In Our Hands

The Struggle for U.S. Child Care Policy

Elizabeth Palley, Corey S. Shdaimah

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781479860296
• eBook ISBN: 9781479892341
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A call for better child care policies, exploring the reasons why there has been so little headway on a problem that touches so many families.

Working mothers are common in the United States. In over half of all two-parent families, both parents work, and women’s paychecks on average make up 35 percent of their families’ incomes. Most of these families yearn for available and affordable child care—but although most developed countries offer state-funded child care, it remains scarce in the United States. And even in prosperous times, child care is rarely a priority for U.S. policy makers.

In In Our Hands: The Struggle for U.S. Child Care Policy, Elizabeth Palley and Corey S. Shdaimah explore the reasons behind the relative paucity of U.S. child care and child care support. They examine the history of child care advocacy and legislation in the United States, from the Child Care Development Act of the 1970s that was vetoed by Nixon through the Obama administration’s Child Care Development Block Grant. The book includes data from interviews with 23 prominent child care and early education advocates and researchers who have spent their careers seeking expansion of child care policy and funding and an examination of the legislative debates around key child care bills of the last half-century. Palley and Shdaimah analyze the special interest and niche groups that have formed around existing policy, arguing that such groups limit the possibility for debate around U.S. child care policy.

1
Introduction

Child care in the United States has long been seen as a personal concern rather than a societal responsibility. In a widely hailed analysis of work-life media coverage from 1980 to 2006, Joan Williams, Jessica Manvell, and Stephanie Bornstein (2007) critiqued media portrayals of women choosing to “opt out” of paid employment in order to “return” to their mothering role. Their telling title, “‘Opt Out’ or Pushed Out?,” challenged the so-called opt-out revolution. They examined how the media dichotomy did not hold up when examined against the day-to-day realities that shape the choices of women and their families. Media coverage that focused largely on the choices of elite individuals did not discuss that for most women these “choices” are the product of systemic factors that are shaped by workplace and government policies. Though periodically the tragic death of a child in care is reported (Cohn, 2013; Newall, 2013) or an advocacy group issues a press release and is able to gain some media coverage, much recent media coverage of child care has focused on family choices.

In recent years, media coverage has focused on some of the dilemmas facing women and families regarding their need for child care (e.g., Chira, 2013; Graff, 2012; Quart, 2013; Slaughter, 2012). In a review of news articles from 2009 to 2011, surprisingly few focused on the so-called Mommy Wars, which became popular in the past decade and seemingly pit mothers who have opted to remain in careers while placing their children in child care against mothers who have opted out of the paid workforce to stay at home. Nearly all of the articles that referenced the Mommy Wars did so to refute this stark bifurcation. Several pointed out that most U.S. families cannot afford to forgo paid employment, making the luxury of choosing to stay at home in lieu of paid employment an option for few (Clemetson, 2006). Such articles pointed out that most mothers of young children work outside the home (Tyre, Springen, & Juarez, 2006).

Whatever the Mommy Wars say about societal ambivalence regarding custodial care, the popular media have provided a number of examples of women who have been able to circumvent difficult choices. In one article describing “mompreneurs,” Heath (2011) portrays superwomen who have managed to create their own careers while caring for children. Some have done this through economic necessity, like one twenty-eight-year-old single mother of three portrayed in the article; others desired fulfillment of their dual role of parent and professional. The article, which celebrates these extraordinarily successful women, also recognizes that they are “overachievers,” and often pay a high price. In the words of one mompreneur, “The lack of sleep is the hardest part. The kids are up by 5:30. When I put my daughter down for a nap, I do as much work as I can. Sometimes I play hide-and-seek with my kids, and I hide in a good spot so I can write a business e-mail on my BlackBerry. You have to be creative as a mom. Any time a child is sleeping, I am doing work” (Heath, 2011). This is clearly not a template for all families, nor can it inform any kind of feasible broad-based policy solution.

