcare was in a crisis. We've got a system that does not work for everyone parents are paying too much early educators and caregivers are not earning enough providers are making razor thin margins. There's not enough high quality childcare to go around, even though we know how critical it is for children and families and in the future of our country. So today I'm going to we have a fantastic lineup I'm so excited to have all these panelists here let me briefly introduce them then we're going to dive right in. We've got Marla Shekman she's an entrepreneur and mother of two who's been struggling to launch her startup with no childcare. We've also got Adriana Garcia she's a mother of four from Portland, Oregon and she's currently on emergency paid leave, but she's getting a fraction of what her paycheck of her paycheck as a salon worker. And this is the summer she was hoping to kind of start kind of her career and social justice and because she doesn't have childcare. She's stuck and not able to do that. We've also got Alicia Hardy she's a policy analyst on childcare and early education for the Center for Law and Social Policy. And she wrote a really wonderful piece including about how to include parent voices and policy solutions, as well as some of her own struggles, trying to do this high level remote work and dealing with with her own childcare issues. We've got Caitlin Collins she's a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and author of the truly marvelous book called making motherhood work, how women manage careers and caregiving and if you haven't read it you should it's it's must read reading. We've got Renee Boynton Jarrett she's a professor of pediatrics at Boston University. She's a social epidemiologist and the founding director of the vital village community engagement network, which focuses on the role of early life adversities as life course social determinants of health. And last but not certainly not least we've got Maria Kansy and she's the Dean of the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown, who researches the dynamics between public policies and family well being. So welcome to all of the panelists welcome to all the participants we're looking forward to your questions and stories in the chat. And let's start off with Marla. You know it's let's start with the actual stories of what parents are facing on the ground Marla you're trying to launch a startup. How you, how has that been going in the pandemic, trying to also figure out how to raise children. Yeah, so first I just want to say that I find it really odd that I'm on this podcast as though there's something special about me because there's absolutely nothing special about the situation that I'm in. It's, you know, the same issue that countless women are facing so on the one hand that's comforting on the other hand that's really disturbing. I've been working on launching a business for about two years I've been working on a previous model of my business, and I was pregnant last year had a baby in October. And then I gave myself maternity leave because nobody else was going to do it for me right. When I, when I picked back up in January. I said I was going to hit the ground running going to get my developer on board everything's going to happen by February we had our plans and then come March. Boom. My childcare is gone. And I had to go back to being full time mom. Now mom of two, which I didn't plan to do and it was just, you know, exhausting and a major shock to my system and one of those moms who wants to work and I didn't plan to be a stay at home mom. Well, I enjoy my work I didn't, you know, I didn't. I wasn't really enjoying being a stay at home mom which you know kind of double the guilt. So that's really, that's really what I have been facing this like wanting to work not being able to work struggle, and I've just finally been able to get something shipped, you know, so to speak get something out there I've talked to my developer again but it's, it's been fits and spurts working between 11am 11pm and 1am. Wow. When I can, you know, and, you know, you've got a partner you've got a husband, you know, can you talk about how is it that it fell onto your shoulders because that's one of the things that a lot of the surveys are showing is that a lot of the home childcare is sort of defaulting to women. Yeah. And, you know, it's, I, I'm one of these feminists that like always wanted a partner to share everything with me but yet still in our home traditional roles kind of took precedence because my husband's the one with the stable regular income and I'm the, I call myself the entrepreneurial flusie like I, you know, I can, I can work wherever whenever and so it made it just made financial sense for us, right, I'm not going to tell him to stop working. Right. But that being said, he has been fortunate enough to be able to take off a couple of hours every day through an emergency leave policy that they have. And that's been helpful but you know it's, it's not enough. Well, at this point, Adriana, let me bring you in and talk about your story. You know, you've been working at a salon. You've had a lot of difficulty. It sounds like when we talked before, trying to get the emergency paid leave. You've got four kids that you're that you're juggling. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, kind of the situation that you're in because you're also talking about some of the difficult decisions that you have to make that if you do go back to work, you actually face, you know, a pretty scary place. You know, you're a lot of contact with other people and you know, while the virus is still so out of control in this country. When you're on mute Adriana. Thank you. Oh, there we go. Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me to just like Marla I feel very honored to be here just representing all the parents that are going through similar similar stories. Yeah, same same situation. I've worked in social justice for about seven years. Took a little break went to school finished just had little jobs here and there for flexibility so I could stay with the kiddos and you know my husband and I could juggle. We don't have any family. At the time I was a student so we could not afford to care. My husband is obviously the main provider and so with that, you know, I was able to find little flexible jobs and it was really helpful because we could juggle the kids on on our own and so, you know, covert hitting just obviously turned our world upside down. So having childcare, all the sports and camps that our kiddos depended on to help them you know just cope and be kids and we don't have that anymore so I have a house full of little anxious children and you know it's very very hard it's very hard. It's not knowing what programs are out there with support we have and employers, you know, sometimes pushing back that just makes it even harder. So it's just been, you know, and just like Marla same way I'm 100% strong feminist we share roles 5050 always. But you know my husband is a main provider so it's had to default for me to have to put everything on hold all the plans that we had for this year. And it's been really really hard. Yeah. So, Alicia, if I could, if I could turn to you. You know, can you help put these stories in context, both Adriana and Marla, you know they're in partnerships where you know someone else is the primary breadwinner but in so many families, women are the, you know, either they're the primary or co breadwinner. And many other families don't have these kinds of options. You know, can you help put these stories in this in a larger perspective about what families are experiencing during this, you know during the pandemic and, you know, and really looking at this through an equity lens like you've been writing about. And again, thank you for having me on the show as well and many of the things that Marla and Adriana said really resonated with me and my personal experience who I'm also working from home with my two kids and my husband works outside of the home so I'm here full time working with two kids. And so I definitely understand that and to really understand the impacts of Coronavirus currently on the childcare system for families and workers in childcare providers, we have to really look at the context of what was happening before in the racial equity and equity that existed in terms of low income families and so we see that childcare is widely expensive for all families across the board and that families in 30 states in the District of Columbia pay more for a center based childcare than they do for public tuition at a four year university in this. I just put a put an exclamation point on that that's an amazing statistic. Yeah, it's, you're talking about at a time when families haven't had 18 years to save up for for college tuition it hits them right out of the box. Absolutely and that affordability issue is for all families but when we look at families who earn low incomes that affordability piece is even worse for them and again we layer on the equity lens in terms of racial equity and families within communities of color paying even higher costs. Yeah, so the threshold for affordability is 7% that's what the US Department of Health and Human Services says, but families and low 7% like what it absolutely I do. Yes, absolutely 7% of income as being contributed to childcare is like the threshold so families should know more spend no more than 7% on their income towards childcare, but we see that low income families are paying on average 30% contributing 30% of their income towards childcare So every $100 that a family earns 30 is going towards childcare and this is your affordability when you look at race in the context of race black families and other communities of color paying even higher costs so black families are most likely to be able to afford childcare and are paying five times as much contributing 35% of their income towards childcare So that affordability issue is huge and then we're not even looking at access and understanding what that 50% of Americans live in childcare deserts and Latinx and Native American families are most likely to live in childcare deserts and what that truly means for families because even if you can afford childcare if you can access it that creates a whole another level of issue. When you talk about a childcare desert and you're saying like half of all families live in childcare deserts that. So, can you talk a little bit about what does that mean when you live in a childcare. I mean, I mean, I'm picturing a desert sort of like a vast empty wasteland. What does that mean? Yeah, the first families that live in childcare deserts that means these families, the number of families in children that need access to childcare out numbers the amount of licensed providers and slots that are available in their community. And so this is something that's impacting all Americans but again when you look at income in that intersection of income and race families within communities of color having even more difficulty accessing childcare. In general, it's just not there it's just absolutely