3. Good Childcare *Can* Work
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Description
Gloria explores the many places where childcare is working for parents – from Berlin, Germany, to Quebec, Canada, and even Patagonia HQ in Ventura, California. “Women are able to go back to work, families can actually afford good childcare, and the system more than pays for itself? Am I on another planet?” Kristen Bell joins Gloria (from outer space) to clue her in on America’s very own top-secret, high-quality, federally-funded childcare system. Plus, Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey from Neighborhood Villages return to tell us how we can make this childcare dream a reality for all. With Caitlin and Charles Vestal, Pierre Fortin, Linda Smith, Ssgt. Alba Ruiz, and Patagonia’s Jenna Johnson.
This podcast is presented by Neighborhood Villages, and is brought to you with generous support from The McCormick Foundation, Trust for Learning, and Spring Point Partners.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Kristen Bell, Gloria Riviera, Sarah Muncey, Lauren Kennedy, Linda Smith, Caitlin Vestal, Jenna Johnson, Pierre Fortin, Charles Vestal & Ssgt. Alba Ruiz
Charles Vestal 00:06
So childcare here is called Cheetah, which is […] And so it is subsidized by the state in Germany subsidized by the federal government in Berlin, it’s actually fully subsidized. So it’s free, it costs $0.
Gloria Riviera
That is Charles and Caitlin Vestal, they moved from Portland, Oregon to Berlin, Germany three years ago, just after their son Orson was born.
Charles Vestal
Whoa, he looks like a robot.
Gloria Riviera
Why? Well, because like so many Americans, they just couldn’t afford the cost of childcare. But it’s not just the free childcare that’s keeping them in Germany.
Caitlin Vestal
When we got here. I was like, trying to figure out like, Where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do with this kid, and my friend was like, oh, just go hang out at the […]. And it turns out that literally every neighborhood in Berlin has at least one of these centers, this fully free, and it’s run by social workers. You should also get like therapy while you’re there.
Charles Vestal
We show up and they’re like, cool, here’s a music class, There’s like support for you to find work or whatever.
Gloria Riviera
These family centers provide a ton of free support for parents. And that’s not even the best part.
Charles Vestal
So also, by the way, they pay you to have a kid here, like they pay you 300 euros a month, just cuz you have a kid.
Caitlin Vestal
Like, it’s really sad when you start to be like, why am I like, I’m shocked that there’s family support here. I’m shocked by it. Like, I continue to be mind blown by it. And then you just start to be like, that’s so depressing. It’s so depressing that that is wild to me. And for now, I’m like, all in like, we have talked about whether or not we’re going to move back. And for me, personally, I’m like, I will not move back until we’re done with […]. Like, I would not move back and pay for preschool like, no way could I do that after this.
Gloria Riviera
Why would she? Why would anyone do that?
Caitlin Vestal 02:00
Overall, being here, I think lets us like, we’re able to focus on being good parents, not how to afford to be good parents.
Caitlin Vestal
It doesn’t have to be the way it is in the States. Somewhere in my brain, I still think it’s the best country. And then you’re like, is it?
Gloria Riviera
this is NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. I’m your host, Gloria Riviera. When I had my first kid, I was based in London. I remember being so shocked by the maternity benefits there, I could get full pay from my job for I think was four months. And then after that support checks from the British government on a regular basis. Sadly, that is a pretty revolutionary concept as an American working mom. But Germany and the UK are not the only places where the system is working better for women and families. Just look at our neighbors to the north.
Pierre Fortin
The success of the Quebec system has been absolutely stratospheric.
Gloria Riviera
That’s Pierre Fortin. He’s a Canadian economist and a professor, or should I say professor at University of Quebec at Montreal, that was my bad French accent. I called him up because I wanted to learn more about Quebec’s universal low fee childcare system. In Quebec, all parents no matter how much they make, pay no more than $8.50 a day for childcare. That is around let me do my math $2,000 a year, even for the wealthiest families.
Pierre Fortin
It is affordable financially. And the level of use of the system is very high. To a point where at this time, the labor force participation of young women in Quebec is on top of the world on par with Switzerland and Sweden.
