It Takes a Village (22 page)

Stereotypes start to have an impact during the preschool years, when children tend to notice behavioral and other differences between boys and girls for the first time, and to be concerned with trying to define sex roles. Adults have the authority with children this age to do much to counter the messages they receive from the media and their peers. We can encourage girls to be active and dress them in comfortable, durable clothes that let them move freely. We can choose gifts that transcend gender stereotypes—building blocks for both girls and boys, for example. We can be equal opportunity chore-givers, enlisting girls in yard work and boys in housework.

We can also take care to talk to children in a way that counterbalances the stereotypes coming thick and fast from the media. We can make a point of asking girls about their activities rather than commenting just on their appearance, and we can encourage boys to describe their feelings. We can also acquaint them with the diverse opportunities that exist for women and men out in the world as well as at home. From the time Chelsea was small, Bill regularly took her with him to the governor's office, where he kept a tiny desk stocked with paper and crayons so that she could do her “work” while he did his. We need to make the effort to give boys and girls alike a clear idea of what their parents and other adults do when they leave the house.

It's important that we equip our children with solid, sensitive models of what men and women can be, both as caregivers and as achievers, because when they go out into the world, they'll discover what men and women who try to put children first already know: the village has a long way to go to accommodate their diverse and changing roles both in the working world and at home.

Change starts with each of us. And despite the pressures and frustrations, the more time and energy mothers and fathers put into their parenting, the more joy they'll get out of it. And the richer the models they'll be providing for their children, now and as they begin to compose their own adult lives.

I
magine a country in which nearly all children between the ages of three and five attend preschool in sparkling classrooms, with teachers recruited and trained as child care professionals. Imagine a country that conceives of child care as a program to “welcome” children into the larger community and “awaken” their potential for learning and growing.

It may sound too good to be true, but it's not. When I went to France in 1989 as part of a group studying the French child care system, I saw what happens when a country makes caring for children a top priority. More than 90 percent of French children between ages three and five attend free or inexpensive preschools called
écoles maternelles
. Even before they reach the age of three, many of them are in full-day programs.

In France, there is a national consensus that the child care system should not just warehouse kids but prepare them for school and for life. Preschool teachers and directors have the equivalent of a master's degree in early-childhood and elementary education. Infant-toddler educators have a degree that is roughly equivalent to two years of college in the United States, as well as a two-year professional course in early-childhood education and development. And the buildings where these child care centers are located are modern and inviting, designed by well-respected architects with children in mind. Walls are specially constructed to absorb sound and shock. Interiors are bright and colorful. Spaces are designated for play, sleeping, eating, and even for good-byes and big hello hugs with parents. It is no wonder that so many French parents—even mothers who do not work outside the home—choose to send their children to these government-subsidized centers.

For the small percentage of French children who are cared for in family day care, the system also works well. Three out of four home providers are licensed, and the law limits the number of children they care for to three per home. The incentives to get licensed are substantial: employee benefits, regular mailings of up-to-date information from the government, and periodic visits from a specially trained pediatric nurse.

Do I believe the French love their children more than we do? Of course not. Nor do I believe that their system can or should be duplicated wholesale here. France is a country far smaller and more homogeneous than ours. And the price for such generous social programs is felt across the board in higher taxes. What I do believe, however, is that the French have found a way of expressing their love and concern through policies that focus on children's needs during the earliest stages of life. While I was in France, I had conversations with a number of political leaders, from Socialists to Conservatives. “How,” I asked, “can you transcend your political differences and come to an agreement on the issue of government-subsidized child care?” One after another of them looked at me in astonishment. “How can you not invest in children and expect to have a healthy country?” was the reply I heard over and over again.

 

I
F YOU WANT
to open the floodgates of guilt and dissension anywhere in America, start talking about child care. It is an issue that brings out all of our conflicted feelings about what parenthood should be and about who should care for children when parents are working or otherwise unable to.

