Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Here's an interesting editorial in the Des Moines Register (Iowa). I don't necessarily agree with all the comments made... Some seem to have an anti-child care slant to them, but the writer certainly brings up some interesting points. I too would have to agree with the comment about year round school. Purely from a business standpoint, summer creates problems with my family child care, if for no other reason than by being a different makeup of children than the rest of the year. Read the article...
Well... any thoughts or comments? Certainly gives a person something to think about...Where's the Support for Families?
ANDIE DOMINICK - REGISTER EDITORIAL WRITER
June 11, 2006I'm not a farmer. Neither is my husband. So when "summer break" hits, my three children aren't working the fields or milking cows. Just like thousands of other Iowa kids, they're heading to day-care programs and summer camps.
The 100-year-old school calendar, implemented when people were riding in horse-drawn buggies on mud roads, is outdated. And unfortunately there is too little public pressure to implement a year-round school calendar that could improve learning, help kids retain information and accommodate working families.So parents are left scrambling for summer care. And they pay through the nose for it.
In Des Moines, programs and camps for school-age kids range from $100 to $185 per week.
That's after parents spend a small fortune for care during a child's preschool years. In Iowa, preschool care costs an average of $5,373 a year, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies. That's more than 8 percent of the median two-parent family income and more than 25 percent of the median single-parent income. It's also about the same cost as tuition and fees at Iowa State University this year.
Just ask anyone with kids what they pay, and you'll be astounded. A woman in the editorial writers department pays $165 per week for her son's day care. My next-door neighbors have two children and pay nearly $1,100 per month for child care, more than their monthly mortgage. This year,
just summer care for my three school-age kids will cost about $4,000.Day care costs impact the life, work and financial decisions of every family with children.How do families afford it?
Maybe they don't. Maybe that extra day-care expense is just another one of the variables that drives people deeper into debt or forces them to forgo saving for retirement and future college costs. Or worse.
Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi have written a book about the financial stresses on today's families, "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke." Among many troubling truths they explore: Married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts. Families with children are 75 percent more likely to be late on credit-card payments. And they're also more likely to experience a home foreclosure.
How is it that in a country where politicians preach "family values," the family unit isn't valued? If it were, quality day care would be more affordable, and the people caring for kids would be paid a living wage. Why can't this country help families?
Other countries do.
France and other European countries provide publicly financed child care for children under age 3 and preschool care until a child enters the public-school system. Sweden makes it easier for a parent to stay home the first 15 months of a child's life by guaranteeing paid parental leave and mandating the option of working shorter days until a child is 8.
Those countries value families and children, American politicians choose to focus their campaigns on gay marriage, abortion and other hot-button "family" issues. The real problems facing families, such as low wages, lack of health insurance and high child-care costs, don't get much attention.
Spending more than $25,000 on day care before a child reaches kindergarten affects typical families more directly than whether the two women living next door want to tie the knot.
Instead of thinking of children as an investment in the future, those in power harp about the aging population and the looming crisis facing Social security, the high cost of raising a child may be discouraging young couples from having the children who will eventually become workers and pay taxes to support entitlement programs for the elderly. When I asked my neighbor if she and her husband were planning a third child, she said no. Cost was one of the reasons.
Marcia Meyers and Janet Gornik, writing in The American Prospect Magazine a few years ago, calculated it would cost the United States as little as $115 billion per year to provide a generous package of paid family leave and child care comparable to what exists in France or Sweden.
That's about one-third of what American taxpayers will pay for Medicare this year to cover seniors.
Why not a little more investment in the well-being of our children and families?