Gloria Riviera 04:19
You want to know what Quebec, Switzerland and Sweden all have in common? Yep, that’s right. Universal Low Fee Childcare. That’s why their labor force participation rates are so high. Now Quebec is smaller than the US. But Pierre says that during the paper napkin math, even if the US came within striking distance of Quebec numbers on labor participation, about wait for it, 5 million, 5 million more women would join the US workforce.
Pierre Fortin
Now. There are very few government programs that pay for themselves, but in the case of childcare It does pay for itself.
Gloria Riviera
I’m sorry, what? It pays for itself.
Pierre Fortin
Our research found that the amount of money that the government is making out of the additional incomes from women entering or staying in the labor force is much higher than the $2 billion that the government has to pay in order to finance the system. So tallying up all that means that the system much more than pays for itself.
Gloria Riviera
So women are able to go back to work families can actually afford good childcare and the system more than pays for itself. Am I on another planet?
Kristen Bell
Gloria, Kristen Bell here your friendly Call It Like It Is correspondent. I’m reporting live from outer space to tell you that you are most certainly not on another planet. In fact, I can see you down there on earth just this teeny tiny little speck constantly being interrupted by even tinier specks while you try to record this episode. Very hashtag relatable, my friend. From what I can see up here, the other planets are all cruel, unforgiving wastelands with no high-quality affordable childcare whatsoever. But Earth is actually an exception. For instance, Germany and Quebec are both very much on planet Earth. In fact, almost every country on Earth offers some sort of support to new parents like paid parental leave or subsidized child care except drum roll sound, that’s drum roll sound the United States, there is one other country that doesn’t, you want to guess? I know you love to guess. Just do it. Okay. It’s Papa New Guinea.
Kristen Bell 06:57
It’s the US and Papa New Guinea. But Gloria, everyone else. Everyone else on earth believes new parents should have support to raise their children. And I know, hearing about how amazing things are and the rest of the world can really get you down. But fortunately Gloria, I’m in outer space where there is no gravity, so nothing can get me down. You get because there’s no. Okay. That’s why I’m here. You know, to spread the good vibes, and usher you through this challenging episode with some relaxing, guided meditation. You know, so put on your yoga pants, pop in your favorite. Now that’s what I call pan flute CD and let’s get to it. Gloria, welcome to guided child care meditation with Kristen Bell. Take a deep breath in.
Kristen Bell
Close your eyes and imagine it’s morning. Birds are chirping outside. Sun is flooding in through the window. You’re not in the US or Papa New Guinea. You roll out of bed and slowly sip your coffee as you work through the day’s crossword puzzle. You’re in no rush. Your daughter’s childcare center is right down the street. 15 across, what’s a six-letter word for the chillest most relaxed mom slash podcast host in the whole universe. G. L. O. R. I. A. You put on your shoes and you head out the door with your little one. As you’re walking you decide to stop at the cafe on the corner.
Kristen Bell 08:57
You pop in and get a $5 croissant. I know what you’re thinking. $5 feels like a lot for a croissant. But it’s okay. You have the money because you only spend $8.50 a day on child care. When you arrive at preschool, you hand your daughter over to her beloved teacher who’s worked at the Center for 25 years. She’s highly trained, nurturing, and your daughter loves her. She’s also eating a $5 croissant because she actually makes a living wage. How? Because the government pays her salary, not parents. And then you’re off to work where you can focus on being a bad ass reporter all while your daughter is learning and growing in a safe social environment. Now on your next breath, open your eyes and come back to center.
Kristen Bell
Okay, now, Gloria, wouldn’t it be nice if the US had a childcare system like this, where parents can afford convenient high-quality care where teachers are supported throughout their careers, where the government actually provides funding so parents can go to work? Wait, wait, wait. My scanners are picking something up? It turns out the US does have a system like this. And it’s in the US military. Wait, what? Guys, I know the military is known for their covert operations. But come on. Don’t you think this one might have been a little too covert? Spill the tea. How you doing it? Share it. You know what I mean? Wake up, Gloria. I know that was relaxing. But it’s back to reality we go, reporting for NO ONE’S COMING TO SAVE US. I’m Kristen Bell. Back to you down on Earth, Gloria.
