2. Birth of a Broken System
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Description
Gloria investigates where everything went wrong for childcare in America, and Kristen Bell joins to give Nixon a piece of her mind. “That’s the sound of progress dying in the crucible of American politics.” Gloria digs into the shame, guilt, and divisions baked into our earliest day nurseries, and reveals how old-fashioned gender norms and blatant racism killed promising federally-funded, early childcare programs. With Dorothy E. Roberts, Sonya Michel, Alma Gottlieb, Ruth Hoffman, O’Niel Dillon, and Charlotte Riviera (yes – Gloria’s mom).
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Alma Gottlieb, Ruth Hoffman, Charlotte Riviera, Gloria Riviera, Sonya Michel, Kristen Bell, Dorothy Roberts & O’Niel Dillon
Gloria Riviera 00:42
Hi, Mom. Thank you for doing this. That is me talking to my wonderful mom, the one and the only Charlotte Riviera. You know why we wanted to talk to you right? Or doing a story about childcare? I was just putting Sinclair to bed. My mom was just 19 years old when she had my older sister Jodi, and I wanted to ask her about being a young working mom back in the early 1960s. The story that I’ve always heard about her is that she was starting to look for her first job and her husband was getting a degree. But I never really stopped to think about how she managed that juggle of a new baby and pursuing a full-time career at a time when childcare infrastructure simply did not exist in this country.
Charlotte Riviera 02:03
I mean, what am I gonna do? My mother lives three hours away. And still work. Grandma still work, which was very unusual in those days. And then within about a year and a half. After Jodi was born, we moved to Bellevue, Washington. And at that time, I didn’t even know the word daycare center. And so the only way to find someone to care for your child was by word of mouth. And I didn’t know anyone there. And we had no google babysitters in Bellevue. No, I don’t think so. So I started out up and down the streets of the neighborhood. Knocking on the doors a stranger. How could I call them I didn’t even know their names.
Gloria Riviera
Were you like, okay, I guess I’ll just hit the streets?
Charlotte Riviera
I was hitting the streets. Mm hmm. And I know there were about 12 to 14 houses on our street. And so I had to trot around to a few other streets.
Gloria Riviera
What did you say?
Charlotte Riviera
Hello.
Gloria Riviera
And then what after Hello?
Charlotte Riviera
Well, my name is I live there and I need to have a babysitter. Someone to care for my child while I work.
Gloria Riviera
What did they say? Were they so sorry, I can’t help you. Or were they dismissive very.
Charlotte Riviera
They were very nice.
Gloria Riviera
I’m sure they were very nice. But no one in her neighborhood flung their door wide open to say bring me that baby, I’ll take care of her. Now what kind of snacks does she like? How much milk does she usually drink? And what’s her favorite game?
Charlotte Riviera
I didn’t find anybody, interestingly enough, but I got a referral to a woman outside the neighborhood. And she took care of Jodi.
Gloria Riviera 04:08
Yep, that’s my mom. You know, I always heard fragments of that story growing up. It’s like this little mini family legend for us. Riviera’s. And when I think about her, squaring her shoulders and marching up to knock on that first door. I always think about how proud I am of her strength and her pluck and her resourcefulness. But the one part of the family legend that we never really thought about is what might have been all that door knocking mocksy was funny. We smile telling that story. But the truth is that my mom at 79 years old, still loving her job in finance. I can tell you this if she had not found childcare back then she wouldn’t be the woman she is today. What would have happened if you didn’t find care for her. I mean, you knocked on a lot of doors
Charlotte Riviera
That never occurred to me I wouldn’t have stayed home, I guess I’d have taken her to work with me.
Gloria Riviera
But there was nowhere for her to be at work.
Charlotte Riviera
I know there wasn’t. You know, I don’t know. I guess if that had been the case, let’s say I couldn’t find anybody. I probably would have been one of those mothers that took in children.
Gloria Riviera
No, she wouldn’t. Let me just tell you. No, she wouldn’t. I love my mom, but she would not have been one of those moms who took in kids. Anyway, I love her. I love my mom. And I’m super proud of her. But one of the reasons I’m super proud of her is that she found a way. She always says that she always said we will just find a way. But now that I’ve been doing all this thinking about childcare, like why was she in the position of having to find a way? Did it have to be so hard for a young mother to find help with her baby in the early 1960s? Like it just seems brutal. It does not have to be like this. This cockamamie, you’re on your own attitude towards women and children. That’s an American thing.
Gloria Riviera 06:09
When you consider the global perspective, it turns out that we are the sadomasochistic weirdos when it comes to this idea of doing it all. parenting, working childcare. That attitude. It’s a self-inflicted wound. This is NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. I’m your host, Gloria Riviera. In this episode will open up that self-inflicted wound and look into the history of childcare in the US to understand what kind of country leaves a young working mother left to knock on her neighbor’s doors to find a babysitter. We’ll look at the shame, guilt and divisions baked into our earliest childcare centers. How old-fashioned views on mom’s role in the family and blatant racism killed promising and really essential early child care programs. And our Call It Like It Is correspondent Kristen Bell will have some words with Richard Nixon. Yes, that one, because he really screwed us over.