Despite portrayals of women who have it all and some recognition that most mothers work, the popular media continue to focus on women’s choices between work and family. This individualistic perspective obscures the role of government and workplace policies. In a recent example, Katie Couric hosted Michelle Cove, author of I Love Mondays: And Other Confessions from Devoted Working Moms, on her daytime show Katie. The 2012 book relies on anecdotes from women who love their jobs while simultaneously loving their children and caring for their families. The characterization of these stories as “confessions” reveals just how deeply conflicted U.S. women remain about work and family. Cove does an important service in airing these conflicts and challenging the notion that one cannot be committed to both children and work. On her show, Couric (Peterson, 2012) invites feedback on three hypothetical scenarios, including one that involves a call from the school nurse’s office five minutes before a work-related presentation. Couric invites audience members to show whether they would “choose work or your kids” by showing one side of a two-sided paddle: one side features a picture of two diaper-clad babies, the other a cartoon figure of a woman in front of a computer screen.

In response to Couric’s hypothetical, Cove relates a situation that she faced and discusses a range of factors that might influence her decision, including the child’s safety and level of discomfort. Cove, saying “it doesn’t have to be one or the other,” shows how adept mothers have become at minimizing conflict wherever and however possible. She also presumes relatively accommodating workplaces. However, her book and the Couric program discussion make it clear that the popular conversation remains focused on viewing these as individual conflicts that are essentially private matters. We can share and laugh about them for relief, and we can strategize about how to navigate the hurdles, but there is little in the way of critique for the broader systemic factors that produce or contribute to work-family challenges. They are simply not visible or intelligible as public concerns (Harrington, 1999).

The so-called Mommy Wars even fail to capture the experience of everyone who can financially afford to opt out of paid employment. Clemetson (2006) suggests that black middle- and upper-class professional women do not share all of the angst and concern regarding child care with their white counterparts. The choice of forgoing paid employment, even for those who can afford it in the short term, is further constrained by longer-term economic considerations. For professional black women, debates about self-fulfillment can seem incomprehensibly narrow against the need to build sustainable wealth and security for their families. The discussions also pale in comparison to worries about shielding sons and daughters from the perils that black children face growing up, and overlook the practical pull of extended families in need of financial support. Due to discrimination, black and other minority women may also have a harder time returning to work should they leave the workforce to care for young children, thus weighing a potentially higher career cost than white women. Black women may be aware and appreciative of the sacrifices made by earlier generations and the need to set an example for their own children and other black children (Parker, 2005).

These articles, as a group, suggest a potential turning away from the Mommy Wars. Yet, they remain focused on individual decision making. Despite our status as privileged professional women with advanced degrees and relatively flexible academic schedules, we too struggle to address our own child care needs, as do many of our friends, colleagues, and students (see Appendix 1). Like for many others, our caregiving is an ongoing rather than episodic life concern (Coiner & George, 1998; Wolf-Wendel, 2012). This book is our attempt to grapple with why, in the U.S., we have been unable to make any headway on a problem that touches so many families. Child care policy has been explored by many who came before us, and we add our own insights to this important debate.

Previous Literature

This book draws on some of the very important and extensive foundations that have been laid in the field of child care policy research but is unique in a number of ways. The most recent account that focuses on the trajectory of comprehensive federal child care legislation, by Zigler, Marsland, and Lord (2009), provides a rich insider analysis of the political process. Joan Lombardi (2003), also a political insider and analyst, lays out a blueprint for reframing child care in the United States as early childhood education. Other books, like the recent work of Joan Williams (2010), offer an academic legal analysis of U.S. child care policy (see also Alstott, 2004). Yet a third strain of writing in this area is exemplified by the work of Ann Crittenden (2002), who makes an excellent case with popular appeal describing the impact of the lack of affordable, quality child care on women and families. Mary Frances Berry’s (1993) The Politics of Parenthood and Sonya Michel’s (1999) Children’s Interests/Mothers’ Rights both provide comprehensive historical background on the development of American child care policy.

The many works of Sheila Kamerman and Albert Kahn inform the historical political background of American child care policy and provide a comparative perspective (e.g., Kahn & Kamerman, 1991; Kamerman & Kahn, 1976). Others also provide examples of comprehensive child care models in other countries and in the United States (Fagnani, 2012; Kunin, 2012; Waldfogel, 2010). In 2001, Sally Cohen investigated how U.S. politics and procedures for decision making have influenced the development of U.S. child care policy over time. Other related work, including Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (Skocpol, 1992), examines the history and development of child care policies in the United States in the context of U.S. social policy more generally. Still others (e.g., Spain & Bianchi, 1996) have focused on the impact of child care on women in the workplace.

Most of these excellent historical and legislative reviews were published more than ten years ago, and thus cannot address child care policy as it has evolved more recently. While there are no recent books that update this work, much of this information has been updated and expanded in important policy briefs by organizations such as the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.