Gloria Riviera
Roger that. I feel better. Thanks, Kristin. To get the scoop on the military is actually not so secret childcare. I called up one of the system’s founders herself.
Linda Smith
The military got this earlier than the rest of the country. And they got it for a number of reasons.
Gloria Riviera
That’s Linda Smith. She currently heads up that this is a mouthful, Early Childhood Initiative for the Bipartisan Policy Center. But when Linda was just starting out, she worked on childcare for the Department of Defense.
Linda Smith
They invest hundreds of 1000s of dollars training these guys to have them leave the military over issues around childcare does not make sense.
Gloria Riviera
Linda was known as one of the primary architects of the military’s childcare program. today. This program is known for its affordability for parents. It’s rigorous training program for teachers, and it’s incredibly high quality of care. And when I say high quality, I mean, high quality, 97% of Military Child Development Centers are nationally accredited. Compare that to less than 10% of civilian centers. And having a high-quality childcare center on base makes a big difference for parents in the military. Like Sergeant Alba Ruiz.
Ssgt. Alba Ruiz 12:28
I’m Staff Sergeant Ruiz, first name, Alba, I work for the United States Marine Corps. I am right now stationed on Camp Pendleton here in California.
Gloria Riviera
Ssgt. Ruiz is a single mom of three. And she’s worked in the military for 13 years relying on military childcare, so that she can focus on her job.
Ssgt. Alba Ruiz
When you can imagine being as a parent, and then being in the military. And sometimes you have to work from six to six and leaving your child there. So it becomes an anxiety of oh my God, who is my child going to be doing? But you know, I haven’t yet seen a center that’s not in a clean condition. They’re there. They’re answering every question you have any concern. I could definitely come back from work and feel comfortable that my child has been taken care of.
Gloria Riviera
So Sergeant Ruiz, you’ve dropped your children off. Now the workday is really started. Where is your head at, at that moment?
Ssgt. Alba Ruiz
At work. I don’t want to say that I don’t care about my children, but because my children are at a good place with good people with a good program. And it’s safe. I don’t have to worry about that.
Gloria Riviera
But when Linda Smith arrived at her first military childcare job in Arizona in the 1970s, it was a completely different picture. What was your reaction to what you saw when you first arrived?
Linda Smith
Oh, shock. When I toured the facility the first time, I think there was 43 children, I want to say in a room in one room all ages, there was a table and I can tell you, I’m not making this up. One table, a chair where the caregiver was sitting, and a TV mounted up in the corner on the wall and the children were just running around. In fact, one of my basis, I think I almost got an ulcer over the base. You know, going into an infant room and seeing 20 some babies all lined up in high chair sitting there for hours.
Gloria Riviera 14:29
So how on earth did the military go from this rundown, shabby, kind of like an afterthought of a system to the well-oiled machine it is today? Well, around this time, the military was undergoing a lot of change. They were transitioning from a conscript to an all-volunteer force. And for women, well, women were now not only able to join the military, but to stay in the military after having a baby, too.
Linda Smith
So the combination of those things happening in the military in the late 70s, changed childcare dramatically. And so the shift was really quick and radical.
Gloria Riviera
Then in 1989, Congress passed the Military Child Care Act. This required the Department of Defense to create a childcare system that had higher teacher to child ratios and paid teachers more, among other things.
Linda Smith
I think the one thing that people do not understand about what happened with the military and I really do like to make this point is that Congress gave us an unfunded mandate. I think everybody thinks that oh, with all that money, and with all that, you could you can just write the regs and tell him to do it. That is going to be easy. Not really, this all happened during the biggest drawdown in the history of the Defense Department since World War 2, because the wall had come down. They were drawing down the military, we were putting people out of the military. And now we were saying to the military, we need more. And if you think that was an easy thing, you can really think again on that one.
Gloria Riviera 16:00
As the director of Family Policy for the Secretary of Defense, it was Linda’s job to go to the Pentagon and make a huge ask, the money, show me the money. They needed a massive budget to get all of this done. I’m imagining you as a sort of, like Wonder Woman, like, you know, going up against generals and admirals, and they’re drawing down the military. And you have to go ask them for a long list of things. I mean, how did you walk in that room?
Linda Smith
Sometimes gingerly.