Gloria Riviera
But before we dig into all that history, I want us to step outside of our American perspective. It is really easy to unknowingly wear blinders when you’re trying to scrape your way out of a sinkhole. But it’s also really important to understand that the American way of approaching childcare, it’s not just exhausting parents, devaluing teachers and creating huge gulfs between kids, it actually might go against our nature as human beings.
Alma Gottlieb
Driving up to the village the first time, my impression was that it looked overwhelmingly beige.
Gloria Riviera
This is Alma Gottlieb. She’s a University of Illinois anthropologist and she’s traveled all over studying cultures that approach childhood, children and everything in their orbit very differently than we do in the US. Like what she saw when she spent time with the bang people on the Ivory Coast in Africa.
Alma Gottlieb 08:09
There’s all this Beige from the ground, and the houses that are built from clay taken from the ground. But then as you walk into the village, suddenly you start seeing these bursts of bright colors. And the bursts of bright colors are on babies, babies faces are painted twice a day, every morning and every afternoon. And they’re also wearing jewelry. So the babies really light up the landscape in this otherwise beige looking environment.
Gloria Riviera
The whole bank community throws their arms around these little bundles of bright color. One of the very first things they do there is just stop and pause and celebrate when a baby is born right away
Alma Gottlieb
Within about five minutes. Somebody usually an older child is dispatched from the household and sent around the village to knock on every door and announce to every household. We have just had a birth in our family. And then every household, send a representative to the house of the mother who’s just given birth, and one by one each will go to the doorway. And they will ask what have you given me and the mother will say I have given you a boy or a girl. And then the visitor will say thank you. And also a small coin, and I thank her again and then leave.
Gloria Riviera
That is not what it was like when I had my first child. And what I’m realizing when I listened to Alma, is that if my mom had had Jodi, let’s just say in a bang community. She wouldn’t have needed to go door to door in her neighborhood. Her neighborhood would have come to her. Everyone she knows would have said thank you. Thank you for having this baby.
Alma Gottlieb
From the very first moments after birth, the mother is greeted by her community and the child is greeted by the community and the child is really being announced as belonging, not just to the mother, from whose womb she exited, but to the community into which she is now a full member.
Gloria Riviera 10:23
And something that’s really important to know about this community is that they are farmers, they’re hunters and gatherers, sometimes too. That means the work is really hard. And everyone in the community has to pitch in. That is what is expected. Even from new mothers.
Alma Gottlieb
They work really hard all day, seven days a week, women work harder than men, which men will easily acknowledge.
Gloria Riviera
And we all know what being a working mama means, right? It means that somebody else has to be watching over the children, and bang, mothers don’t get grief for leaving their children with someone else. Because everybody takes care of everybody. It’s all woven into the fabric of what makes bang life work.
Alma Gottlieb
The idea here is that the best way to take care of a child is by having multiple caretakers. And if you only have one caretaker, whether it’s the biological mother or anybody else, you’re not doing the child any good. And that’s where those bundles of bright color come in. One way to encourage people to want to hold a baby is to make them beautiful. The mother will apply all sorts of facial paints to the baby’s face, sometimes to parts of her body, and then lots of jewelry. And the goal here is to make the baby so beautiful, that somebody will see this gorgeous baby and just say this is so irresistible. I have to carry this baby; this baby is so beautiful. Can I have this baby from you?
Gloria Riviera
I mean, this all sounds so amazing. And it makes me think that you know, before my first son was born, we had a baby shower. And we had all these wonderful gifts like these tiny little adorable onesies. And we got baby Converse socks. I mean, is there anything more adorable than a teeny tiny Converse? And then he arrived and it was me and him and all this stuff. You know, when you’re a new mom, you don’t really need more cute stuff. What you need is someone to hold the baby. Just hold the baby. I remember I was on this plane once and this really tired mom gets on. She’s holding this little tiny baby. And, you know, I was with two other moms one row behind her and we said oh, do you know do you want us to hold the baby? She was like, yes. And she sat down and she zonked out for like, I remember was like seven hours, there was just no one else around to help her. In the bank community. It’s a different story. The Help doesn’t end when those bright bundles of color start to grow up. By the time they’re toddlers, bang children are playing with older kids.
Alma Gottlieb 13:00
They’re socializing each other into the way of being human in the village.
Gloria Riviera
Alma told us that these multi age play groups were big kids take care of younger kids are so common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa that scholars theorize that this is how we evolved into human beings. Through that play and community and connection. My mom alone, knocking on doors asking for a babysitter, inspiring sure my time on maternity leave, dressing up Tristan with this little baby Converse socks, to take pictures and go on a walk by myself, sweet.
Gloria Riviera
But the point is that as human beings, we never should have been on our own in the first place. Where was the neighborhood showing up at my mom’s door? If in the US we’ve built freeways and iPads and the NFL. Why can’t we have a halfway decent system of taking care of our kids? Well, part of the reason is that our earliest childcare facilities are steeped in shame. More than that when we come back from the break.
