 Hi, welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studios. I'm Lisa Kimura. I'm the host of Family Affairs, a show for exploring issues related to how healthy public policies and efforts to increase gender equality help improve our overall quality of life for families in Hawaii. With me today is my first guest, Deborah Zeisman, the executive director of Hawaii Children's Action Network. Hi. Welcome. I just want to note that the views and opinions expressed on this program are entirely my own and those of my guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of any other organization, employer, or company. Welcome, Deborah. Hi. Thanks for being here. So tell me about what Hawaii Children's Action Network is doing this year in regards to bills and public policy work. So Hawaii Children's Action Network, we are a local nonprofit and we are building a movement on behalf of our children and families. So we bring together lots of nonprofits and also families, parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles who really want to make our community better. We want to make it the best place for kids and the best place really for families to raise their children. And we know we have a lot of room to grow in those areas. It's actually gotten harder and harder for families here to kind of be able to make it and thrive. And so we have a number of policy priorities that we're coming together and really rallying behind to our state lawmakers. So how are you measuring exactly that things are getting harder for families? Well, we know we've had cost of living is rising and we've seen through a number of things in the last few years that like the United Way study that came out that showed that actually families up to close to $100,000 a year of income are really just getting by paycheck to paycheck and really in danger of dipping into poverty, potentially becoming homeless, those sorts of things. And a lot of our programs and supports for families and children have either been really flat. We haven't been growing them as much as they need to be or they've been cut. I think that's some of it. So I think we look at all those supportive things around how to make sure there's really good public education, how to make sure there's good early childhood things like paid family leave for families so they can do the child caring that they need to when a new baby is born and affordable child care and affordable housing. So like all those things kind of together is what we know makes a really rich, good supportive. The way we work is how do we do a better job in our community supporting parents, supporting families in raising their kids. We don't replace them, right? Right. We want to support them. Enrich them. Enrich them. Make it where they're less stressed, able to play with their kids and lead just great happy lives. Yeah. What kind of challenges are you seeing with affordability in regards to child care? So it's been really getting worse I mean I think is the issue. So we did a whole study last year with University of Hawaii Center on the Family taking a look at just where we have even child care. So I think right now the average cost of child care is about $10,000 a year and for babies up to toddlers it's actually more like $13,000 a year. So that is a lot of money. A lot of money, right? I mean I'm a mom of two kids. They're both now in elementary school but for a while I had two kids in child care and preschool and at that time my child care and preschool bill was substantially more than my rent every month and that was just astounding. I actually I had to ask family to help out and both my husband and I work. We're kind of you know normal folks, normal salaries. I think that's the issue. A lot of families $13,000 a year for one child is really tough I think is the issue and we know families also can't really make the choice to stay home because our housing costs for example are so high. We see families in Hawaii most people in the family are at work. They don't necessarily even have grandma or auntie necessarily who's able to do full-time child care because often grandma and auntie are still working. One to multiple jobs kind of make things work. So what we know about child care is we don't have enough of it. It's tough here in Honolulu but it's even worse out on the neighbor islands. So across the state we have about one child care spot for every four kids. So that's not not enough but then when you get out to the babies it's even worse. We have fewer and fewer so at any price point so even if you can afford to pay a huge amount of money there's not child care providers and our child care subsidies and our public preschool program have been growing but slowly they've not been keeping up with the pace of had more kids being born in the state so they're not really keeping up so they're growing but they're growing slowly I would say. As we were discussing before the show our child care help and our preschool help aren't necessarily helping those families except maybe the ones who are the poorest of our families like really really low income or perhaps homeless families and what do they define as the lowest income? What would be the threshold? Well it kind of depends on the program I would say but a lot of those programs are really only helping families up to like a family income in like to say the $40,000 a year which it's tough to really make it if you have one or two families and you're still making only like $40,000 a year you're really struggling so but we know for example from that United Way report that really families even closer to like a hundred thousand dollars a year are struggling to make it they have two or three incomes in their in their household so we're trying to take a look at that the whole range right our lowest income kids but also really most of us in that kind of more like working family place and it's tough our minimum wage is still pretty low right so we know salaries are not necessarily at the same rate if you were like in San Francisco where you have a lot of people making a much higher higher income level. So what kind of bills on policies is HCAN focused on this year to try to address that? Yeah we have a few different things so child care and preschool are a big focus for us that's been a huge amount of work we just know it's been a struggle for a long time so we have a new coalition of families and organizations that are coming together and they're really working on a couple things so one we are