Gloria Riviera
Did you run into people who were angry? Who didn’t understand why they had to spend money? You’re nodding your head.
Linda Smith
Oh, definitely. And it wasn’t the easiest time because I remember talking to one commander on a base, and he was having to lay off firemen. And he said, you’re telling me I need to hire childcare teachers, and I got to lay off a fireman. You know, it was that kind of situation because of drawdown so no. I mean, there were challenges. But I think today, the military is very proud of that system. And it still is a good program. The goal that we had in the military wasn’t to create a system. The goal in the military was pretty simple. Actually, it was to make sure that any child cared for with military funds was in a reasonable quality program.
Gloria Riviera
We keep mentioning high quality childcare. But what does a high-quality early learning environment actually look like? Because there is a lot of noise around all the things that need fixing, right? There is a lot to fix in the system. But children are born ready to learn, and ideal learning environments boiled down to key principles, backed by scientists who study child development, about how to follow what’s best for the kids, how they naturally in the right environment, blossom, thrive, their spongy brains, soak it all up, how to make friends and be kind, how to learn how to be curious how to handle anxiety responsibly. It’s actually not that complicated. For example, we know that brain development happens best in a stable environment, with stable, nurturing relationships with their teachers. And yet in our broken system, nearly half of early educators leave every single year, and the ones who stay are often stressed and underpaid. And that is not good for the kids.
Linda Smith 18:36
If the goal is the right goal, then all things lead in the right direction. But right now we have our goals kind of bounce around in this country. The goal needs to be the children and then we can make the rest of it happen.
Gloria Riviera
Could the united states do what the military is done?
Linda Smith
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gloria Riviera
When we come back, we will trade our army fatigues for some puffy vests and cozy fleece.
Gloria Riviera
Welcome back to NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. In this episode, we’re looking at all the places where childcare is actually working for parents. So far, we’ve looked at Germany and Quebec and here at home in the US military, but not everyone can just pack up and leave the US or enlist in basic training to be able to afford childcare. But there is another option. Your employer could provide or at least subsidize your childcare. So I decided to call up Jenna Johnson, the head of Patagonia Inc.
Gloria Riviera
Patagonia is the rare US company that offers subsidized onsite childcare to their employees. They even wrote the book on how to do this, literally. It’s called Family Business. And before we get into the interview, I need to tell you something. I have to warn you that while Patagonia is not sponsoring this podcast, I am a bit of a Patagonia fan girl. I should probably say this at the end, but I’ll just say it now. I was like, this is like me interviewing. Like Eddie Vetter. That’s the equivalent. I love Patagonia.
Jenna Johnson 20:22
That’s about one of the biggest compliments I’ve heard. That is a very well..
Gloria Riviera
I’m a Seattle girl, are you a Seattle girl?
Jenna Johnson
I’m from Seattle as well originally.
Gloria Riviera
Amazing.
Jenna Johnson
I’m feeling the love for sure.
Gloria Riviera
Yeah, it’s big love. So um, I would just love to hear the story about how childcare at Patagonia started way back when.
Jenna Johnson
It’s a pretty unique story, and that it was a very organic process that happened. One of our founders, Malinda Chouinard was working at the company and was a mom. And she would bring her children into work. And then others around her started bringing in their children to work. And as you can imagine, you know, this work environment where people are, are working and getting things done. And you’ve got a toddler crawling around on the floor, and somebody else now brings their baby in and their nursing here and there and so as they brought their children in, I think at some point, Malinda looked around and was like, this is not, I’m committed, but this is not working.
Jenna Johnson
And so she started in 1983, the first childcare center at Patagonia, which is now called the Great Pacific Child Development Center. And since that time, all employees who have worked at Patagonia have had the option to be able to utilize that amazing, amazing childcare center.
Gloria Riviera
How do you make it work for everybody?
Jenna Johnson
Yeah, so we it is a tuition-based program. But we look at tuition based on a sliding scale. And so not everyone pays the same amount to be part of the program, but we work with each family to find where they can pay and build a program around them for that.
Gloria Riviera 22:13
And is there a waitlist I mean, every early childcare center we speak to it’s like oh my god, the waitlist, the waitlist.
