Every working American with small children knows how expensive it can be to pay a babysitter or pay for child care in general. Statistics show that Americans spend $4,000 to $10,000 annually to keep one child in child care. This can be more than what students pay for a state college tuition.
Of course, grandparents can be enlisted to help. Twenty-one percent of American children under the age of four stay at home with their grandparents. Most parents, however, do not have this opportunity. American grandparents are not always willing to help without payment; 15 percent accept money from their children for babysitting.
In the United States, a federal government-funded system of child care centers has gotten little chance to take root. This is why child care centers in our country are largely privately-owned. Their monopoly is a result of policies put in place more than half a century ago by conservative groups.
Indeed, in our country, for a short time, child care was supported by the federal budget. Centers were opened during World War II when many men left for war and women replaced these men in the workforce, thus requiring a place to leave their children while at work. The innovation had much to recommend for itself. It may have been developed further, but government-supported child care centers in the United States closed at the end of the war.
Politics interfered with the development of childcare. Conservatives believed (many of them still hold this point of view today) that it was better for women to stay at home and raise children on their own. A system of government-supported child care would have created additional employment opportunities for women; however, mass influx of women into the job market was at odds with conservative understanding of American “cultural values.” True, they did not imagine all the consequences of such a one-sided approach.
After closing the government-supported child care centers in the post-war years, the U.S. government introduced monetary subsidies for single mothers. With these benefits, it was possible for single mothers to stay at home and not think about working. The liberal journal American Prospect believes – and I agree – that it was specifically this step which led to the wide proliferation of welfare. However, the thoughtful conservatives, whose legislation prompted welfare become the norm for millions, began to blame their opponents for everything. Liberals, they said, had encouraged spongers with their soft laws.
At the same time, the conservative’s welfare reform led to nowhere. After all, conservatives always overlooked the most important thing in their proposals: what should be done with the children of these citizens who were about to return to work? In calling for changes, the reformers consciously turned a blind eye to the fact that poor and low-income people did not have the ability to pay for a babysitter or enroll their children in private child care centers. When they were reminded that it was necessary to appropriate more money to meet these goals, welfare and its recipients were overlooked.
In developing reform for government aid to the poor in the 1990s, Republicans finally took the mistakes of their predecessors into account. It was decided that funds would be appropriated to such families, as well as to low-income families, for private child care. Unfortunately, as time would show, the size of the subsidies turned out to be insufficient. Many child care centers refused to accept children from poor families since the government’s allotment did not cover even half of the monthly payment. And many parents could not cover the difference.
As a result, incidences of children who died because they had been left in parked cars by their parents became more frequent, and quite a few single mothers were prosecuted for treating their children with negligence.
For example, the case of Nakia Burgess received nationwide notoriety. Mrs. Burgess, a resident of Atlanta, Georgia kept losing jobs because she was not able to find an affordable child care center. She decided to take her daughter Asan'te to work with her. Every hour the mother would run out to the parking lot to check on her child, whom she had left in the car. And this was in the summer. The car was stifling hot and the next time Nakia opened the car door, she found Asan'te unconscious. The girl never came to and died in the hospital. The mother was prosecuted and during the investigation, many working Americans expressed sympathy and support for her. After all, the tragedy was not caused so much by a lack of concern by the mother but by the indifference of the system.
It must be acknowledged that state governments show much greater sensitivity than Washington, when helping the working poor. Their resources, however, are extremely limited. In 1996, 44 percent of poor single mothers were working, now more than 60 percent are. There just isn’t enough money for everyone.
Attempts by the Democrats to obtain an increase in child care subsidies from Congress and the White House have met and continue to meet powerful opposition. In 2002, experts from the Congressional Budget Office calculated that an additional $5 billion had to be appropriated between 2003 and 2007 to help poor and low-income families pay for babysitters and child care. Democrats in the Senate raised this figure to $11 billion; but Republicans in the House of Representatives balked: “We won’t give more than $1 billion above the allotted limits.” As a result, poor parents did not receive a cent in additional subsidies.
Meanwhile, according to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), the number of children in poor families increased from 9.1 million in 2000 to 9.8 million in 2004. At the same time, many states have had to significantly reduce their contributions to subsidized child care programs because of cuts in the federal program known as Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Moreover, as the NWLC notes, in most states, the government has been forced to: narrow the criteria by which aid recipients are selected; keep families who have asked for subsidies on long waiting lists; and increase the amount of additional payments made by parents.
In his budget plan published last week, President Bush made further cuts to CCDBG subsidies. What will this lead to? Advocates for the poor have already done the calculations: in 2011, the number of people receiving child care subsidies will be reduced by 25 percent compared to 2000. This fact is also depressing because today, as it was five years ago, only one parent from a family that qualifies for a child care subsidy receives it.
The behavior of the current administration is even more shocking; the Budget Reconciliation bill stipulates stricter requirements for reforming welfare. Neither Bush nor his fellow Republicans in Congress seem to be concerned about where those who have been reformed will leave their children. Well, they do have more pressing problems like financing the war in Iraq and continually cutting taxes. Meanwhile, statistics show that the chance of yesterday's welfare recipients keeping their jobs is 82 percent higher when they receive child care subsidies. It would also be relevant to recall that two-thirds of poor single mothers spend up to 40 percent of their income on babysitters or child care.
Many liberal experts believe that the United States should change its child care policy and stop relying exclusively on private business. If we have a state school system, why shouldn't we have a similar system for pre-school? Why not expand government child care aid to the middle class as well? Al Gore presented positive answers to these questions during his presidential campaign. But, alas, it was not Gore's fate to become president.
Let's recall that the majority of highly developed countries in the West consider it their responsibility to help parents care for their children. It is only in the United States, the richest capitalist country, that this idea is constantly shunned.
Although he acknowledges in his article "The Real Child Care Crisis" that almost 40 percent of working women in the United States are single mothers, widows, divorcees or married women whose husbands earn less than $15,000 per year, the conservative journalist Brian Phillips decisively speaks out against government intervention in the child care system. "I am generally against any child care subsidies," he writes. "They only encourage irresponsible people to lead irresponsible lives. You wanted to have children? So be good and take care of them. And if you're not able to do this, then there was no reason to have children in the first place."
Unfortunately, many Republicans, who strenuously fight against abortion and do not want to help poor parents pay for child care, share this philosophy.
This is a glaring example of political and moral hypocrisy.
