America 2023: When even members of Congress don’t have child care

Last week, while history was being made on the floor of the House of Representatives, a (mostly) quieter, but no less historic event was happening in the Democratic cloak room.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) brought his 4-month-old baby to work. In between votes, he changed diapers on the Democratic cloak room floor and bottle-fed his child. And Gomez wasn’t the only one on daddy duty in the House. Other parents — including Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) — brought their children to work as well. Yes, it was adorable and brightened up an otherwise dour C-SPAN feed. But the tweets about bringing babies to work, swapping parenting tips and taking breaks to feed and change also highlight a problem that is no stranger to the vast majority of this country’s parents.

Child care is out of reach for many families in America. For most, it is too expensive and too hard to access. Parents, early learning providers and program administrators are overwhelmed, overburdened and under-resourced — and everyone is feeling the impact. Even our members of Congress.

This week, many members of Congress lived no child care lives. But for many families across the country, this is something they face every single day, and it’s not getting any easier.

Child care prices are too high. At a time when prices for most goods have increased, child care prices outpace inflation, according to Child Care Aware of America’s recent research. While recent investments in response to the pandemic might have helped stabilize some of the supply, families are still struggling to find care.

Women are typically harder hit by access issues when it comes to child care. RAPID Survey findings show 40 percent of female respondents had left their jobs or cut back on their work schedules — most of them due to child care constraints.  Women policymakers — including Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — have been vocal about their troubles finding and maintaining child care and how it’s been essential to maintain their careers

When families don’t have access to affordable, high-quality child care, children miss out on important child development opportunities, employers face losses as they struggle to find workers and our economy sees overall challenges.

This is not only an important issue for the working parent. For children, the earliest years lay a foundation for the brain and body architecture that will support their ability to learn, and for their lifelong social, emotional and physical health. Why then are parents, children and early educators not guaranteed support through policies that ensure early childhood systems of care are resilient, equitable, high-quality and accessible for all?

Child care is a crucial component of our country’s economy; it’s the work that makes all other work possible. The high cost of child care and lack of availability is bad news for families, but it’s also bad news for employers and communities who benefit from widespread access to affordable, high quality child care.

Investments in this system need to happen at every level. States and the federal government need to increase compensation funding for early educators, who are some of the lowest paid but most heavily relied upon professionals in our workforce. We must bridge the gap between what parents can afford and what early childhood educators should be paid.  This is work that some states have begun to do with the nearly $40 billion in federal relief funding they received during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can be sustained if Congress passes significant, long-term investment in child care; given the dire need, it makes little sense not to do so.

Which brings us back to Gomez and Castro. They’re part of a group of people who can actually bring their children to work if they need to. Most of America doesn’t have that luxury.

Michelle McCready is the interim CEO of Child Care Aware of America.