Jenna Johnson
We do our very best to have zero waitlist we try to allow you know, actually, when I first came to Patagonia, we had some open spaces. And so my child was in once I had a child, they were in the program. But we also were allowing some people from outside of Patagonia to come now we have so many employees at Patagonia that we don’t have room. It’s a Patagonia specific program. But as we have grown, we’ve continued to add on classrooms and hire teachers and been able to support every family that wants to be a part of the development center so that they don’t have to be on a waitlist so that they can transition back to work as quickly as possible.
Jenna Johnson
And we do that by you know this, it’s such an it’s such a part of our language as a leader at the organization. I’m always talking to our employees. And as soon as somebody on my team mentions that they’re going to be moving into being a parent, the first thing we talk about is, How soon do you want to come back? Do you want your child in the program? What’s the dates, we fill out some forms, we make sure it’s on the radar, and then that allows the Development Center to really be able to plan appropriately, you know, if you if you start talking about it, six months, nine months before the child actually enters into the program, we’ve been able to accommodate everybody so far.
Gloria Riviera
We’ve been able to accommodate everybody so far, I mean, that I, are you sure you’re on planet Earth? Like, I can’t like this is I just it’s so much to take in. And I just can’t imagine that this exists. And yet I know, I know that it does.
Jenna Johnson
And yet I have to say it makes me so as much as I’m happy to talk about this program. It makes me incredibly sad that that is the reaction that I get all the time when I talk about the program and about how fortunate I’ve been to have been able to continue my career growth and have two children who have, you know, been co raised by this amazing family on campus and to have this experience but it shouldn’t be unique. This should not be exceptional. This should just be the norm. We’re not trying to do anything exceptional. We’re just trying to be compassionate with our business.
Gloria Riviera 24:33
So what does it cost? I know it’s not inexpensive. But help me understand what you guys at Patagonia are looking at in terms of how much are we going to invest in a good program, and where do we recoup those costs?
Jenna Johnson
Yeah, it’s definitely an investment. It’s a choice that you make to invest in your employees and you will see the payback. We see that about 50% of the cost of our program comes back in the form of federal tax deductions. So right there half of kind of what you’re investing in is covered, in the analysis that we’ve run, we think we’re recouping at least 30%, in our reduced turnover amongst our employees. So the fact that our employees come back to us and keep working, all that training and all that expense that you have to put in every time you’re hiring, we’re reducing that dramatically. So that’s about 30%.
Jenna Johnson
And also about 11%, we feel we recoup in just the, you know, kind of the Stoke factor in the commitment level when our employees come back to us and are re-engaging with us. And the fact that we’ve set it up, so yes, I left my meeting to go nurse for 30 minutes. But if I had to drive somewhere, or if I had to deal with a lot of other issues, you’re gonna have a lot less of my attention than just 30 minutes to go, take a deep breath, connect with my child, come back refreshed, feel totally confident that my child is in good hands and is, you know, in the building next door, that makes me much more active in my role and a much more engaged employee.
Jenna Johnson 26:18
So, you know, at the end of the day, it’s about 9% of the cost of the investment that I would say that we’re truly investing and potentially not recouping certainly an investment that is worth it. Because also worth mentioning that this doesn’t even take into account that math is all very specific to the parents that are taking advantage of the program. But there is also a cultural advantage when you walk around the campus of Patagonia. Kids are outside playing on the playground, which is central to the work that we’re doing. You walk from meeting to meeting and you pass by these children that are laughing and that are trying to figure out how to climb to the top of the dome structure. And there is massive benefit that spreads throughout the entire family of Patagonia, so to speak.
Gloria Riviera
What about traveling for Patagonia? I mean, let’s talk about, you know, post COVID. And hopefully that will happen. What does Patagonia do for employees that have to travel because that was always that was that was like a traumatic experience for me. Yeah, the travel when my kids were tiny.
