The Magic of Full-Day Child Care

The key to more income and sanity is simple

Photo by Catherine Hammond on Unsplash

The call came at the end of September. After two years on the wait list, my son had been accepted into the best full-day child care program in our town. We had 48 hours to accept the offer, but there was no real debate involved. Sure, the hallways smelled liked disinfectant and the locked doors gave it a vaguely institutional feel, but this was our chance.

I could return to normal work hours, have dates with my husband, exercise more than once a week. Best of all: We would save money. Because this center is licensed by the state, it offers federally-funded tuition subsidies to families with lower incomes. And thanks to the enormous hit our paychecks took from juggling part-time child care and self-employment, we qualified. For the first time since our 4-year-old was born, we would pay child care costs that were proportionate to our income, instead of draining our savings to cover them.

I was giddy with the new freedom. “Your hair looks more relaxed,” my friend said when she saw me a few weeks later.

In the first month our son enrolled, I accepted a temporary gig that paid a third of my income for the year. It was a job I never could have taken before, because it required a 20-hour per week commitment, plus a 12-hour, deadline-heavy Election Day. That was impossible when I spent three hours a day shuttling my son between part-time day care centers, and then working, cooking, attending doctors appointments, and conducting life in two-hour stretches while he was gone.

Numerous studies back up my experience. In late September, the White House Council on Economic Advisers published an issue brief showing that universal pre-K programs for 4-year-olds increased the employment rate for mothers with young children. In October, Catherine Rampell reported in The Washington Post:

A groundbreaking new study from researchers at Yale and Brown universities shows spending on child care as one of the most effective, pro-work policies ever evaluated in the United States. Using tax data and other administrative records, they found that every dollar spent on a program providing free, full-time day care for preschoolers generated $6 in economic benefits. Most of that return came from extra pay that parents could earn because they had additional hours of care for their kids.

The study shows that a universal pre-K program in New Haven, Connecticut increased parents’ income by more than 21%, and the income gains continued for at least six years. Middle-income families benefited the most.

As my income grew, so did my confidence. Suddenly I could devote more than a few minutes a day to myself—not just shower and shove food in my mouth, but actually pursue my goals.

Not every job opportunity panned out. Sometimes I felt guilty for picking my son up at 5 p.m., instead of 4:30 p.m., just so I could take a walk and go to the library, but eventually that guilt faded. Didn’t I deserve fresh air and books?

And my son was happy. It took him about a week to stop asking why his best friend wasn’t in his new class, but he adjusted. He loved his teachers. He loved feeding the class fish. He came home talking about letters and numbers and days of the week, and finally gained confidence riding a bike.

On a date night in December, our babysitter noticed the change in my demeanor. I was attending a work Christmas party for the first time in eight years, and had applied lipstick. “What’s going on, Lisa?” she asked. “You look so pretty.”

I believe every American family deserves this. As I reported in The Assembly in October, the child care shortage is damaging the economy and parents’ mental health. We should not have to win a two-year lottery to secure affordable, high-quality care. It should be as simple as fresh air and books: a basic human right.