communities. Absolutely. And then on the, you know, the other thing that you've also written about so we've talked about the parents and how unaffordable it is for them but you've also written about caregivers you know we really rely. You know 90 over 90% of all the early ed teachers and caregivers are women. Absolutely. Absolutely women of color, many immigrant women, and yet they all earn poverty wages, you know, like about the what a parking lot attendant does, you know, and so that's another part of the equity equation how do you make this affordable for parents but also give living wages to people who work in the system. And I think that's really important because the high costs of childcare that burden and the high costs are passed on to families but also providers and childcare workers who as you stated are overwhelmingly women and women of color, and who on average make $11 and 42 since an hour so far. In some states we're paying people who walk our dogs and care for our animals more than we pay for the pay the people who are caring for our children, the nation's future. The undervaluing and underpaying of the childcare labor force does have to do exactly with what you said that is composed of majority women and in particular women of color and the undervaluing of women, and again particularly women of color black Latin next Asian American women in this country and that they don't see them as valuable enough to pay livable wages and have them, allow them to have access to other benefits such as health care medical care, especially with all the health issues that are being going on with the COVID-19 pandemic. Right. And now this is a workforce where many of them are out of work because so many childcare centers and and family homes are shut down. Absolutely. Let's turn, Caitlin, let me turn to you at this point. You know, you've just done such marvelous amazing research not only looking at the situation for for mothers and women and equity here in the United States but also across the world. And I think one of the things that is both the hopeful and depressing when I read your work is that it doesn't have to be this way, and that you've seen how it can be different. Can you talk about why it doesn't have to be this way, and what we could learn from other countries. The United States has the most family hostile public policy of any country in the western industrialized world. The United States has no universal childcare universal healthcare right no universal basic income no guaranteed vacation and sick days. These things compound to make the lives of families in the United States, much much harder day to day than another Western industrialized countries, and we don't have to invent a system from scratch there are other systems elsewhere in the world that are working well. I did interviews with families in Scandinavia, for example, and Sweden has a universal childcare system that costs the wealthiest families in the country $160 a month for full time childcare for their children for their children. What. $160 a month for full time childcare. That's the maximum amount allowed for a family. And as Alicia mentioned the cost here in the US is astronomical the average family is paying roughly $9600 a year on average to send a child to a daycare facility zero to four. In Scandinavia that's $2,000 a year max for the wealthiest families in the country on average 3% of their income. This is the system available to all families across the socioeconomic spectrum for immigrant families, you know native origin families and we again don't have to invent a system from scratch we can look elsewhere to draw best practices on how to implement a system like this here in the United States. You know, one of the things that struck me is when you interviewed mothers and you've asked sort of how they feel and what they expect, you know the sort of the stress level or the exhaustion level. What has struck you when when you think about the sort of the different experiences that women have with childcare and these different systems. The moms were unique in blaming themselves for their work family conflict, they felt uniquely stressed exhausted overwhelmed and guilt written as as one participant said earlier today. And it doesn't surprise me that moms told me this because the United States says that families are a personal and private responsibility, right that caregiving should happen in the home and its parents jobs turned the market to meet that need. One of the reasons is that this exacerbates deep seated inequalities between different sorts of families and moms in Europe, moms in Germany, moms in Italy, moms in Sweden felt that they had a right to support from men from employers and from the government. American moms don't expect help from anyone, and they uniquely carry the vast majority of this burden on their shoulders in ways that I think is deeply problematic and again perpetuating inequalities that we've seen for centuries now. You know, so, Maria, I'd like to turn to you at this point you've done so much work on sort of looking at whole systems, and to Caitlin's point that that we think of family as a private issue that you know matter and that government doesn't doesn't it shouldn't be involved, which is so crazy when you think that we have public education that starts at five five to 18 that somehow a social good but zero to five it's not. Let's talk about how do we get here, why it matters, and how do we get out of here, what do we do, how do we move forward in the pandemic but also in the, in the big picture. Well, thanks for it. I mean, I