Gloria Riviera
So where did this baloney you’re on your own parenting attitude come from? I just felt like I was missing some key puzzle pieces. So to try to put it all together. I talked to Sonya Michel, she’s an expert in women’s studies and historian of childcare policy in the University of Maryland.
Sonya Michel 16:40
Childcare really started in the US in the mid-19th century in the 1850s-1860s. And it wasn’t accepted that women worked outside the home. But it was understood that sometimes they had to. When their husband had died or was disabled for some reason, or had deserted them or was drunk. So I call it the four D’s, if they were drunk, disabled, deserted or dead. It was somewhat accepted for them to work outside the home. And certain philanthropists understood this and knew that their children would need care in that case. And so they set up these institutions called Day Nurseries. They weren’t terribly structured, they weren’t terribly educational, but the children were kept safe, they kept them fed, they kept them clean, or somebody put it rather indelicately, they fed one end and wipe the other.
Gloria Riviera
The day nurseries were really set up just to keep kids safe, to warehouse otherwise unsupervised children so that mothers could go to work during the day and come back to kids who hadn’t been crushed under foot by a horse. As far as I can tell, people didn’t envy mothers who put their kids in day nurseries.
Sonya Michel
The mother child Bond was sacred. And if you had to disrupt it, it was very unfortunate.
Gloria Riviera
The very idea that children could actually benefit from a daycare center, that they had developmental needs and social emotional skills that could be nurtured by someone other than their own mothers was a radical idea that really didn’t take root until sometime later.
Sonya Michel 18:13
Toward the late 19th, early 20th century, as women began to go to college, people began to study child psychology and child development. And educators began to understand that, in fact, small children could learn they could be taught, and a whole kind of field develop. And that field was dominated by women. It was one of the first academic fields that women really were able to make headway in. And they didn’t want to be associated with the day nurseries precisely because they were seen as custodial and not education. So there was really a kind of split.
Gloria Riviera
The custodial and the educational. So even at the foundation of our childcare system, there was a division, two paths between the custodial day nurseries for poor kids who needed supervision while their mothers went off to work. And then the educational, kindergartens were wealthier families, families that could afford it could shape their young ones with the latest greatest child development techniques.
Sonya Michel
In the day, nurseries could have benefited from the kinds of ideas and practices and games and techniques that the early childhood educators were creating. But their early childhood education people were so determined to preserve their own professional reputation that they just didn’t want to be associated with the day nurseries. So early childhood educators began kindergarten so they said which became attached to the public schools. And for the most part, those were half day they were not full day so they couldn’t serve as childcare because children would either go in the morning for a few hours of the afternoon, so they didn’t really work out is childcare. Plus, in some cases, they were also associated with parent education. And so the mother was not only expected to bring the child to school, but to stay and observe the child while the child was in school. And then maybe have a consultation with the teacher about the best way to be raising the child and dealing with the child.
Gloria Riviera 20:06
So this sounds great for the kids. But no one’s really providing childcare, a parent has to be there.
Sonya Michel
If you’re the mother doing it, you can’t be going out to work at the same time. The assumption was that the mother was available that she had time to do it. The middle class and upper-class women were deemed to be in need of this kind of education themselves. I mean, childbearing could no longer be done by instinct, you needed professional help to do the best you could.
Gloria Riviera
It’s so interesting to me that there’s this moment in our country’s history in which two tiers start to take shape, right, two paths. And even at the very beginning, one was geared towards basically women who could afford to be with their children and learn how to parent as they were told, and then this other tier, which was in a completely different category. And this two-tiered system, as limited and inadequate as it was, was still only for white women and their children. For Black women and their families. The history looked completely different.
Dorothy Roberts
There has never been in US policy starting during the slavery era, a concern about who is going to care for Black children.
Gloria Riviera
That is Dorothy Roberts, and she’s here joining us to break down that part of the history. She is a University of Pennsylvania professor whose work focuses on the interplay of race, class and gender.
Dorothy Roberts
Of course, during the slavery era, black women had no legal right to care for their children. Black women were seen as the chattel property of their enslavers, valuable for their childbearing, but their children were seen also as the property of white people, their children could be sold away at the whim of enslavers. And there wasn’t any concern about the bond between Black mothers and their children.
Gloria Riviera 22:13
The bond between Black mothers and their children wasn’t only ignored a new idea to cold, the black mothers could actually be bad for their own children.
Dorothy Roberts
When black children died in infancy, there was a myth that was promoted by White doctors that it was because of Black mother’s negligence.
Gloria Riviera
That is heinous. That is a heinous, ugly idea. But it grew, it grew into an even larger idea that Black mothers shouldn’t take care of their own children. But that didn’t mean that enslaved Black women didn’t take care of any children.
Dorothy Roberts
They were supposed to care for White people and some did care for White children. After the Civil War ended, and black people were emancipated. The image of the Black mommy was created. Black women were to care completely for white children, but under the supervision of White mistresses. And I think that idea that Black mothers were only good while serving white people, and not serving their own children or caring for their own children has left a long legacy.