Despite the overwhelming need and apparent benefits of early child care and education programs, the limited role of government in assisting all families with the provision of care for children and the strategies that interest groups have adopted in an environment of limited political opportunities have hindered serious public debate about a universal child care policy in the United States. Public concern and financing of care for children in the United States have been framed and stigmatized as a poverty issue. Early education has been largely addressed as a separate matter, whereby family care needs are not considered. Paid family leave has been viewed by many as yet a third, and often separate, legislative and policy concern than either early education or child care. By some it is viewed as a threat to family autonomy or a threat to business interests. Others may view child care policy as a legitimate concern, but a lower priority than education or poverty. By addressing child care as a stigmatized poverty issue unconnected to the needs of a more universal working population, and by not considering it as an ongoing concern, public funding for child care is more likely to be subject to cuts in periods of economic downturn. This also means that there is less public attention to influencing or regulating the quality and type of care available.

Groups that might support a universal child care policy including paid parental leave do not see themselves as part of a broad social movement. This weakens all of the interest groups and players who support children and women’s issues. The nature of race and class divisions can partially explain the lack of a unified social movement around this and other gender-related concerns (Weldon, 2006). In order for interest groups to work together, there must be a paradigm shift in how caring for children is characterized in the United States. Child care is not merely a problem for low-income families; parents from all income brackets struggle to find affordable, quality care that provides a solid early education foundation. These are connected themes, and integrating early education and universal care needs can be better addressed by a more comprehensive, unitary, nationwide policy. Problems that parents experience in trying to care for their own children are no longer simply individual problems but rather affect such a large percentage of the population that we, as a country, are experiencing a major social welfare crisis. Nonetheless, there has been limited social mobilization to propel any major social change.

The divides that exist between groups interested in supporting federal involvement in child care policy are historical (Cohen, 2001; Michel, 1999). Educational interest groups have focused on the need to monitor and better regulate preschools and prekindergartens. Child care and child welfare groups have focused on the need to expand the availability of quality care for low-income children and many women’s groups have remained silent on these issues, sometimes advocating for paid parental leave (Palley & Shdaimah, 2011). Interest groups that might be concerned with child care are confronted by antitax groups as well as socially conservative coalitions that have formed a uniform agenda that includes the idea that government should not support child care or any policy that enables women to work more easily. Although some research has suggested that a majority of individual citizens in the United States might support a universal federal child care policy (Dobuzinskis, 2010), there is little in the way of social movement activity to support this type of legislation.

There are many factors that have contributed to the policy vacuum around care and education for young children in the United States. They include the larger political context, political trajectories and interests of the women’s movement, the child care and early education movements, interest group politics, the declining role of labor unions in American politics, the separation of federal and state powers, antigovernment sentiment, and the influence of race on American public policy decision making. In the context of a political system of checks and balances that is designed to foster incremental change, more unity is necessary. Concern about insufficient government support, either federal or state, for child care is not new.

This book adds to the public and scholarly debates in several ways. First, we build on the important work that has come before us and pull the often separate strands together. Our analysis of their combined messages and conceptual frameworks leads to a more holistic picture. Our research also adds new empirical data and analysis to the debate. We review legislative debates, drawing on testimony before congressional subcommittees regarding four major pieces of proposed legislation. We first set up our analysis by examining the role of interest groups, which provides important backdrop that explains the interests and roles of different players in the child care debates, including groups representing the interests of women, unions, conservatives, racial minorities, and business. We carefully chose legislation to represent different eras (the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and 2000s) as well as different focuses (comprehensive child care, child care for low-income families, and emergency family leave). Interviews with policy advocates provide for long-term views of advocacy efforts as well as multiple perspectives from outside of government. The advocates with whom we spoke (and their organizations) have, over the years, had greater access to politicians at different times and have sometimes worked with competing agendas. The blending of their perspectives provides nuance and a rich understanding of the advocacy efforts around child care as it has evolved over the years, including a sober understanding on the part of advocates of what is lost and gained using different political strategies. We draw on social movement and framing literatures to analyze these interview data.

