Childcare Job Quotes

A reporter once asked me why I think progressive men who earn significantly less than their breadwinning wives still won't quit their jobs to take care of their children. Why do they still hold on to their careers, even if taking care of the children would make more financial sense because the cost of childcare is higher than their net salary? I think I know the answer to that now, and it sucks. Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn't involve worshiping their husbands or taking care of their kids, they're seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he's admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he's lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it's seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it's plan Z. That it's an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he's a fucking loser. I think it's one of the most important falsehoods we need to shatter when talking about women's rights.

Why are you offering me ten thousand dollars a month for babysitting? You didn’t pay the nannies that. It’s ridiculous. For ten thousand a month, you should not only get child care, you should get your house cleaned, your laundry done, your tires rotated, and if I were you, I’d insist on nightly blow jobs. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you’re still trying to keep your thumb on me?

High-quality and affordable childcare and eldercare • Paid family and medical leave for women and men • A right to request part-time or flexible work • Investment in early education comparable to our investment in elementary and secondary education • Comprehensive job protection for pregnant workers • Higher wages and training for paid caregivers • Community support structures to allow elders to live at home longer • Legal protections against discrimination for part-time workers and flexible workers • Better enforcement of existing laws against age discrimination • Financial and social support for single parents • Reform of elementary and secondary school schedules to meet the needs of a digital rather than an agricultural economy and to take advantage of what we now know about how children learn

Habilitation would mean better housing, health care, mental health care, childcare, jobs, educational opportunities -- all resources that are, in many senses, the opposite of house arrest and monitoring.

The problem is that the media rarely discusses the real reasons behind why women leave their jobs. We hear a lot about the desire to be closer to the children, the love of crafting and gardening, and making food from scratch. But reasons like lack of maternity leave, lack of affordable day care, lack of job training, and unhappiness with the 24/7 work culture-well, those aren't getting very much airtime.

All the way home, I told myself how wonderful and selfless it was that I had decided to stay home full-time with my baby, that I didn't have to dump him in some soulless center or hire a stranger to raise him. Whenever friends or family members or people I met would ask me how I'd come to this decision, I didn't say, "I'd never get a job that would pay me enough to afford decent childcare." And I didn't say, "I have no family nearby who are willing to help with regular childcare." And I didn't say, "I live in a society whose policies reflect the fact that it is still deeply ambivalent about mothers working." Instead, I'd say, "I just know it is the best thing for us.

For if single women are looking for government to create a "hubby state" for them, what is certainly true is that their male counterparts have a long enjoy the fruits of a related "wifey state," in which the nation and its government supported male independence in a variety of ways. Men, and especially married wealthy white men, have a long relied on government assistance. It's a government that has historically supported white men's home and business ownership through grants, loans, incentives, and tax breaks. It has allowed them to accrue wealth and offer them shortcuts and bonuses for passing it down to their children. Government established white men's right to vote and thus exert control over the government at the nation's founding and has protected their enfranchisement. It has also bolstered the economic and professional prospects of men by depressing the economic prospects of women: by failing to offer women equivalent economic and civic protections, thus helping to create conditions whereby women were forced to be dependent on those men, creating a gendered class of laborers who took low paying or unpaid jobs doing the domestic and childcare work that further enabled men to dominate public spheres. But the growth of a massive population of women who are living outside those dependent circumstances puts new pressures on the government: to remake conditions in a way that will be more hospitable to female independence, to a citizenry now made up of plenty of women living economically, professionally, sexually, and socially liberated lives.

As it turns out, people who cut their work hours often take a smaller hit financially than they expect. That is because spending less time on the job means spending less money on the things that allow us to work: transport, parking, eating out, coffee, convenience food, childcare, laundry, retail therapy. A smaller income also translates into a smaller tax bill. In one Canadian study, some workers who took a pay cut in return for shorter hours actually ended up with more money in the bank at the end of the month.

When President Roosevelt talked about the necessity of work, he meant that the government would create jobs that paid well enough to give people new leases on life. When we talk about job requirements today, we mean, “go find something that exists in the private sector and that you’re qualified to do today, even if it doesn’t pay wages that enable you to deal with transportation, childcare, and all the other aspects of your life that must be well managed in order for you to do and keep your job.