Gloria Riviera
Our whole childcare system was founded in shame. But the most brutal aspects were rooted in racist ideology. That legacy continues to this day. We will come back to hear more from Dorothy as we learn about how racism continues to play a very prominent role in US childcare policy. Look, the history of childcare in this country is ugly. But there is one bright spot for early childcare in the middle of one of the most trying chapters for the US full of death and destruction. In World War 2, nearly everything about the American way of life, including how we care for our kids was up ended. This is the age of Rosie the Riveter. So women, women get to go to work during World War 2. While all the men go off to war.
Gloria Riviera 25:05
Some of those Rosie’s who picked up the slack in the factories, a whole bunch of them. They were not only Riveters, they were also mothers and all at once, all that shame and all that stigma that went along with being a working mother. That’s all out the window. Now all of a sudden, women, it is your patriotic duty to roll up your sleeves and go to work. Now, American women, we love a good Rosie the Riveter image, we can all see it in our minds now. I love that bandana wrapped around her head. And I really love that flexed bicep boom, ready to go to work. And we love the empowerment that Rosie represents.
Gloria Riviera 26:09
We write children’s books about Rosie. But when was the last time you sat down and asked yourself who took care of Rosie’s kids while she was building America’s war machinery. By now we all know there is no such thing as working parents without childcare. That does not exist. Let me say it again, that does not exist. In the 1940s our early childcare system was still split between the custodial and the educational. Remember that? But World War 2 transformed childcare into an issue of national security. Are there any sweeter words in that? When women’s work is valued. Childcare miracles magically happen. And so with funding from the Lanham Act of 1941, I mean, it makes me smile just to say that. The federal government, the actual federal government, gotten to the universal childcare business for the first time in American history.
O’Niel Dillon
It was a fun place to go. Lots of toys, lots of things to do. The fire drills were especially memorable, because you got to slide down the spiral fire escape from the second floor down to the first floor.
Gloria Riviera
That was O’Niel Dillon. He was just three years old in 1943, when the first federally funded childcare centers opened around the country. While his mother worked at the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California. O’Neil spent his days at the nearby maritime Child Development Center.
Gloria Riviera 28:00
Remember that. Never forgot that. That was Ruth Hoffman. She was one of O’Neil’s teachers at the maritime center. They’ve kept in touch, they’re still close. And I can tell you from spending time with both of them recently, they still treasure each other.
Ruth Hoffman
Whoever had children that needed care, we took care of.
Gloria Riviera
In 1943 she was fresh out of the University of Chicago with a degree in psychology. Her adventurous spirit led her to California where she found work at the Kaiser shipyards, first as a welder, but that was bad for her complexion. Seriously, that’s what she told us. And so she became a teacher at the maritime Child Development Center.
Ruth Hoffman
We have an art teacher. She came in smart. We have a doctor. We have nurse. We had everything we needed to take care of those kids and we took care of them.
Gloria Riviera
Sonya Michel, the historian, remember we heard from her earlier about the four D’s. Well, she knows these centers really well.
Sonya Michel
They hired architects to design a special buildings. They have beautiful setup around a central play yard with a fountain in the middle of it. The teachers were very well trained. The adult and child ratio was very good. There was plenty of attention to the children.
O’Niel Dillon
It was a phenomenal program. They put in a great deal of thought and planning into the design. They consulted with the University of California Berkeley child development experts on the program.
Gloria Riviera
They even fed the kids good nutrition was a pillar of healthy Childhood Development after all.
Ruth Hoffman
And those kids when we gave them […]. Most kids like cod liver oil.
Gloria Riviera
Honestly, I’m a little skeptical about those kids. Liking the cod liver oil. And I’ve even tried it with my own kids. There’s still half a bottle in my kitchen. Anyway, that is how Ruth remembers it, those kids like the cod liver oil. And apart from those details, and by the way, I think it is incredible how many details Ruth remembers. The thing that really struck me when I was talking with Ruth was how gentle she was with those kids. How much affection she obviously still carries in her heart for them nearly 80 years later.
Ruth Hoffman 30:30
You know, kids listen to you.
O’Niel Dillon
No spanking of the kids?
Ruth Hoffman
No. Never.
O’Niel Dillon
God forbid.
Gloria Riviera
She looks insulted. I wish everyone could see; she looks insulted by the question. But it wasn’t just Ruth’s nurturing technique. At the most granular level, everything about the center was carefully designed for the benefit of the children. Right down to the chairs and the tables.
O’Niel Dillon
Everything was as small as we were.
Gloria Riviera
I mean, it just seems like so much thought went into these childcare centers. And it happened so fast.
Sonya Michel
One of my favorite parts is they even had a cooked food service. So at the end of the shift, when the mother came to pick up her child, she could also pick up a prepared meal. You know, because you don’t have kids aren’t six o’clock, they’re cranking out, I mean, that was not every childcare center. But those ones those model day nurseries had that.