Even though I enjoyed better options than most mothers, I still worried constantly about child care when Chelsea was small. At the time she was born, we lived in the governor's mansion, surrounded by a ready-made village of adults who were willing to pinch-hit when I needed extra help. But for two years when Bill was not governor (and Chelsea was still very young), our only help was a woman who came during work hours on weekdays. And like all child care systems, ours broke down from time to time.

My version of every mother's worst nightmare happened one morning when I was due in court at nine-thirty for a trial. It was already seven-thirty, and two-year-old Chelsea was running a fever and throwing up after a sleepless night for both of us. My husband was out of town. The woman who normally took care of Chelsea called in sick with the same symptoms. No relatives lived nearby. My neighbors were not at home. Frantic, I called a trusted friend, who came to my rescue.

Still, I felt terrible that I had to leave my sick child at all. I called at every break and rushed home as soon as court adjourned. When I opened the door and saw my friend reading to Chelsea, who was clearly feeling better, my head and stomach stopped aching for the first time that day.

I often think about what I would have done about child care if I had not had the time and money to make careful decisions. Could I have left my daughter in a stranger's home, in front of the TV all day, or in a big room with dozens of cribs lined up against a wall? Would I have felt comfortable choosing a nursery school for Chelsea when she was two if I had not been able to take off from work several times at the beginning, to accompany her there and observe how she and the other children were treated? Many mothers, for financial and logistical reasons, do not have any choice in these matters.

We all have war stories about the heartache and heartburn of trying to find—and keep—decent child care. But the low priority we place on child care as a nation has led to a system that, unlike the one I saw in France, looks more like a patchwork quilt than a security blanket. Ten million children under age five rely on surrogate care, and many of the approximately 22 million children between ages five and fourteen whose mothers work require care during nonschool hours. While only one in five infants under age one were in day care thirty years ago, more than half are today. And many of those receive care for thirty hours a week or more.

The variety of arrangements these children are left in is dizzying. Neighbors trade child care duty with each other, or relatives are called in to help. When those options do not exist, parents must turn to a marketplace that is complex, confusing, costly, and extremely uneven in quality. Their choices include family day care homes in which one adult takes care of several children from the neighborhood; day care centers that run the gamut from very good to very bad; preschools attached to religious institutions and universities; nannies, au pairs, relatives, and full- and part-time baby-sitters.

In choosing care, cost is a primary factor for many families. Those who cannot afford to pay high prices may end up leaving their children in unlicensed, poorly staffed, and often unsafe environments. According to the National Child Care Survey in 1990, families earning less than $18,000 a year, for example, spent an average of $54 a week for child care. Though often not enough to assure quality care, that $54 represented a huge portion of their household income—about 25 percent on average. By contrast, families earning $54,000 or more spent only about 6 percent of their household income for child care.

Does this mean that children from poorer families never receive loving, patient, and attentive care? No, it doesn't. But from what experts tell us, there is a link between the cost and the quality of care. Many lower-income parents are in a double bind because of their work schedules, which often conflict with available child care. The survey showed that one third of mothers with incomes below the poverty line and more than a quarter of those earning less than $25,000 worked weekends. Yet only 10 percent of day care centers and an even smaller percentage of family day care homes provide care on weekends. Almost half of working-poor parents are in jobs with rotating schedules, making child care arrangements even more complicated.

For parents, particularly those working long hours for low wages, finding child care can present a serious dilemma. Like immigrant mothers at the turn of the century who left their children alone in tenements while they worked in sweatshops, many parents today feel there are no good options when it comes to child care.

In 1990, a woman in New Jersey left her five-year-old daughter locked in her car while she worked a part-time job on Saturdays. When the little girl was discovered, she was temporarily removed from her mother's care. It turned out that the woman was a single parent struggling to support her daughter and had nowhere else to leave her while she worked. The car seemed to her the safest of a bad set of options.