would say that education is actually the exception to the role in the United States. I think Nancy full grain Marcia Marcia Myers others have have used this phrase that in the US we see children as pets. And I think this is really a useful kind of way to think about it. You can have a child. The purpose of a child is to bring you pleasure the way maybe having a pet might, you're responsible for their care and feeding and their behavior and within remarkably broad boundaries. We don't tell parents how to raise their children. And we don't really give parents help, unless they can prove that they're unable to provide so it's really very what we would call residual. So you know we might provide food stamps or we might provide healthcare we might provide housing, if parents can prove that they're unable to do what we otherwise define as their responsibility. And I think it would be a really different switch and this goes back to what Caitlin said, if we started to see children as a critical investment in our future. If we started to see that we need a generation that will take care of us when we're old, that will pay taxes to pay off the debt that we're accumulating right now. And if that were like an investment, then you would begin to see parents as currently paying a much greater share than their share in making this investment. Instead of it being, you know, public help for this private responsibility. It becomes offsetting some of that private burden that parents are taking to raise the next generation and that really recast things and I just said that in the US, we have that approach for public education from, you know, K through we don't say there's a public school down the street, if you're not, if you're too poor to afford private school. Yeah, right. We say there's public school down the street for everybody, but we don't take that approach to care work for the youngest children. And that would really require a big change though it is a big change that I think people are starting to embrace in the current context where a broader set of people are seeing just how unworkable the current system is. Absolutely. Renee, let me turn to you at this point and you and I met when I was moderating the panel after the release of a wonderful documentary called No Small Matter all about how investing just as Maria was saying investing in children investing in early care and education is really critical for our future. So, share some of that, why is that, you know, why should we be thinking about it as an investment rather than, you know, the children are pets to bring us joy why is that important, and what are you seeing particularly now in the pandemic and the work that you're doing. So much, you know what the data is 100% clear that are high quality early childhood development investments in high quality early childhood development have a clear rate of return on investment of 7 to 10%. So if you just want to translate it into the importance and the efficiency of investing early instead of preparing later, there is huge rate of return on investment boosts earnings by over 25% in adulthood health outcomes that are far reaching our leading causes of chronic illness, stroke, diabetes, obesity, all of these factors parenting in adulthood are all significantly impacted by access to consistent high quality early childhood developmental experiences and the achievement gap that we spend so much trying to correct a later on, it also helps to shrink that so health care is over $3 billion per year, we spend primarily in tertiary care. And we know that investment or what do you mean by tertiary care by tertiary care I mean care for chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, stroke, chronic illnesses, but we actually know by investing in an equitable high quality early childhood developmental experiences, you could actually prevent many of those complications that occur at earlier and younger ages for a large percentage of the population. And as has so presently state estimates that 30 to 50% of child care providers and child care centers could permanently close their doors due to COVID-19. And at the same time we see this existing evidence of the benefits of early child care. And as has been shared by everyone today on this podcast, this has been a systemic structural disinvestment in early child care. 1.5 million child care workers, 40% of them are women of color with the vast majority of women, over 15% of them live at poverty or below the poverty line. And as has been shared, they make about $11 and a half hour, 85% don't have health care, 85%. And in light of COVID-19, the majority of them do not have plans for protective protective equipment, or the appropriate disinfectant and cleaning equipment. So there is a reckoning that is happening right now around a huge question. Are we going to respect and honor and protect the dignity of our child care providers as essential workers and the dignity of the children in their care. And this is not a field that has been invested in in a sustainable way. There are systemic structural inequities that are being grossly widened and grossly exposing the fragility of this system in light of COVID-19. But we must make fundamentally different decisions. This is not an easy or simple fix. We really have to decide as a society, do we want to invest in supporting the promise and potential of every child, and do we want to invest in child care providers for the very essential and invaluable work that they are doing for our society in terms of its health and well being for the future. You