Gloria Riviera
Not only model day, that’s like Christmas Day nursery right now. Like let us think of everything we can do to support you because we know you’ve had a long, hard day at work. I mean, that concept does not exist today.
Sonya Michel 32:03
I know it’s beautiful. It’s just beautiful.
Gloria Riviera
Are you getting the picture, this is some next level childcare going on here. It was a time when those two tracks of childcare that we’ve been talking about this whole time, the day nurseries for working mothers, and those new-fangled child psychology techniques came together. childcare fueled by wartime patriotism, designed by cutting-edge child-development academics with a reputation to defend, powered by college educated professionals, fully funded by federal dollars and available for all families at the same low, low, low, low cost.
Gloria Riviera
These […] childcare centers, and in particular, the model centers like maritime are still the high watermark for childcare in this country, the Cadillac of childcare, no, wait, the Tesla of child care, like nothing else we’ve ever had before or since. I know you’ve said, You know, I wasn’t a pioneer. I was just doing a job. Now, how do you feel about being part of something that was a first and that so many people are fighting to have today?
Ruth Hoffman
Well, I guess I’m pretty proud of it now.
O’Niel Dillon
We got it out of her.
Gloria Riviera
Ruth, I’m proud of you too. But these magical federally funded childcare programs began and ended with Ruth.
Sonya Michel
The Atlanta nurseries shut down. As soon as the war was over, because the federal funds dried up, there was some resistance. Women in some unions protested, tried to keep the nurseries open. But the unions were not terribly supportive, because of course, they were sticking up for the man and wanting to make sure that the veterans coming back had first dibs to the jobs.
Gloria Riviera 34:06
If women were going back to reign over their domestic kingdoms, there would be no need for childcare. And this little utopian gem of a program that supported families was dismantled, just as efficiently as it had been stood up only a few years before. From there, it went on to become an insignificant footnote in American history. And if you’re like me, you’re just learning about it now.
Sonya Michel
And there was a dip in female employment, certainly after the war. But then, you know, by the late 50s, mid to late 50s, female employment started creeping up again, including that for mothers. But it wasn’t that easy because the you know; the childcare was not available for them. It was the daughters of the women who had worked in the factories during World War 2. It was their daughters who became feminists who began to demand the right to work and who began to push for more childcare.
Gloria Riviera
That push was powerful by the 1960s. The lack of childcare in the US was unsustainable, alarming even, especially for poor women and single mothers who had no choice but to work, whether they had childcare in place or not. It all came to a head one day in 1968 in Washington DC, a little boy his name was Freddy Joyner walked himself home from school for lunch. On the way he was killed by a truck. When his backstory came out. It turned out Freddy was on his way home to check in on his little brother, just a toddler was left alone during the day, their mother worked and couldn’t afford childcare.
Gloria Riviera
So, Freddy came home every day at lunchtime to share his food and check in on his little brother to make sure he was okay. While all that was happening, a senator from Minnesota was looking to heighten his own profile with a progressive family-oriented platform, that early childcare at the center. His name was Walter Mondale, but his friends called him Fritz. We don’t know why; we just know that it’s true. You may have heard that he died recently of natural causes. He was 93 years old and had spent decades as a public servant. So Fritz read about Freddy Joyner in the newspaper. And the story really affected him.
Gloria Riviera 36:18
He talked a lot about Freddy to whomever would listen. And a really big idea started coming together in his head. In 1971, Mondale proposed the comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971. He wanted to create a universal, affordable early childcare system in the US, one that was child centered and based on sound psychological research, and of course, federally funded. I know what you’re thinking, too progressive, good try though, Fritzy. But in an amazing feat. This bill passed the Senate and then the house. Both chambers were in democratic hands at the time, but politics in 1971 were not what they are today.
Gloria Riviera
So aside from tussling over the details, this bill had bipartisan support. It was headed to the President’s desk for signature. The Nixon administration even signaled their approval, the future looks so bright. But then, this bowl happened. That’s Ronald Reagan, and he just said, if the bill ever reaches your desk, you’ll be getting a letter from me. So a political threat, really, in 71′ Reagan was still governor of California, but he and Nixon were chumps. You might even call them frenemies. And the gipper knew how to wrangle an audience with the President when he wanted to, our producer will be translating from here on out. Here’s Reagan pushing around Richard Nixon.
Ronald Reagan Translation
A call for a veto. That is this Mondale bill about the childcare centers. Now, we started off again with the idea of childcare centers, so you can put a mother to work. But this isn’t confined to welfare or anything else, this now has gone beyond. This is my God; this is the state taking over the rearing of the child.
Gloria Riviera 38:12
We’re translating this scratchy tape, because it is a stunning and illuminating glimpse into the very heart of power wielding in America. Nixon thinks about what Reagan has just said to him, rolling it over in his mind. And what he says next is something you don’t usually get to hear in the political wild. It’s the sound that is usually kept under tight lock and key. That’s the sound of progress, dying in the crucible of American politics. Nixon response.
