Brooke Barry: We must solve child care challenges to rebuild, recover

With communities still navigating the pandemic, families and child care providers are encouraged by the much-deserved attention being given to the essential role that early care and education play for families, educators and our economy. The child care industry is still recovering from near-collapse, and so, the question is, will the attention come with a meaningful investment to address the root causes of America’s child care crisis?

As a child care provider, I experienced firsthand how covid-19 exacerbated our community’s child care challenges. The pandemic pushed an already unstable industry to the brink, forcing widespread closures to early learning facilities across the country. In Pennsylvania, nearly 800 child care programs have closed permanently and another 350 temporarily closed. Some of these programs were high-quality providers that had been serving their community for decades. I have struggled with my child care business, because I was no longer able to take drop-ins due to covid.

I am grateful for the American Rescue Plan and other crucial relief measures from the past year that provided emergency relief to prevent the child care industry from collapsing entirely. However, we must also recognize that our country’s child care market was fragile before the pandemic, with challenges in both supply and demand. One-time relief funding that only intends to keep providers afloat and ensure workers could access child care during the pandemic will not be able to address the existential flaws of America’s child care market.

Prior to the pandemic, 70% of children ages 0-5 in Pennsylvania had all available adults in their household in the workplace. Like most states, half of Pennsylvanians lived in areas where the supply of licensed child care was scarce, and the average cost of child care was over $10,000 a year. If families were struggling then to find and afford the care options they needed, what will their struggle look like now as they try to return to work?

Prior to the pandemic, I know many families that struggled to find infant child care. This struggle for them is now magnified greatly.

This is all taking place as hardworking providers who are caring for and educating our nation’s next generation are struggling to make ends meet. The cost of providing care and education to young children is considerably higher than providing K-12 education. Yet child care providers can only charge what families in their area can afford. In Pennsylvania this translates to many teachers making less than $11/hour with no benefits and poverty wages. This means teachers leave the field they love and programs struggle to maintain qualified staff, negatively impacting children and families. Ultimately, it is an untenable business model for the child care sector as a whole.

It is time that we, as a nation, confront and commit to resolving the child care challenges hindering many families’ economic security, our children’s long-term success and the continued prosperity of America’s economy. Making a substantial and sustained investment in America’s early care and education system by approving the funding included in the American Families Plan will be a big step in the right direction.

Brooke Barry owns Brooke Barry’s Home Childcare in Swissvale.She is a “sign on supporter” of Trying Together, a local early childhood advocacy organization, and a member of the Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children (pennaeyc.com), an advocacy group based in Harrisburg.