know, we're getting some questions from from the chat and one of the questions which I think is a really important one to address is why is it so expensive. Why is it so expensive for parents and why are caregivers earning such little money. And so, you know, Maria, let me turn to you. Why, why is it so expensive and why are we calling it a broken system. Well, I mean, I think this is a really good example of a place where it's very expensive because it's very intensive work and we've basically rendered it invisible up till now by having it done at home. And I think, you know, we know this, we know this. I think one example of a context where we learned this was in the context of welfare reform. So, when low income moms were required in a lot of places to go back to work, for example, in Wisconsin, where there was some of the strictest work requirements, the cost of childcare that was provided was substantially higher than the cost of the welfare check. Yeah, so we've, we know that it's very. You're, you're in such a bind at that point. You know, so here we've got, you know, all of these parents who like, like, like Adriana like Marla, who are struggling like like Alicia like Caitlin, you know, struggling with trying to trying to work trying to survive trying to hold on. So I'd like to ask each of you kind of as we as we kind of move to a close is, what can parents do now what can the system do now, just to get through this, this really house on fire kind of crisis. And then what do we really need to do long term how do we get to that Marshall plan for, for a really great childcare system Caitlin let me start with you, how do parents survive now what needs to happen now, and then what do we really need to do long term. I think that men need to participate more in childcare and child rearing men have a right and a responsibility to equally participate in family life to support not only partners but also their children. Longer term, we need to think of children as a public good as all the participants today have suggested investing in children early has concrete benefits not only for children but for their parents for businesses and for the national economy. So the path forward is clear this is needed. And I think parents need to stop blaming themselves of course though it's understandable that they do. And we need to expect more from our from our government and I think we need to vote someone in who thinks of a national childcare system as essential moving forward. Marla when when Caitlin was talking about mother guilt, I saw you nodding your head. You know you also there was a question also about what businesses can do. So what are your short term, you know, what do you need what needs to happen short term and then what would you like to see long term and particularly what can businesses do to be a role to play a role here in solving this. Yeah, so I'm my business at the beginning before I transitioned to focusing on pandemic childcare was on childcare at places of business. And I think one of the biggest things that employers can do is recognize that many of their employees are parents, and they need care. And in order to continue having positive interactions with their staff and having, you know, good employee retention policies and, you know, it just, it's an easy benefit. And it's an easy fix to something that will take a lot of stress off of a parent's life and it's not a zero sum game it's not. And, you know, if you, you know, men, challenging men to step up or fathers to step up is not the only solution because really it's about removing the barriers, if, if the barriers are removed to having access to care, then both partners will happily participate in that I think that's something that I've seen in my husband's workplace where he works, he actually works for one of the few federal government branches he works for NASA that has childcare on site at their, their center. That's very rare. I mean, it's, you know, there's a lot of engineers there who happen to be male, and many of them are fathers bringing their kids into work. And that takes a huge burden off of the mother right or off of the spouse to have to deal with the whole like shuttle childcare in the morning shuttle but you know, all of that. So it's just one example of when you remove the barriers. Everybody will step up, and it's not, you know, this whole stigma that it has to be a woman. So, Adriana, what do you need to get through the you know the next couple months you're on the emergency leave that's going to run out at some point. You know what do you need short term and then, you know, to get through the pandemic and what are your thoughts about about where we need to go as a country. I mean, I completely agree with Caitlin and Marla. I think we need to start a movement and we need to make this normalize that this is an issue that every single parent is going through I've talked to multiple parents. You know, we just got the news that school is officially going to be online until at least November here in Portland. And so, we're freaking out, you know, I'm supposed to have a kindergarten or starting in September and what's normal about me teaching him at home. I'm not a teacher. I did not go to school to be teacher. And you know, I just, it is crucial to our mental health, you know, I'm struggling with a lot of medical issues now due to the stress and so it is crucial that we bring this to light and bring awareness that this is normal that we're all struggling in our homes, that there's no option. And that way, something happens, you know, we have to talk