Ronald Nixon Translation
I’m very aware of the bill. I understand that a childcare center has its purpose so that a mother can get the hell out and work so they can grow up with something. When it goes beyond that, then you’re going on a dangerous proposition. I think it’s a dangerous proposition that the state takes the place of the family to raise the kids.
Gloria Riviera
And Reagan agreed with him.
Ronald Nixon Translation
Now they can have all these social workers, psychiatrists, this whole thing into these children.
Gloria Riviera
Oh, god that. I just get mad at Ronald Reagan. So there you have it. Was this the moment? Of course, we don’t know if this is the very conversation that finally doomed the comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971 to the proverbial trash heap of legislative history. But the tape makes a compelling argument. We do know that when Congress was finalizing the bill, Nixon’s administration made it seem like it was going to sign it into law. But that’s not what happened. Instead of a history making bill that would finally finally give parents an early childcare solution. It was a scathing veto that ended up in the White House I’m so sorry for it’s, let’s turn it over now to our Call It Like It Is correspondent, Kristen Bell. Reporting live from Richard Nixon’s Oval Office as the veto letter lands on his desk.
Kristen Bell 40:16
Hi, Kristen Bell here your Call It Like It Is correspondent. I’m back reporting directly from the Oval Office in 1971. Because yes, I can time travel.
Ronald Nixon Translation
The China-Russia stuff is way more important than all this piddle. Believe me, you want to talk about the child care veto?
Kristen Bell
A few thoughts here. Mr. President, childcare might seem like peddle […] to you but the 10s of millions of parents who need childcare, who depend on it every day to go to work, respectfully disagree. And one signature can and spoiler alert will drastically impact their lives. So let’s just take a breather here, shall we? Okay, you’re about to sign that veto on your desk. And I know it’s hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. we all struggle with it at times. So let’s talk about your own shoes. You had tiny kiddos of your own when you were starting out as a congressman from California, remember?
Kristen Bell
So your own life, your whole career would not have skyrocketed. If you didn’t have someone to take care of your girls. It’s not easy to sort out all that important. China-Russia stuff with a toddler tugging at your arm demanding you check out this fort she built underneath your desk. Am I right? So before you sign that veto, go ahead and think about your lovely loyal wife, Pat. Her energy and ambition were legendary. And talk about a working mother. She dragged herself out of bed a mere three weeks after giving birth, because you needed her to help you win a seat in Congress that launched your entire political career. And she had the childcare to do it. By the way, folks, it was gramma next. Richard Nixon’s mom, Hannah, who took care of the baby while Pat and Dick were working. Credit where credit’s due.
Ronald Nixon Translation 42:19
Well, now that child care thing would have been not only an administrative monstrosity, I mean, it would have been a boondoggle. Like the poverty program, you know what I mean? Set up a childcare center in every city or town of 5000 or more. Do you know what that would be? It’s unbelievable.
Kristen Bell
Everything is unbelievable, until you believe in it. So do me a favor, before you put your pen to that veto. Remember, this is your chance to alter the course of history for the better. The bill for universal childcare passed both chambers of Congress. Both chambers y’all, passing a bill through both chambers is a lot more unbelievable than the bill itself. Oh, boy, oh, boy, you’re still going for the pen. Okay. Okay. Look, look, look, look, I know you’re not gonna listen to me. After all, you’re the president of the United States. And I’m just, you know, some lady from the future who hasn’t even been born yet.
Kristen Bell
In the coming years, it’s going to become normal for ladies to have big boy careers. Before you know it. They’ll be tempted to have it all. And while it turns out, here’s actually no such thing as having it all. They’re definitely going to need childcare to take a good stab at it. But you know, go ahead and sign it. Your body your choice. Remove our best shot at Universal childcare. But real quick before you do. Can I get grandma Nixon’s number? I know a lot of people who could use her. Back to you, Gloria.
Kristen Bell
But I am going to call it like it is anyway, right? Because that’s my job. People in this country are going to reproduce. And as long as people have babies, they’re going to need help. And it is your literal job to figure out how to help people in this country. So just know that when you veto this bill, you’ll be kicking one of this country’s biggest cans down one of our longest roads, American women, were never going to shrug their shoulders, retire their aprons and go back home because you didn’t let this pass. You probably don’t know this yet. But the 70s is the era of women’s liberation, my friend, okay?
Gloria Riviera 44:09
Thank you, Kristin. Of course, as we are acutely aware of today, President Nixon did sign that veto. Fritzy tinkered with the bill and he kept trying. But lightning doesn’t strike twice. It never got through both houses again. And that beautiful network of federally funded childcare centers never got built. So you’d be forgiven for thinking that nothing has changed much in the past. Let me check my watch. 50 years, and that Nixon’s damn veto pen, but US child care policy on ice in 1971. But you’d be wrong, Because then it got worse.
Gloria Riviera
After the break, we’ll learn about how in the 1990s the federal government did something that you’ve probably heard about called Welfare Reform, and then awful consequences you’ve probably never heard about for parents and their kids. What? Did you think I’d have good news for you? Come on.