Certainly our market economy places less value on the work of cleaning houses or working in a child-care center than it does on financial management, the practice of medicine, or jobs in manufacturing. To the extent that these latter fields have been understood as male domain, they represent a piece of the male-dominated system that keeps women in subjugated roles.

West Germany, even after absorbing the migrants fleeing East Germany, had yet more jobs to fill, and in the 1960s signed agreements with Greece, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yugoslavia whereby they would send “guest” workers to West Germany, on condition they would eventually return. In 1973, foreign workers were one-eighth of the labor force in Germany. France was not far behind, with 2.3 million foreign workers, or 11 percent of the labor force. Many of these were employed for childcare, as cooks, and as custodians.20 England drew immigrants from the Caribbean and South Asia, including those expelled by Idi Amin from East Africa.

One must, of course, come from a socioeconomic background in which one has enough resources to “choose” to work hard in a good school (free from violence, malnutrition, and other coercive forces) in order to feel confident about getting a good job, affording child-care, and so on.

About 41 percent of mothers are primary breadwinners and earn the majority of their family’s income. Another 23 percent of mothers are co-breadwinners, contributing at least a quarter of the family’s earnings.30 The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly; between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from one in ten to one in five.31 These numbers are dramatically higher in Hispanic and African-American families. Twenty-seven percent of Latino children and 51 percent of African-American children are being raised by a single mother.32 Our country lags considerably behind others in efforts to help parents take care of their children and stay in the workforce. Of all the industrialized nations in the world, the United States is the only one without a paid maternity leave policy.33 As Ellen Bravo, director of the Family Values @ Work consortium, observed, most “women are not thinking about ‘having it all,’ they’re worried about losing it all—their jobs, their children’s health, their families’ financial stability—because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent.”34 For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst. Women are surrounded by headlines and stories warning them that they cannot be committed to both their families and careers. They are told over and over again that they have to choose, because if they try to do too much, they’ll be harried and unhappy. Framing the issue as “work-life balance”—as if the two were diametrically opposed—practically ensures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life? The good news is that not only can women have both families and careers, they can thrive while doing so. In 2009, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober published Getting to 50/50, a comprehensive review of governmental, social science, and original research that led them to conclude that children, parents, and marriages can all flourish when both parents have full careers. The data plainly reveal that sharing financial and child-care responsibilities leads to less guilty moms, more involved dads, and thriving children.35 Professor Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University did a comprehensive review of studies on work-life balance and found that women who participate in multiple roles actually have lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of mental well-being.36 Employed women reap rewards including greater financial security, more stable marriages, better health, and, in general, increased life satisfaction.37 It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality. We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers—or even happy professionals and competent mothers. The current negative images may make us laugh, but they also make women unnecessarily fearful by presenting life’s challenges as insurmountable. Our culture remains baffled: I don’t know how she does it. Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

Building the Framework If you’ve thought it through and are ready to make a big change in your life, here’s how to get started: 1.Identify specifically what you want to accomplish and when. 2.Brainstorm the steps/tasks that need to be done. 3.Choose where to start. 4.Monitor and adjust as necessary. Most people find step two to be the most difficult, so give yourself plenty of time. The most important thing is to get started. And remember, a plan can be changed, so don’t worry about it being perfect. Make a first draft of your action plan and start by choosing just one thing, a baby step, and do it. Make a phone call. Look something up on the Internet. Visit a gym. Gather up your bills. Any small action will let you start checking things off and feel that sense of accomplishment that you’re moving forward. Let’s look at an example. Cindy wanted to work as a hairstylist by the time her children were in sixth grade. That meant she had two years to accomplish her goal. Her first draft looked something like this: 1.Research and choose a school. 2.Apply for aid and save money. 3.Secure childcare and rides for kids. 4.Get licensed and apply for jobs. As she researched schools and learned more, she was able to add more specific tasks to each category and assign target dates to each. Whether you’re reentering the job market, exercising to get in the best shape of your life, or working to create financial security; breaking that big, faraway dream into small steps will help you keep moving forward and improve your chances of success.