advocating for more money to keep growing our our quality public preschool program so that's been growing in the last three four years so we've seen we have 22 of our public elementary schools now have a preschool classroom and 18 of our charter schools have that so we are actually asking collectively for probably about 40 million dollars of new money to keep growing that that program to keep expanding it. Are there any other issues going on with it right now that's preventing people from enrolling or anything that's hindering the growth of the program? Well I think it's still a pretty hidden program a lot of families don't know that it's even an option that they may have a charter school or an elementary school in their community that has a free preschool program for four-year-olds and they're all great they're running really fabulous high quality programs so I encourage you if you're interested take a look and see if the elementary school in your community has it. I think the other piece is we are trying to make sure that those programs are not just serving the lowest income families but as we can get more money more resources that they're again growth right I think with the way we looked at it was let's start with our low-income families but we want we really want to be serving eventually all families so that's a piece of it and then child care I think that that's a really four-year-olds we're seeing four more four-year-olds in like more of a school setting but we know people have babies those children need we want a safe environment for them an accessible available you know kind of in the location that they want affordable and then if possible a high-quality environment for those kids and we've got to look from really from birth because we know moms and dads are going back to work really within a couple weeks after the baby is born right now Hawaii doesn't have a paid leave policy which many states do have now so they're going back to work and the rest of the world right but a lot of moms including me are you know I went back with both my kids when they were like five or six weeks old that's the reality so we need child care then good affordable child care from the time they're like five or six weeks old until they're at least four or five years old I mean that's what we have to think of it so it's not just about preschool I think so we are looking at how do we get more of that child care subsidy money out to families so that's there's two programs one is called preschool indoors and one is called child care connections and they're both part of Department of Human Services but how do we make sure that those monies get out to families again at a higher income level so it's not just the poorest of poor families but that it hits more of our just all of our working families like that are making a more middle kind of middle class and then it's enough money so we here right now though there's a sliding scale right now in Hawaii and for some families they're getting only a really small amount they're being offered like here's $50 off your child care bill which is just not enough so how do we make sure that it's enough money that folks can actually get out there and find you know how do we make it where it's $800 a month not $50 a month so that you can really take take kind of that that subsidy money and buy child care but I think we're also looking at how do we how do we get more people working in the field that's that's an issue like even if you have some money depending on the community you're living in there might be no place to take your child right so what are we gonna we're kind of grab on if we that's a tough question and that's a nationally it's like how do we frankly some of its pay providers more right other countries do much more than how do we value that kind of work right often provided by women how do we make sure that they are being paid good wages that a job that are livable for them that are livable for them that a job providing child care doing that important important work of early education is compensated appropriately so that it's a desirable job to go into and stay in and that it's important yeah so we need to be paying those providers more but we we have to find a way to do it where we're not charging the parents more because parents are already like outpriced they can't afford it as it is so how do we you know we're looking frequently at government money so instead of making parents pay and providers working like slave wages how do we get government to pay for good quality child care well and what do they say the investment in early childhood is like a 17 to 1 return yeah depending on which study you look at it's a huge we know that those early years are the period of the most brain development and rapid development and anyone who's had children knows that your kids are like crazy sponges at that age so it's critical that that's the quality piece we want to make sure kids are not getting plunked in front of a TV all day that they're getting like rich really being read to and sung to and played games with and all that kind of rich early childhood learning that we want them to have and it's also an economic driver there's been tons of research done that if you have good child care that enables people to get to work and reliably right it means you're not missing days of work because oh my gosh I have 12 sitters that I piecemeal together and this one called in sick that you can get to work reliably that workers are less stressed out they they can focus on work because they know that their child or children are in a good quality right environment right so that and especially for women we know that's a huge thing that helped that this sort of perpetuates the inequities that we see is that frequently it's women who feel that they have at the end of the day the responsibility for for the children and the child care and if there is not good quality affordable child care in their community they might feel that they need to drop out of the workforce even if that poses a extra economic hardship on their own family too so it's like if we want women to be sort of rising up the career ladders as well and in the workforce in meaningful ways you've got to have child care right right and to be able to stay in the workforce and be able to advance your own career without sacrificing your opportunities so we need it I think more and more countries and frankly more states across the nation are looking at child care more as infrastructure