This may be an extreme example, but I bet a lot of parents can relate to that mother's desperation. Ask parents sitting around their kitchen tables to talk about child care, and many will say the situation is dire. The more than 250,000 women who responded to the federal Working Women Count! survey were uniform in their observations about child care. A woman in Oregon who has two grown children, two foster teenagers at home, and a grandchild conveyed the sentiments of most respondents when she wrote: “Child care is a disgrace in this country. On the one hand it's too expensive for many women considering their salaries, on the other hand, it does not provide the child care provider a decent wage. Locating good child care is a nightmare.”

A single mother in Illinois who works in a clerical job said: “Working moms already have limited time on their hands, but…they feel like they're searching for a needle in a haystack when it comes to child care.” She described herself as falling into the child care netherworld because she makes too much to qualify for state programs but finds that the price of private day care “is well out of reach.”

Paradoxically, while many parents say that finding affordable child care is a major worry, the vast majority claim to be happy with their arrangements. Often they feel satisfied because the location is convenient, the price is affordable, or the caregiver seems nice. In some cases, parents—who have spent days searching high and low for care—are simply relieved to find any solution that meets their needs.

Yet two recent studies point to an alarming fact: Faced with options that range from wonderful to terrible, many parents do not know what to look for when choosing child care. They often overlook important measures of quality, such as basic safety requirements, the experience and training of child care workers, and whether the setting is appropriate for their child's stage of development.

Child care facilities for infants and toddlers were recently rated in a national study and found to be generally low in quality. Only one in seven was rated as being developmentally appropriate for the children being served. Two hundred twenty-five infant and toddler rooms were evaluated and found to be particularly inadequate. Many had safety problems, poor sanitation, unresponsive caregivers, and a lack of toys and other materials for children. A study of an equal number of home-based child care providers in three communities, conducted by the Families and Work Institute, turned up similar serious concerns about quality. Not unexpectedly, these problems were more prevalent in settings serving low-income children.

As Geraldine Youcha reminds us in her history of child care in America, the most important thing for a child is the quality of care he receives, not necessarily the setting he receives it in. “Children have been helped and hurt by any system, whether orphanages, foster care, upper-class nanny care or mother care. The best was good; the worst was bad.”

Why isn't child care in America as good as it should be?

The sad fact is that, unlike the French, we Americans have never sufficiently valued the work of caring for children. It is only recently that we have even begun to acknowledge the contributions of mothers who stay at home—and to appreciate that “mothering” is really a form of early-childhood education. Historically, we also have undervalued the outsiders whom we rely on to care for our children. As far back as Colonial times, raising children was frequently the responsibility of apprenticed girls or indentured servants. Children were cared for by slave women who served as wet nurses, maids, and nannies. Too often a child care worker can be just about anybody who asks for the job. And what does it say about our view of child care when we pay more to the garage attendant who parks our car than the person who is responsible for our children all day?

This devaluation of child care workers is due in part to our nation's long history of ambivalence about whether surrogate child care is an acceptable part of American life. The extraordinary settlement houses that Jane Addams and other social reformers founded in the late nineteenth century to assist the children of immigrant working mothers went out of fashion years ago. The pioneering efforts of early-childhood experts like Dr. Bettye Caldwell to turn schools into family centers that also provided child care never fully caught on, in part because they represented a new idea about using schools for broader community purposes. And Americans continue to be divided over what role, if any, the federal government should play in helping working parents pay for child care.

The fact is that the federal government has subsidized child care at various points in our history. During the Civil War, there were federally sponsored nurseries for mothers working in hospitals. There was a substantial system of federally funded day care during World War II, when mothers went to work in factories to support the war effort. By 1945, approximately 1.6 million children were in day care centers, most of them for six days a week, twelve hours a day. With factories operating around the clock, child care was a patriotic necessity that had to be funded.

But as much as the nation depended on the labor of millions of “Rosie the Riveters,” mothers were still criticized for entering the workplace and putting their children in day care centers. There was extensive public debate and many warnings about the expected damage to children from institutionalized care. Even when follow-up studies of parents and children failed to produce any evidence of the predicted ill effects, the critics would not be silenced. As soon as the war ended, federal support for child care was cut off and most women returned home.