Building the Framework If you’ve thought it through and are ready to make a big change in your life, here’s how to get started: 1.Identify specifically what you want to accomplish and when. 2.Brainstorm the steps/tasks that need to be done. 3.Choose where to start. 4.Monitor and adjust as necessary. Most people find step two to be the most difficult, so give yourself plenty of time. The most important thing is to get started. And remember, a plan can be changed, so don’t worry about it being perfect. Make a first draft of your action plan and start by choosing just one thing, a baby step, and do it. Make a phone call. Look something up on the Internet. Visit a gym. Gather up your bills. Any small action will let you start checking things off and feel that sense of accomplishment that you’re moving forward. Let’s look at an example. Cindy wanted to work as a hairstylist by the time her children were in sixth grade. That meant she had two years to accomplish her goal. Her first draft looked something like this: 1.Research and choose a school. 2.Apply for aid and save money. 3.Secure childcare and rides for kids. 4.Get licensed and apply for jobs. As she researched schools and learned more, she was able to add more specific tasks to each category and assign target dates to each. Whether you’re reentering the job market, exercising to get in the best shape of your life, or working to create financial security; breaking that big, faraway dream into small steps will help you keep moving forward and improve your chances of success. WHAT

In fact, the best job-creation programme could simply be the introduction of universal childcare in every country in the world.

In modern American culture, that sort of tight-knit community structure seems increasingly rare. For centuries, extended personal networks have been eroded, replaced with privatized jobs and small, isolated kin units. “The extended family and relationships that could sustain families were transformed and professionalized,” write Patel and Moore.3 A lack of shared responsibility and interconnectedness makes it difficult to find solutions for needs more easily addressed in community, such as childcare, meal preparation, and household maintenance. It leads to isolation and an every-family-for-themselves mentality. It leaves parents feeling common domestic strains as personal problems rather than structural ones.

I started to question what was being taught—I didn’t get much guidance in medical school or residency on what to do when your patient can’t pay for health insurance or when she has lost childcare for the third time in two months and is being fired from her job. Instead, I was taught to prescribe medications or provide psychotherapy for issues that were clearly systemic. While there is certainly a great need for both of these medical interventions, the lack of attention to the inhumanity of our social policies left me feeling powerless—just like my patients.

To recap, here’s what we all can do to stop the mass shooting epidemic: As Individuals: Trauma: Build relationships and mentor young people Crisis: Develop strong skills in crisis intervention and suicide prevention Social proof: Monitor our own media consumption Opportunity: Safe storage of firearms; if you see or hear something, say something. As Institutions: Trauma: Create warm environments; trauma-informed practices; universal trauma screening Crisis: Build care teams and referral processes; train staff Social proof: Teach media literacy; limit active shooter drills for children Opportunity: Situational crime prevention; anonymous reporting systems As a Society: Trauma: Teach social emotional learning in schools. Build a strong social safety net with adequate jobs, childcare, maternity leave, health insurance, and access to higher education Crisis: Reduce stigma and increase knowledge of mental health; open access to high quality mental health treatment; fund counselors in schools Social proof: No Notoriety protocol; hold media and social media companies accountable for their content Opportunity: Universal background checks, red flag laws, permit-to-purchase, magazine limits, wait periods, assault rifle ban

With the absence of subsidized childcare, paid federal parental leave, and rampant pregnancy discrimination, young women who have had a healthy amount of class advantages are left to ask themselves if they want to effectively lose them—because that’s what parenthood in the United States will ultimately entail: If they want to partake in a different kind of labor that will offer them fewer legal protections, limited pay, increased hours, increased personal financial burdens, and with zero support from the institutions to which they have dedicated expanding days and increased workloads. In this increasing neoliberal cultural terrain, where everyone is encouraged to optimize themselves for the best employment, the strongest partnerships, the most successful path, what strategically middle-class, somewhat self-aware woman wants to do more work for less money? If it wasn’t parenthood we were talking about but a white-collar job, Sheryl Sandberg would tell these young women to lean out. The pragmatics of having a baby are fundamentally incompatible with the dominant cultural messages surrounding economic security, class ascension, and performance aimed at women of these particular socioeconomic backgrounds. This is the tension that underlies many of these waffling motherhood essays and, I think, what young, professional, child-curious people are looking to reconcile when they click on these “Should I, a Middle-Class Woman Who Went to NYU, Have a Baby and Fuck Up This Good Thing?” headlines. But what often awaits them is a contemplation of “choice” and very seldom an expanded structural critique. They are placated into the numbing mantra that having children is “a personal choice,” encouraging increased individual reflection on what is actually a raging systemic failure that relies on women’s free labor. But structuring the conversation of having children around personal autonomy and lone circumstances also successfully eclipses the identification of parenthood as labor in the first place.