The Context

We wrote this book within the political context of a national budget deficit and calls for reducing spending rather than increasing services and tax revenues (Lowrey, 2013). Despite the introduction of new health insurance policies designed to address unmet health care needs during the first Obama administration, there is currently little public policy discussion about the development of new infrastructure or programs in the United States. States and local governments are faced with ballooning pension expenses and reduced budgets, limiting their ability to expand services. Policy debates in education have generally focused on improving rather than expanding services to include younger children. Recent pushes for pre-K education at the national level indicate some movement on this front (Allen, 2013). There is also currently some state and local advocacy to develop paid parental and sick leave (Taylor, 2013). These efforts indicate a renewed interest in child care policy and that the time is right to review the history of U.S. child care policy in order to better determine the path forward.

Most of the poor in this country are women and children. During the Clinton administration, the major public assistance law was changed to require almost all recipients to work in order to receive financial assistance. Most are mothers who receive benefits as heads of households with children. When these mothers work, they must find someone to help care for their children. Cross-national research has found a correlation between state-supported child care for children younger than three and both maternal ability to work and higher wages for mothers (Misra, Budig, & Boeckmann, 2011). Additional research suggests that cultural attitudes toward women and work affect the success of parental leave and public child care policies on women’s earnings (Budig, Misra, & Böckmann, 2012). However, women’s options are often limited by the availability of resources in their communities. Our culture simply does not place economic value on child (or other) care responsibilities. We have a patchwork of policies that provide temporary assistance to some people in certain circumstances and leave others to address child care as an individual concern. The existing laws frame child care as individual struggles that are largely faced by low-income families. However, this is far from accurate.

When we read testimony from the 1971 hearings on the Nixon-era bill to institute a federal child care program, we saw an emphasis on concerns about work-life balance and leveling the playing field for low-income children. The framing of the need and appropriate government response could have been written today. In fact, these concerns seem even more pressing today. Why, then, have we not progressed? This is especially curious when the problem of child care does not seem to affect any particular population but rather seems to be a universal concern of families.

Child care is not a women’s issue but a family and societal issue, affecting everyone. Despite the entrance of many women who had traditionally served as caregivers into the U.S. labor market, there has been little or no national political discourse around parenting and child care as broad-based social needs (Palley, 2010). There are few national policies that support families as they care for their children in the United States. While multiple frames have been employed to advocate for child care, national funding for child care centers and programs primarily targets low-income children. More recent policies, such as state-based pre-K programs, are more universal, but do not address the extensive care needs of families. In this book, when we discuss child care, we consider early education to be one component of care, even though it is often separated from child care, especially custodial care, in public discourse.

We set out to understand why child care policy in the United States not only lags significantly behind that of our Western European counterparts but also is not on the forefront of any political campaigns or debates. Why, despite the apparent need for more universal legislation to address early child care and education needs in the United States, has there been such limited social mobilization?

The Design of This Book

In Chapter 2, we review the literature on framing and provide analytical lenses for the data that are presented in later chapters. We examine the particular policy context in which U.S. child care policy has been framed. This includes a background on federalism, devolution, campaign finance, and the use of symbolic politics in framing as well as the influence of the structure of government and government procedures on policy development.

Chapter 3 explores the history of child care debates in the United States. In it, we examine the four major pieces of federal legislation that have addressed child care in the past forty years. These bills are the Nixon-era Child Care Development Act, the Act for Better Child Care Services, the Child Care Development Block Grant, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. In this chapter, we examine the language and arguments that were used in the legislative hearings and debates as well as the resulting legislation. We also examine the arguments put forward by the major proponents and opponents who testified on these policies as well as other concerns that were raised during the hearings.

Chapter 4 focuses on the role of advocacy organizations that would appear to be the most likely proponents of a comprehensive child care policy. We use a historical lens to examine why the current women’s movement has not fully aligned itself with the interests of caring for children. More specifically, we examine the role of unions in pioneering child care programs and advocating for child care policy. In addition, we look at the role of child advocacy organizations, including those focused on child welfare and child development ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Framing
• 3 History
• 4 The Role of Interest Groups
• 5 Current U.S. Child Care Policies
• 6 Women and Child Care
• 7 Strategic Framing of Child Care
• 8 Child Care as a Social Movement
• 9 If We Have a Major Social Problem, Why Is There No Movement for Change?
• Afterword
• Appendix 1: A Brief Note on Research Methods
• Appendix 2: Interview Guide for Interest Groups and Organizations Including Unions
• Appendix 3: Study Respondents by Organization and Role
• Appendix 4: Conservative Organization Websites Reviewed
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Authors