Jenna Johnson
So if you weren’t mind blown before, so, my role, since I’ve been at Patagonia the whole time I’ve been here for just over 10 years and my role has been a global role. So for me, I’m going to speak just personally. But this is the way that it is for everybody who’s in the program. Traveling globally was absolutely critical. To me being successful in my role, I needed to stay on top of market trends that were happening around the world, but also keep those relationships really close. And there’s just particular times a year in which I have to travel. And so every child has a caregiver, a teacher who they are connected to who’s kind of their primary in each classroom. And when I would travel, Patagonia would pay for me to travel with my child and with that primary caregiver, so she would go to Europe with me, she would go to Washington DC with me.
Jenna Johnson 28:37
And of course, we tried to minimize the travel because that’s just really hard on everybody. But when it was critical. I had the support to help me in and out of the airports. And throughout the day, and so I have I have so many amazing memories of like being in meetings all day long at trade shows, getting a text that it was time to eat, trying to find my way through random hallways to meet this caregiver who was absolutely phenomenal and always found a little quiet nook somewhere for me to be able to feed, she would take her break and then come back and we’d hand off my daughter again and then I jump right back into my meetings and keep going for the day until it was her time to take off and then she would have the you know, the evening off. And again, back to that idea of I you know, I’ve progressed in my career at Patagonia over the last 10 years and it has absolutely been foundational to having this program and being able to raise my children and take them on the road with me as needed in order to be able to successfully do my job.
Gloria Riviera
Oh my god. I mean, you’re going to I don’t even I feel like you feel I feel sad that not everyone has that option. You know, I feel sad for all the other parents out there who didn’t have it. And I feel really sad for me because that was when I was at my breaking point. When I had to get up and go.
Jenna Johnson 30:08
And you know, from your experience in that, and I know from talking to so many of my friends, you’re exhausted at that period anyway. And then to be making these really hard decisions and having to say goodbye at that time. And, you know, you’ve probably, you’re probably pumping a whole bunch trying to stock up in the refrigerator, so that if you left, they would have enough milk while you’re gone. And like that whole process, like you are not showing up 100% to work in that situation.
Gloria Riviera
No, and they’d be like, we need you to go cover a hurricane. And I’m like, you’re looking this is a human hurricane, right? It’s a disaster right here. Can you just off the top of your head, remember where you traveled when your kids were tiny, tiny with the Patagonia childcare person at your side, companion.
Jenna Johnson
We traveled to Boston, we traveled to Washington, we traveled to Erie, Colorado, we traveled to Denver, we traveled to Germany, we traveled to Stockholm, I can’t go on, there’s a long list. My children have passports for some quite a few stamps on them.
Gloria Riviera
Whoa, okay, so then what’s stopping other companies from doing what Patagonia is doing? Is it dollar signs that make people shy away?
Jenna Johnson
I think to be honest, the problem in a lot of organizations is that what Patagonia is so special about is that we think about our business on a timeline of 100 years, we’re not thinking about the next five years, are we going to be profitable in the next year, like what is I mean, we certainly are running a smart business in the moment, but the vast majority of our decisions are made on 100 years from now. But for a lot of companies that are out there that are looking at their balance sheets and reporting on quarterly income publicly, it’s really hard for them to suddenly put an investment like this on their balance sheet.
Jenna Johnson 32:01
And even if they know it’s the right thing, and even if they know in the long term, it will pay off. And probably not even that long term, it’s still really hard for them to feel like they can justify it. I challenged them to try, I think they would get more reception than they know. And I think the positive reception from their employees, from their communities and their customers who would know and understand the values that they’re bringing to their company, they would be rewarded immediately. But there’s not a lot of risk taking out there. You know, people just look at it as dollar sign and can’t look beyond that.
Gloria Riviera
So is it really just if your company cares about its employees more than the bottom line, maybe just maybe they’ll do something like this. But as it stands, only about 4%, 4% of US companies have a similar childcare program. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of demanding one at your workplace.
Jenna Johnson
It was also the employees at the time, you know, who all rallied together to support and to, from that early day, support the program, not just as an early childhood development center that was next to our offices, but as a foundational and core tenant, for how we interact together as citizens, you know, caring for each other or looking out for each other or working together. And that, you know, that took hold really quickly in those very early days and has stayed with us ever since. And I think it’s that holistic view, not just of a phenomenal program, but of the way that it’s actually integrated into every day and every person at Patagonia even if every person isn’t personally engaging in it.