I don't know that sounds a little bit crass right because it isn't what kids I mean we want our kids to have the best and we should be doing a heck of a lot more to demand that but it's also part of this infrastructure just like just like you need good transportation and roads for people to get to work we need child care for people to get to work and frankly that's schools do that right from K-12 you have a system where families can be at work because they know their kid is in a pretty hopefully a good quality environment during the day we've not done that for the birth to age you know five kindergarten space and it's pricey I think here and across the nation a year of child care is about the same as a year of college but we focus a lot more on how do we make college affordable not how do we make child care in preschool affordable so even when the science shows that those years are probably the more critical ones in a in a person's development those those first four or five years are probably more important than those colleges frankly very much so yeah but you look at where we put money we put a lot of money in making sure you know young people get to college make it make sure it's affordable we haven't thought about the path to start thinking about that foundation and everything we know shows that if you set a child up with that that foundation that's how they thrive then you have a solid foundation to build upon for the rest of their life and if we miss that if we have kids in a bad environment it's actually really detrimental and hold that thought we're gonna we're gonna talk to a mom Julia right after this break and talk to her about exactly that circumstance where being able to be forced into a situation where you have to make sacrifices that may not be what you necessarily want to do but just to be able to get by yep we'll also talk a little bit about paid family leave and the impact that has on families and how with policies in place we also have workers that are returning to the workforce are invested in their employer and are more likely to be productive while they're on the job great so well when we get back from this quick break we'll be talking to Julia Joseph stay tuned hello I'm Dave Stevens host of the cyber underground this is where we discuss everything that relates to computers it's just kind of scare you out of your mind so come join us every week here on think tech Hawaii comm 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube just look up the cyber underground on YouTube all our shows will show up and please follow us we're always giving you current relevant information to protect you keeping you safe follow on welcome to sister power I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough where we motivate educate and power and inspire all women we are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. and we welcome you to join us here at sister power aloha and thank you welcome back to family affairs at the think tech Hawaii studios with us on the phone we have Julia Joseph who is a new mom taking part in a program called Pico pals and here to talk about her experience giving birth to her most recent baby and the challenges of going back to work affording child affording child care and just being able to make ends meet hi Julia welcome hi ladies thank you for having me thanks for being here so tell us a little bit about what your experience has been with going back to work and what that challenge really feels like it's not easy I gave birth about four months ago and had to return to work after giving birth three months so it's the constant battle of do I go back to work and leave my my newborn with someone just so that I can be in the workforce or do I take a step back and say okay I'll stay home and just you know raise my baby it was really hard to look at a baby's face you know and say man I have to leave you a baby that is still nursing a baby that is still trying to you know get used to the world so that transition was actually really really hard very emotional yeah absolutely what kinds of struggles are you finding yourself faced with as far as child care child care is extremely hard because what happens is it's the cost that really gets you at first of how much it is especially for an infant I also have a three-year-old three-year-old with potty trained it's not that expensive maybe doable but an infant of course requires a lot more attention and there's a lot more work so that cost has been really expensive and also makes you step back and kind of look at your budget and say okay well am I going to save for my baby's future or am I going to spend it all on daycare right now or preschool and you know basically working to pay that preschool or daycare bill right that's an incredibly tough choice to have to make and knowing that the budget is being sacrificed the income that you're making has to be sacrificed just to go to work is really tough right and then you have to also calculate in you know you're paying a mortgage you've got a car now to fit the two babies in right now you have a new car payment and you have the electricity and everyone needs to eat apparently you know it's a lot of factors that has to be included in when when when considering child care right what do you think your feelings have changed as far as balancing work child care life how have your feelings changed since needing to go back to work the second time I am bouncing around because as a woman I want to work I want to contribute to my household too as a mother I want to stay home and take care of my babies right but I I feel like if I if I could find someone that I trust or an academy or preschool or that is trust worthy and affordable that battle is not that hard I can say I can go to work and know that my my babies are being well taken care of everything is okay you know I'm not staring at my phone waiting for that phone call to come of all come get your kid because you know whatever but it's a I'm bouncing around because the transition isn't easy coming back to work and then at the end of the day I have to leave work because I just can't afford child care I can't it doesn't make sense to to not say for the future and just put all of the all of the ends to something you know that's temporary when I know kindergartens around the quarter and it could be free right right if you had the option to have for example some paid family leave during the time of your maternity leave and return to work do you feel like that would