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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's really bad. I'm a parent and stunned by posts on DCUM complaining that providers are "giving themselves a raise" with reduced service. They are operating on less money and with more restrictions. Nobody should be surprised when they close. We needed more public funding for child care before the pandemic, there was already a shortage, and it's just getting worse.

https://www.naeyc.org/pandemic-surveys
[quote]
The essential yet chronically undervalued child care sector has sacrificed and struggled to serve children and families since the start of the COVID pandemic. NAEYC’s newest survey, completed between November 13–29, 2020, by more than 6,000 respondents working in child care centers and family child care homes shows that the crisis facing child care is as consistent and devastating today as it was in March and in July. With 56% of child care centers saying they are losing money every day that they remain open, programs are confronting an unsustainable reality, even as they are taking desperate measures - putting supplies on credit cards, drawing down personal savings, and laying off staff - to remain viable for the children and families they serve. Yet despite the steps they are taking to save themselves, the math on their bottom line does not work, and federal relief is needed to stabilize and support this essential sector. [/quote][/quote]

I don't disagree with you but I think the explanation for posters complaining about the costs of childcare that costs a lot while not providing them with what they need is that parents are suffering right now every bit as much as providers. That's the problem with a government that has focused exclusively on other sectors of the economy and ignored the vital needs of the childcare sector (while also shutting down schools and thus driving up demand for childcare, including among people who did not budget for it because they assumed their kids would be attending public school!).

This really is on the government and to some extent on employers who just decided that working parents would absorb the loss of childcare themselves. And when I say working parents, we all know I mostly mean women. And it's no accident that the childcare sector, which is heavily dominated not only by women but by women of color, was also not prioritized by the government at any point as an essential service that needed to be supported to get through both forced closures and loss of revenue due to people pulling kids from daycare and preschool.

This is why Elizabeth Warren and others keep beating the drum of "childcare is infrastructure." It's infrastructure when done by public schools, it's infrastructure when done by private centers, it's infrastructure when done at home. It's essential. And throughout the pandemic the mostly women who have provided this essential service have been expected to do it for less or no pay. It is disgusting. The entire sector needs a real bailout and we should literally just be sending checks to people with kids to pay for childcare. [/quote]

+1.  We have childcare right now, which I am incredibly thankful for, but there is not a day that goes by that I don't stress about it.  My oldest goes to ES next year (so something different to worry about) but we have a 2yo and our daycare center has been sending signals that they are struggling big time.  We moved 2yo there a few months ago to have them at the same place, but sometimes I think we made a mistake as our previous in-home provider seems to be faring much better.  I hate the thought of uprooting him yet again if the center goes under or if we can't find a way to make the reduced hours work in the fall.[/quote]

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