Gloria Riviera
So how do we make childcare look like this for everyone, regardless of where they work? After the break, we will hear from two moms who are doing it, they are making it happen. Stay with us.
Gloria Riviera 34:19
Moral of the story so far, childcare can work. It works in Germany; it works in Quebec. It works in the US military and the rare us corporation like Patagonia. So you remember Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey. We met them in Episode 1. They founded Neighborhood Villages because they had had it. They knew good childcare was possible, and they decided to get to work.
Sarah Muncey
We drove around in a very dented and very disgusting and dirty minivan, and we put 1000s of miles on my minivan pounding the pavement all around Boston, all around Massachusetts, sometimes all around the country, just learning both of us saw not just small obstacles, but like bigger structural obstacles, but we also saw a lot of potential. And that’s because we both came from fields where this has done.
Gloria Riviera
That’s Sarah, before neighborhood villages, she was a public-school administrator. And Lauren was in the health policy world, both of them felt based on their experiences in different industries, that a good functioning childcare system was not a crazy idea.
Sarah Muncey
There is a functional K-12 system. So everything we saw there, we can do it, any support a resource, it can be brought to a childcare center, it’s hard. But we looked at this. And we said, no, this is absolutely doable, and not one more generation, and certainly not our daughters are going to deal with this. Because my mom did. You know, and it’s been a lot of years, and it hasn’t gotten better.
Gloria Riviera
As the two of them drove across the country in that dirty minivan. They saw that the US childcare system could and arguably should function just like the K to 12 system with school districts operational support systems and wraparound services. And instead of just talking about it, and this is where they truly impressed me, they decided to prove it. Here’s Lauren.
Lauren Kennedy 36:12
We can’t fix the world. We can’t fix the country. We can’t fix the state of Massachusetts. But what we can do is drill into the city of Boston, partner with preexisting childcare centers, and say we are going to build some infrastructure around you to show what a functional system can look like, what a school district for early education and care providers can look like. And what is the school district have? First of all, it has people.
Gloria Riviera
People. So, Lauren and Sarah asked the childcare centers they visited with your barebone staff and no substantial government support to speak of, who are you missing on your team?
Lauren Kennedy
And what we heard back from the field was we’re missing Operations Support, so that it’s somebody else’s job to be making sure that the building is humming and that those pipes are fixed, that staff is supported. There’s somebody in an elementary school whose job that is.
Gloria Riviera
So Neighborhood Villages brought in more people, smart, capable, good to be around people, like operations managers and family navigators. They placed them in childcare centers. But that’s not all.
Lauren Kennedy
Another need that was identified was we need to be able as a childcare provider, as a childcare system, to be able to meet the full scope needs of children and families.
Sarah Muncey
When families don’t have food, we find a way to feed them via the childcare center. When there’s no Coronavirus testing, we find a way to provide via the childcare center. When people are homeless, we find a way to get them via the childcare center. And we do that with every single thing we do.
Lauren Kennedy
We are your centralized backup support; we will help you with operations and logistics we will help you with sourcing these community supports so that what we can show is that we’re not just building capacity within a partner. We’re building capacity across our network; we’re building capacity across this district of partners. And proving frankly, right, that all of this can be done in the early education and care system as a whole.
Gloria Riviera 38:18
So it sounds like what you’re doing is like what we saw in Berlin at those family centers where you can get like free classes and therapy and Employment Assistance, and it’s all in one place.
Sarah Muncey
All of these things that you saw in Berlin, we’re doing them right here in Boston, because we know that if you want families to thrive, they can’t be stressed and they can’t be worried. 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 whatever they’re stressed and worried about food, job training, tampons, diapers, anything exercise, we want it to be at your childcare center, and is nice and fluffy and like mom and baby and lala is that sounds that is like a cold, hard economic argument. Like you can prevent everything that’s expensive in America by making this one place lovely.
Gloria Riviera
When I listened to you guys, it sounds as if you are doing this with the intention of providing it to everyone.