If time management is not simply an issue of numerical hours but of some people having more control over their time than others, then the most realistic and expansive version of time management has to be collective: It has to entail a different distribution of power and security. In the realm of policy, that would mean things that seem obviously related to time - for example, subsidized childcare, paid leave, better overtime laws, and 'fair workweek laws', which seek to make part-time employees' schedules more predictable and to compensate them when they are not. Less obviously related to time - but absolutely relevant to it - are campaigns for a higher minimum wage, a federal jobs guarantee, or universal basic income.

if the initiatives don’t account for women’s childcare demands, women don’t complete them. And that’s development money down the drain – and more women’s economic potential wasted. In fact, the best job-creation programme could simply be the introduction of universal childcare in every country in the world.

Turner’s plan was dubbed Wisconsin Works (or W-2), and “works” was right: If you wanted a welfare check, you would have to work, either in the private sector or in a community job created by the state. To push things along, child-care and health-care subsidies would be expanded. W-2 meant that people were paid only for the hours they logged on a job, even if that job was to sort little toys into different colors and have the supervisor reshuffle them so they could be sorted again the next day. It meant that non-compliers could have their food stamps slashed. It meant that 22,000 Milwaukee families would be cut from the welfare rolls. Five months after Milwaukee established the first real work program in the history of welfare, Clinton signed welfare reform into federal law.3

I think the more accurate answer as to why Trump has won working-class support lies in the pain, desperation, and political alienation that millions of working-class Americans now experience and the degree to which the Democratic Party has abandoned them for wealthy campaign contributors and the “beautiful people.” These are Americans who, while the rich get much richer, have seen their real wages stagnate and their good union jobs go to China and Mexico. They can’t afford health care, they can’t afford childcare, they can’t afford to send their kids to college and are scared to death about a retirement with inadequate income. Because of what doctors call “diseases of despair,” their communities are even seeing a decline in life expectancy.

As President Clinton was fine-tuning his plan to “end welfare as we know it,” a conservative reformer by the name of Jason Turner was transforming Milwaukee into a policy experiment that captivated lawmakers around the country. Turner’s plan was dubbed Wisconsin Works (or W-2), and “works” was right: If you wanted a welfare check, you would have to work, either in the private sector or in a community job created by the state. To push things along, child-care and health-care subsidies would be expanded. W-2 meant that people were paid only for the hours they logged on a job, even if that job was to sort little toys into different colors and have the supervisor reshuffle them so they could be sorted again the next day. It meant that non-compliers could have their food stamps slashed. It meant that 22,000 Milwaukee families would be cut from the welfare rolls. Five months after Milwaukee established the first real work program in the history of welfare, Clinton signed welfare reform into federal law.3

Of the thirty professions projected to add the most jobs over the next decade, women dominate twenty, including nursing, accounting, home health assistance, childcare, and food preparation.

When low-income persons seek public assistance, they are regularly told: “put your children in childcare/student care and get a job.” In the abstract, it is hard to quibble with this advice. But once we take into account the detailed picture—poor quality wage work (low pay, lack of control over schedules, high stress); regular and persistent care gaps; children’s happiness and well-being; the intensity of school work and the huge importance accorded to school examinations—we see more clearly why many women in low-income circumstances decide against employment.

It’s obvious that we need inexpensive and safe care for young Americans; this was clear to Congress nearly thirty years ago when it passed the Child Development Act of 1971. This act would have created a national network of child-care centers with parent fees set according to income. Here’s why I say would have: Though busy with the Watergate scandal and the impending loss of his job, President Nixon somehow found time to veto the Child Development Act.

History tells us that our social group is far less dear to us if it is not also our economic group. If we need others less, then we love them less and respect them less. This is one of the reasons why extended families have been whittled down to nuclear families in the West. Extended families used to be economic units, giving people reasons to keep up with distant aunts and nephews as they would be the avenues through which new jobs are found and new trades occur. When that overlap of the social group and the economic group was replaced by more anonymous trading, we gradually lost interest in keeping up with extended families. Nuclear families remained powerful because so much of value is produced in them: childcare, sex, everyday companionship, and children. Our deep need for such outputs sustains the nuclear family as a core group in Western society.