Dorothy Roberts
Up to the passage of the bill in 1996, I was watching very closely debates about whether or not welfare should be ended.
Gloria Riviera
That’s Dorothy Roberts, the scholar and advocate we heard from earlier on the racist foundations of childcare in the US. She saw the legacy of that racism in those debates. That 1996 bill she’s talking about is the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. I know that’s a mouthful, so let’s just call it Welfare Reform.
Dorothy Roberts 48:17
And I was very aware that the myth of the Black welfare queen was fueling a lot of the animosity toward welfare. And so when the law passed, it was just crystal clear that racism is so foundational to how this nation decides who deserves help and who doesn’t.
Gloria Riviera
This law, the welfare reforms passed under President Bill Clinton turned to public assistance in this country on its head. Okay, let’s back up for a second because I know what you’re thinking, Gloria took a left turn somewhere right before that ad break. I came here for childcare, and now you’re throwing welfare reforms at me what’s going on here? My friends. If you only take one thing away from this episode, let it be this, Welfare Policy is Child Care Policy.
Dorothy Roberts
During the Progressive Era in the United States, which was the early 20th century, feminist, activists, argued for better supports for mothers who didn’t have husbands, white widows, women whose husbands had left them.
Gloria Riviera
Remember those four D’s?
Dorothy Roberts
The idea was that they shouldn’t have to be forced to work in order to take care of their children.
Gloria Riviera
Remember that precious mother child bond. Early welfare programs were created to keep that bond strong.
Dorothy Roberts
Many people accept it as just what a decent society would do that it would provide support for mostly struggling mothers who needed it in order to take care of their children.
Gloria Riviera 50:05
What did I tell you? From the very beginnings of welfare, mothers pensions, whatever you want to call them, federal aid to impoverished mothers was a value statement that mothers should be able to care for their own children and their own homes without having to go to work. See, welfare policy is childcare policy. But of course, we know that certain families were viewed very differently in the eyes of the government. And that bond was not cherished between all mothers and their children.
Dorothy Roberts
Black women were always excluded from these early forms of welfare for Mother’s. Race wasn’t written into the laws, but there were proxies for it.
Gloria Riviera
Take the New Deal, for example, early 1930s coming out of the depression, lots of federal aid sloshing around, even then there was this, you get it, you don’t attitude, domestic workers weren’t eligible for aid. And guess who made up the majority of domestic workers, Black women.
Dorothy Roberts
The idea was that they had to work, they should work, they should be working for White families, and therefore shouldn’t have the incentive of some kind of government support in order to take care of their children at home.
Gloria Riviera
That’s […] up. That’s so […] up. But then with the progress of the civil rights movement, things changed.
Dorothy Roberts
We’re talking 1950s-1960s, Black women gained access to public assistance by being at the forefront of a Welfare Rights Movement, where they demanded that they should have the same rights to aid in raising their children as anybody else.
Gloria Riviera
That sounds great, right? Poor Black mothers were finally able to access a vital federal aid that poor White mothers had been able to tap into for decades. And that was progress for a minute. But as the face of welfare changed, it didn’t take long for public opinion to shift, too.
Dorothy Roberts 52:06
Mothers pensions were perceived as positive as long as they were seen as going to white mothers. It was when Black mothers began to be included on the welfare rolls, that we start to see welfare as really stigmatized.
Gloria Riviera
I mean, it’s really straightforward as more black mothers got help and received welfare. Those warm, fuzzy feelings White voters had about welfare, fizzled. When our old pal Ronald Reagan graduated from popping in on Nixon to lobby for that awful veto. to having his own seat in the Oval Office, he put a euphemistic spin on kicking families off of welfare. He called it Reducing Welfare Dependency.
Ronald Reagan
More must be done to reduce poverty and dependency. And believe me, nothing is more important than welfare reform. It’s now common knowledge that our welfare system has itself become a poverty trap, a creator and reinforcer of dependency.
Gloria Riviera
Reagan and politicians like him got on board with this myth, and they talked about it, the horror of mothers having babies and babies and more babies, so they could rake in the welfare benefits. He says he really doesn’t get it. None of it makes sense when you actually think about it for more than 10 seconds.
Dorothy Roberts
There is absolutely no evidence that people had children to get welfare benefits or to have more children to increase their welfare benefits. But additional amount of welfare isn’t enough to really take care of children. Everyone on welfare has to supplement the income somehow, because it’s not enough.
Gloria Riviera
But this idea that Black mothers should be working, not at home caring for their kids still persists. And it’s how we get to this moment in 1996, where welfare reform is the hot topic in Washington on both sides of the aisle.
Bill Clinton 54:06
When I ran for president four years ago, I pledged to end welfare as we know it. I have worked very hard for four years to do just that. To transform a broken system that traps too many people in a cycle of dependence to one that emphasizes work and independence, to give people on welfare a chance to draw a paycheck, not a welfare check.
Dorothy Roberts
The 1996 law ended the federal guarantee to aid for families with dependent children.