Lauren Kennedy
Everyone. Preschool should not be the privilege of those who can afford it. It should be the right of every single family. And I don’t mean preschool starting at three, I mean preschool that begins at birth. Should be the right of every child and should be something that we provide parents support with from those earliest days. There’s no reason we can’t do it. We just have to make the investment and commit to this vision to this goal that we are going to create something as supportive as we’ve tried to make the K-12 system be as we know that other countries have made their early education and care system be, and even some of the homegrown examples that we have here in the United States. So Neighborhood Villages, we can’t do it all. But we can start locally, innovate and prove that this can be done.
Sarah Muncey 40:16
What we’re doing is saying, here’s what a universal childcare system looks like in legislation. And then here’s the piece that no one can ever figure out, which is what it looks like in practice. How do you take existing schools, existing early learning centers, existing family childcare homes, the full landscape of childcare that we have in this nation, and start supporting people connecting people giving them facilities that aren’t crumbling, not expecting magic, because that’s what we saw when we did our landscape assessment.
Sarah Muncey
So when we looked at this system, we said, you’re expecting magic, you’re expecting the directors and these providers to take a broken market, make money on it somehow pay people somehow fix crumbling building somehow maintain a waitlist, basically be a CPA, be an Excel wizard, be all these things that they’re not what no one was giving anyone time to be was instructional and cultural leaders, because no one was treating these places like schools. And so we really shifted our attention and said, you know what, this is a public good, this is just as important, if not more important, we know that if you’re going to spend one public dollar, if you have $1 to spend, this is where you spend it, because you got a 13 to 1 return on your investment.
Gloria Riviera
That means for every $1, let’s say the government were to invest in a lower income, child’s early education, we would all see a $13 return on that investment. And that would come in the form of better high school graduation rates, better health outcomes, higher earnings, lower incarceration rates, the list goes on.
Sarah Muncey
So it’s not just the kids who are going to do better their parents can go to work. And the pandemic really showed that in Black and White. Either childcare is open and the economy’s open, or it’s closed, and it’s closed. But what we’ve done instead of the Black and White is the slow gray crumbling.
Gloria Riviera 42:11
Okay, so how do we do this? How do we bring your model the kinds of things you’re doing creating early childcare school districts and wraparound services? How do we start to see that in the rest of the country,
Lauren Kennedy
one would never hope that a pandemic would have to be unleashed upon us for this sort of great social awakening to happen. Like we sort of had a phase of it back in the 70s, when we got super close to universal childcare, what it was woven into the conversation and the movement around the ERA, and then we sort of fell asleep again. And here we are having woken back up, and said, we aren’t going to live this nightmare anymore. We have the vocabulary now for what we want. We have the argument for why we deserve what we want. And we have government listening.
Lauren Kennedy
We have elected leaders who can’t ignore it anymore. We have elected leaders who have to listen to us go through the laundry list of all the things that we want. We have the president behind us, we have phenomenal leaders in Congress. So now it’s on us to say great President Biden, we are so thrilled by your American families plan, we are going to be on you for the next four years, to make sure that we see this come along. And we are going to be on you, every single member of the House of Representative, every single member of the US Senate. And when you’re in cycle, which for every congressman is every two years and for every senator, right? Every six we are a childcare voter. So good luck ignoring us.
Gloria Riviera
Good luck ignoring us. Next week, we’ll hear from the people who refuse to be ignored the parents, activists and legislators on the front lines of the childcare revolution.
Speaker 10
So this is the moment this is the moment to raise your voice. And that means yes, send letters, cards, email, text, Tiktoks whatever you do. That’s next week on no one is coming to save us.
CREDITS
NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US is a Lemonada Media Original. Presented by and created with Neighborhood Villages. This episode was produced by Alex McOwen, Kristen Lepore, Mickey Capper and Rae Solomon. 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. Monica Wright, Donna Warner, Christina Lemens and Stacy Young. This podcast was made with support from the McCormick Foundation, trust for learning and Spring Point partners. If you liked the show, and you believe what we’re doing is important. Please help others find us by leaving us a rating and writing us a review. Have you ever come across early childcare systems that are working? That seemed to be good for everyone? Does it make you think of what we should all be asking for? We made a space for you to connect and swap ideas with other listeners and continue this conversation. There is a NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US Facebook group. I’m on it and I’m fired up. So join us there and we can all plot a path forward together. You can also follow us in other Lemonada podcast at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms.
