88 Time October 21–28, 2019
day care, and Beckford sometimes felt
uneasy about the lack of regulation, but
it was all she could afford. “My child suf-
fered because I spent less time with him
than I spent with other people’s kids,” she
says now. “It’s the truth.”
The adage that the children are our
future isn’t often thought of in terms
of gross domestic product. But quality
affordable childcare is directly related to
the health of our future economy. A 2017
white paper from the U.S. Census Bureau
that followed more than 2 million
children for five years found those
who were in state-subsidized childcare
centers were less likely to repeat a year
of school than those in family day care or
with relatives or babysitters.
Studies also show that enrollment in
high-quality early-childhood education
programs before the age of 5—a critical
period for brain development—affects
the lives of children years later. A 2017
meta-analysis led by researchers at the
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
which looked at studies conducted from
1960 to 2016, found that children who
participated in such programs were less
likely to be placed in special-education
classes or to be held back a grade, and
more likely to graduate from high school.
“Building the children’s potential is
about building the country’s potential,”
says Betsey Stevenson, professor of
economics and public policy at the
University of Michigan. “People usually
take low unemployment and rising
wages as a time to start families,” she
says, but that’s not happening. She
believes today’s childcare crisis will
have effects for decades. “There’s an
entire generation of people that are
putting off, perhaps forever, having
children because they can’t manage to
figure out how it would work.” The data
supports Stevenson, with one exception.
In 2017, families with incomes of less
than $10,000 had higher birth rates than
all others. In the long run, this could
cause a fundamental economic shift,
or as Stevenson puts it: “Basically, the
middle-class babies won’t get born.”
Deveau, the mother in Boston, says
she and her husband won’t even talk
about having a second child before her
daughter is in preschool. “It drives me
bananas when people say, ‘If you can’t
afford to have a child, don’t have it,’ ”
she says. “I can afford to have a child, I
just can’t afford to pay for their care for
the first three years of their life. That
shouldn’t be the benchmark for whether
or not you should have children.”
Conservative and liberal economists
agree that an effective solution must
come from some form of government
investment in childcare, as well as
better paid-parental-leave policies so
people can afford to look after their own
children for at least the first few months.
The Trump Administration is
currently hosting a series of roundtables
with parents, childcare providers and
state regulators to explore the challenges
that childcare businesses face. This will
culminate with a White House summit
in November to discuss possible action.
“We’re working with governors to see if
there are policies in place that limit the
supply [of childcare providers] without
actually benefiting the quality,” says
Ivanka Trump.
On the other side of the aisle, Senator
Warren set a standard among Democratic
presidential candidates when she
unveiled a proposal for a wealth tax on
incomes above $50 million, the revenue
from which would be used to fund
universal childcare. Her plan, which
would cost $70 billion per year, would
ensure free childcare for families earning
less than 200% of the federal poverty line
and would cap childcare costs at 7% of
household income for all other families.
As Democratic presidential candi-
dates have cycled through Iowa in recent
months, talking more about childcare and
paid family leave than in recent election
cycles, VanderGaast sees an opening. The
Iowa day-care director, who also sits on
the Cedar County Democratic Commit-
tee, has tried to make her case to them
directly. She invited Jill Biden to her day-
care center during a scheduled visit to
Tipton. She met Warren, Klobuchar and
O’Rourke, warning that universal pre-K,
alone, would be insufficient for parents
and detrimental to day cares like hers.
As she notices more local conver-
sation about day-care deserts and dis-
cussions of childcare affordability on
presidential-debate stages, she is hope-
ful things might start to change. Her
day care—and several million American
families—are depending on it. Jamison eats lunch
prepared by his nanny,
Deki Choden; Choden
makes just under six
figures, but sends
much of her income
overseas to support her
two young sonsSociety