change your feelings about going back to work or would it change your circumstances in some way I I definitely think it would I think if it's not only if it's paid but if it's longer too because I mean six weeks is not enough time mom is still battling her hormones than emotions and you know still connecting to baby and the most that I've had with family time leave is unpaid by the way it's three months and so for three months you're in joining home with baby but also the bills are piling up because they're not working and you're not getting paid so right very hard going through this experience yourself do you feel like there's advice that you would give to other parents in the same situation I think the advice I would give is to it's to really it's to really sit down and kind of focus on the priorities and and really determine if it is worth it to go back to work right or is it even a better plan just to stay home and take care of the baby then I know sometimes that's not a choice it's not an option for a lot of mom it's not an option you have to go back and sometimes even sooner right so I think it is a matter of just sitting down and seeing what best fits the family like Deborah said you know sometimes auntie and grandma can't can't watch them and then now you're in the process of interviewing which I've been interviewing other people outside of the family and and seeing if they can be trusted right and then there's also availability you may be ready to go back to work but the preschooler daycare may not have that time you know for enrollment so a lot of sitting down planning kind of getting ahead of yourself sometimes you know you're expecting I would suggest putting your name on all the list for daycare because the waitlist is also a factor that's a really good point Deb what kind of challenges are we seeing as far as provider availability do you have specifics on that well I think nationally and in Hawaii we are actually seeing fewer and fewer childcare providers especially for the babies and the toddlers and no one's quite sure why that is I personally think a lot of it has to do around the horrible pay though it's hard work anyone who's taking care of kids knows it is exhausting work people work a long hours and they often do it because they love children but it is it is not a lucrative career and I think right now especially in communities like Hawaii with low unemployment there's there's maybe other other choices other things that those folks can do but I think like we heard from Julia I think our our community is putting families in a really impossible situation we're not supporting family choice we're not supporting families who want to stay home and do caregiving and we're also not helping them get back to work by providing them good good childcare options so you know it's this sort of horrible horrible choices that we have none of them are good choices and I think it you know it used to be that you could have a family getting by with one income even in our community that used to be the case you could have one person out earning money and the other parent perhaps being able to stay home that is generally not the case anymore and so what are folks supposed to do I mean I do think it's also here in nationally we're seeing people delay having kids or choosing not to have kids at all and a lot of times they will say it's because of the economics they housing costs are high people have crushing student debt they just don't think they can afford to have kids which is not just sad but I think also a kind of a dangerous place to be going as a as a society we see what's happening in Italy and other places where the birth rate is falling and there's major economic implications if as a community we are making it impossible for people to have children right which is kind of what we're doing we're not letting them stay home because we're not providing paid leave we're not letting them go back to work because we're not providing affordable child care so what are people supposed to do right yeah a couple couple minutes left in the show what would you say would be big wins for h-can and for the state of Hawaii really this session yeah well we are continuing to work on paid family leave as well I think we would like eventually to see at least 16 weeks of partial pay so maybe not your full paycheck but enough of your pay that you can stay home and keep paying the bills right as Julie said the bills start piling up right and you know what some people argue 16 weeks is not enough but right I would say it's it's better than nothing to be a good start California just started talking about six months fantastic other countries have a year or 18 months and parents can serve those consecutively so you could have two or more years home with your child and not just moms but dad's to exactly so we want to encourage that we want to encourage families to stay home in those formative years but not drop into poverty because of it not have to max out their credit cards or drain their retirement funds be able to keep paying the bills and I think we need to really fight hard to make sure that we have more affordable childcare that we're putting out we're helping to pay for more childcare for more families and real quickly as we're wrapping up any kinds of cultural shifts that you think that we need to undergo in order to be more supportive of families I mean I think that's a bit that's the big one a it's about moms and dads right I think we want more dads doing caregiving dad's doing child care so it's for us the maternity and paternity leave I think acknowledging that women are in the workforce and they want to stay in the workforce and we all want that as a community but to do that we need to be supporting good affordable childcare across our state wonderful well real quick too how can someone get involved in those efforts so if they want to check out our website it's hawaii-can.org and you can sign up we have a whole growing parent advocate group that comes out and helps you know send messages to your law makers to say we need childcare we need paid leave we need these things so that's the best way wonderful well thank you for joining me Deb Julia thanks for joining us via the phone and thank you wonderful conversation today lots more to work on and please come back again and we can talk some more about what's going on this session again thanks for being here I'm Lisa Kimura I'm the host of family affairs on Think Tech Hawaii and we'll see you next time