Lost wages. Untapped talent. Women suffer the most from child care system in crisis

Editor's Note: This op-ed is part of a special report by the Ideas Lab on child care in Wisconsin ahead of a special session of the Legislature Sept 20.

Our fragile childcare system, unraveling as we go, has a profound impact, often unseen. There are countless examples, in every community, perhaps even the family next door.

The unraveling catches the family already struggling to find special needs child care, complicated more so in learning the occupational therapist they’ve worked with is now out of the workforce due to cost and lack of child care for their own infant and toddler.

It snarls growth for the thriving hand-made pasta entrepreneur, frustrated and constrained in her expansion efforts as she cannot find affordable child care for her kids.

Women face myriad of difficult career, life, and family choices

Women, straining to meet family and career demands, may wearily decide to just stay home, with future goals, earnings, and leadership potential hampered or unrealized.

Also, what of single parents working to feed, house, and love their children? There can be no decision to leave the workforce, as they are the sole earner.

The problems of fragile child care sneak into personal considerations: should we have another child? Just how much money do I need to make to afford child care? The questions will be different based on family needs, but the problem is the same, with the most basic question relevant to all, how can I work without child care?

We prize self-determination and productivity, yet, as a community we have turned a blind eye to the truth that parents can’t work without reliable child care. It’s like expecting someone to drive a car down the road with no wheels. We fail to link individual experiences with child care barriers to the collapsing child care infrastructure due to an ongoing market failure and a system of ineffective policies and processes.

Moms forced to cut back hours or quit without quality care

The toll of this crisis is particularly harsh for women and well documented. One study showed that three times as many women than men have at some point cut back on hours or quit a job because of the quality of childcare that was available. And twice as many women as men report that the cost of childcare was a consideration in planning for their careers.

These decisions and sacrifices impact the future financial security of women: being able to afford health insurance, contributions and potential employer matches to a retirement saving plan, reduced social security benefits, and lower wages after returning to the workforce.

Let's stop turning a blind eye and address the underlying causes of the unraveling child care system, including our failure to provide sustainable and sufficient investment into child care as an essential community infrastructure and our reliance on women to take on the burden of this unraveling.

More perspectives on child care in Wisconsin:

• Wait lists. High costs. Poor quality. I don't work because of broken child care system.

• Child care is collapsing. We'll all lose if more centers close their doors

• Child care crisis costs state's economy $1.9 billion annually

• We run the only licensed group child care center in town. Staying open is no certainty.

We can and must do better. This starts with acknowledging the true cost of care and the tremendous value inherent in early care and education for children and the economy. It then involves supporting a shift to working on root causes such as building a mechanism for sustainable, commensurate wages and benefits for a talented, vital workforce, those who care and educate our children.

We can achieve solutions that foster strong early care and education, strong families and communities, and strong economic growth, but only if we recognize our individual and collective roles in reweaving a stronger and more sustainable child care tapestry. The time is now to join the movement underway in Wisconsin to advance this vision.

Suzanne Brault is principal at Brault Consulting LLC, which provides strategic support and guidance to public sector and non-profit organizations.  Her areas of expertise include advocacy, cross-sector relationship building, and early care and education. Julie Keller is executive director of the Women’s Fund for the Fox Valley Region.

About this special report: We invited experts, providers and parents to provide perspectives as state lawmakers meet in a special session Sept. 20 to consider a plan by Gov. Tony Evers to provide $365 million for Child Care Counts, a pandemic-era program to keep early childhood education centers open. Evers and Democrats tried on multiple occasions to include $340 million in permanent funding for the program in the state budget was adopted last summer but Republican lawmakers included $15 million for other child care services instead.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Affordable daycare necessity for women who are sole wage earners