about it and we have to raise awareness that this is not okay. And that our children are the future, you know, we're investing our lives in raising these little people to be the next generation. So we should take care of our daycare workers, our teachers, all these people that we trust our babies with for hours and hours. So we're not investing in them and paying them what they should be paid. And mom's getting paid equally as dad so we're not giving that well, you should say because obviously you make more money, you know, those are all. Yeah, those are all big issues that if we don't tackle those first there's, we can't we can't deal with this. So Alicia, let me go to you short term long term what what what two parents need to do what needs to happen now and then what do we need to do long term. Absolutely in the short term we need to continue to push for investments in childcare as we recently seen through the childcare is essential act and the childcare is Economic Recovery Act that we've recently passed in the house. Childcare needs investment we need to be able to take the burden of painting, paying for childcare off of families to increase wages for childcare workers and allow childcare providers to not operate on such thin margins. So that is what we really need to do in the short term but with that investment we need to be focused on equity and understanding that the solutions to create more accessibility and affordability across communities will look different for those communities and that equity does not mean sameness. And we really have to tailor those supports for those communities, but the only way we can do that is to allow people from within different communities and at the table when we're creating legislation. We're developing policy when we're looking at resources so that the those who are creating the policy solutions are reflective of the community tools being impacted by this inequity. And in terms of long term we have to really, really look at a funding structure that long term will treat again as we've all said childcare as the public good that it is now and always has been because we talk about economics growth and stability childcare creates economic growth and stability childcare is racial justice and racial equity childcare is essential and foundational to a strong America a strong economy strong families strong women mothers and strong children and so that's something we have to do. So, so Maria, your thoughts, you know, short term long term what you know, what are these, what are these parents who are struggling what kind of what's a lifeline we can throw them and then and then what, what can we really hope for in the long term. I think a lot of panelists have have covered the main points I'll try to say one thing that I think is a positive. I'll put a half a half glass full on this, which is, I think one of the things that coven 19 and the challenges has done is to surface this issue to clarify how essential child care is to clarify how essential care work is. And the challenge I think we have is to take advantage of that opportunity, take advantage of this moment to try to find solutions that are actually across the board that will improve equity that are not piecemeal that do not say what can we do for those parents who can't do what we expect to fill in the gap, but rather accept the kind of fundamental nature that most workers have, you know, most parents are also workers and many workers are also parents. Right. We acknowledge that not as kind of a sideline problem, but as a structural fact of the modern world and we need to address it. I love that. Renee, let me give you we're coming down on time I'm sorry everyone we've gone over but this is a big issue Renee let me give you the last word. Listen, we have a gap between what we understand from science and our existing policies. We know early childhood between the ages of zero and five are critical time for brain development for social emotional development. It truly sets the foundation for health, well being and life chances later on in life. We have a public education system that begins at kindergarten in some states right and most states and in some that's at age six so we really have to reckon with why we are reluctant to have a policy that matches what we understand about what children need to thrive and survive. We have to reckon with a historical and systemic structural racism, sexism and ableism that has shaped the way in which childcare has been regarded. And until we are really truly able to change our mindset to utilize science and evidence to design policies that make sense and to reckon with some of these very systemic practices that go unquestioned and unchecked. We will not, we are putting the childcare providers at risk, we are putting our children at risk, we are putting our futures, all of our futures at risk. And, and because there is a delay in the most significant effects, we think it's okay. Well, with that, thank you all for participating today to have this very important conversation. Hopefully this is one of many that the entire country will be really reckoning with these and grappling with these issues in a very active way. So thank you so much to the panelists. Thank you so much to the participants for all of the questions and the comments and the chat box. I would like to thank the New America Events Team, the Better Life Lab team, David Shulman, our producer. Next week we're going to be talking about family caregivers. So in the meantime, wash your hands, wear a mask, stay safe, and we'll see you next week.