Gloria Riviera
Impoverished mothers were no longer guaranteed aid. Now, if they wanted those benefits, they had to go get a job and work for them.
Dorothy Roberts
There was this idea that mothers were refusing to work because they could rely on a welfare check instead of understanding that there are jobs that are so inadequately paid, that have so few benefits, that have so little flexibility, that it’s extremely difficult for mothers to take care of children while they’re working at those kinds of jobs. During the Progressive Era, mother’s pensions were put in place to allow White mothers to take care of their children at home and not have to work. Fast forward to 1996 and welfare restructuring. The point of that is to force Black mothers into low wage work, instead of providing them with government aid to help them take care of their children.
Gloria Riviera
Okay, that is just naked racist policy. That’s what it is, it is shamefully unjust. And it leaves wide open the question, Who exactly is taking care of the children of impoverished Black mothers, while they are off toiling in these low wage jobs that are their only path to federal aid, it just never ends.
Dorothy Roberts 56:00
There really is little concern about what happens to these children while their mothers are working at low wage jobs, other than the threat that we can take your children away from you, if you don’t somehow figure out how to care for them.
Gloria Riviera
At the heart of welfare reform is this idea that impoverished mothers should not care for their own children, plain and simple. And instead of supporting poor families, the federal government often monitors and investigates them, which in and of itself presents yet another childcare challenge.
Dorothy Roberts
It puts mothers, especially Black mothers in a terrible bind, they’re the most likely to be investigated for child neglect. You know, in this country, half of black children are going to be subjected to a child welfare investigation, by the time they turn 18. When they’re investigated, they’re not provided with childcare. They’re provided with a whole list of requirements they somehow have to meet in order to keep their children or get their children back. And what happens is what Black mothers have done throughout US history, which is they have to come up and they have done this, to a remarkable extent come up with community-based ways of mothers coming together and figuring out how to care for each other.
Gloria Riviera
The resilience of moms and families pulling together to make do in a broken system is truly incredible. But resilience is not a childcare system. The federal policy cannot be. I know it’s hard, and we’re forcing you to work. And yes, we’re barely helping you with your childcare bills. But at least we don’t take your kids away. That at least the possibility that someone somewhere has it worse, and at least you’re not them. That is the part that keeps us from recognizing that all of us, we need change.
Dorothy Roberts 58:02
Radical change gets blocked by these racist divisions that make it seem as if women of different races don’t have common interests in an adequate childcare system at the United States.
Gloria Riviera
A common interest. That is what this is all about. Common interest equals common purpose equals change. What we need is a bullet proof or maybe a veto proof racist ideology proof battalion, because current policy is leaving us overwhelmed. None of us can do this without help. I remember being so overwhelmed when I had my kids, and that was with help. Do you remember me being overwhelmed? I mean, I was working until the last minute.
Charlotte Riviera
Do I remember you being overwhelmed? No.
Gloria Riviera
But you were there. You came when I had my babies.
Charlotte Riviera
I know. But you took care of both of us.
Gloria Riviera
Mom, like I just remember being so grateful to get some sleep. So you know, I feel very lucky that I had you.
Charlotte Riviera
Oh, well. I’m lucky to be able to help you.
Gloria Riviera
Although I do remember I was very intense on sleep training. And I woke up one night and walked in your room and all the lights were on and you were playing solitaire and Kayden was up and playing on the bed at like one in the morning. You’re like he’s fine. He’ll sleep later. A Night Nurse grandma is not well, we had fun.
Charlotte Riviera
I think we did have fun
Gloria Riviera 1:00:00
Next time on NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US, what really good childcare actually looks like.
Speaker 9
Our whole ethos is that this is the hardest time in someone’s life as a family zero to five. It is like the rush hour of your life. It is crazy. You don’t have time to do anything. So whenever they’re stressed and worried about food, job training, tampons, diapers, anything, exercise, we want it to be it at your childcare center.
CREDITS
NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US is a Lemonada Media Original, presented and created with Neighborhood Villages. This episode was produced by Rae Solomon, Mickey Capper, Alex McOwen and Kristen Lepore. Mixing and scoring were done by Hannis Brown. Our executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova, Kramer and me Gloria Riviera. Our Call It Like It Is correspondent is Kristen Bell. Special thanks to Ana Ayala and Elliot Haspel. This podcast was made with support from the McCormick Foundation Trust For Learning and Spring Point Partners. Okay, did you like the show? I hope you did. Do you think what we are doing is important? If so, please help others find us by leaving us a rating and writing us a review. Do you have your own experiences and frustrations with our childcare system? Do you also think the childcare system in the US kind of sucks? Do you have ideas for what we should change? We wanted to make a space for you to connect with other listeners and continue this conversation. So we set up a NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US Facebook group. Join us there and we can all event share bitch and moan together. You can also follow us and other Lemonada podcasts at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms. This episode is brought to you by Spring Point Partners, a social impact organization that invests in the transformational leaders, networks and solutions that power community change and advanced justice for all
