Why everyone should care about child care
[Music]
my daughter
was born backwards instead of the way we
expect babies to be born
headfirst or by c-section i pushed my
stubborn daughter out of me
feet first now when i tell you in two
weeks i’d be involuntarily committed to
mount sinai’s psychiatric ward with
postpartum depression
a place i stayed 18 days would you be
surprised
as i looked out the window from my
calming lavender colored room
with no lock on the door and relentless
bed checks i was stunned
about what this all meant for her and i
but
what i was most worried about in that
moment of crisis
was work not my daughter’s health
not my own but my work
that i’d never work again that i would
lose the work i love
perhaps i was insane but i know i’m not
the first one to put work
first self-second
not everyone lands in the psych ward
right after having a baby
but the child care and work challenge is
universal
when families have to reduce their hours
families risk their income the labor
force shrinks and our economic health
suffers
when the early education of children is
a luxury for the few who can pay for it
we all take that gut punch
helping more parents access work and be
their whole selves at work
is critical for the economy
child care is sometimes thought of as a
kids issue
i want you to consider it an economic
imperative
a very grown-up issue
employers rarely invite us to be a
hundred percent ourselves at work
parents and non-parents often hide parts
of themselves in order to be seen as
professional
what part of yourself do you suppress in
order to maintain a professional
identity
for some it’s afternoon volunteer
meetings
or sports league away games for others
it’s entire identities
needing a prayer room caring for a sick
cousin
grieving a loss for parents
it’s the screaming toddler who wants a
snack right when your online meeting is
about to begin
you know this friction i haven’t met
many people who enjoy
screaming children on work calls with
half-focused colleagues
and i know it’s unfair to say you’ve had
it easy in lockdown because you don’t
have
kids that statement undermines the many
ways your whole self has been affected
by covid19
these are barriers between our authentic
selves and our work selves
the more we try to separate the two the
more we drift
into a lose-lose reality
i know this reality intimately
when my father died by suicide
i told my team he died of a heart thing
i lied about it because i felt like my
grieving self was irrelevant
that crying would make me unprofessional
i faced the reality of wanting to take
care of my own mental health which
included working productively
especially after the psych ward grieving
my father’s death and finding affordable
child care
simultaneously while pregnant again
it all came to a head with the birth of
my second child
my child care options were one
lean on family hard for me to do long
term
two spend fifty thousand
dollars a year on child care
who can afford that or three quit my job
for a lower paying part-time one
and care for the kids myself these are
the options facing
every working parent and frankly mostly
marginalized genders
since they still hold the child care
burden and are the ones
leaving the workforce due to lack of
child care options
50 000 per
year
i saw an opportunity what if i invested
the money i’d be spending regardless
so i turned an old bank into a
co-working facility with a child care
room
and there was something so delicious
about turning a bank vault into a nap
suite
for tired parents it was not easy
the workaround was born
every day i watch parents be more
efficient in four hours than over a full
day of back-to-back meetings
especially when there is no other option
like with jack the son of one of our
members
jack has congenital heart disease and
his parent
jen is the lower income earner in her
household
jen is an amazing photographer and
fiercely loves jack but jack’s health
needs mean few child care options
so we welcomed jack and roger and ori
and kofi and a ton of other children
with exceptionalities
parents who would otherwise leave the
work they love
for the children they also love
choice is an illusion
i watched parents go from working once
or twice a week
to having to hire employees because they
were so busy
all while their kids were nearby
connected
to their parents professional purpose
still what annoys me is when somebody
hears i built office space with daycare
they say how has that not existed before
seemed so obvious to have kids at work
but it’s not
we continue to come up with all these
work innovations without solving the
biggest
and most urgent friction of all
as canada entered lockdown in march we
learned that over a million women
had their hours cut that month women
lost more jobs because they’re more
likely to work and industries hit the
worst
like service retail and food racialized
communities were hit disproportionately
so
but but when we reopened the economy
women didn’t return to those jobs in
great numbers
it’s women and non-binary individuals
who on average earn less so they made
the call
to stay home with the kids if it was
between mom and dad by the way
an assumption could be dad and dad
cousin and grandma
mom and mom and daycare
small business has had it rough
i dread walking to work and seeing
business owners my friends with
20 years experience closing their
restaurants and salons and
play places to care for their kids the
truth is
many brick and mortar shops including
local daycares
are on the brink of collapse we cannot
rebuild main street without small
business
but we need child care
first we need it now
we know how to do this we know how to
build infrastructure to get parents to
work
we’ve done it with transit which we
largely invest in to deliver people
to their workplace child care is no
different bringing our whole
selves to work unlocks potential and we
should want that for everyone
but parents can’t access their whole
selves because they are
fundamentally blocked by child care
care in all forms is essential to our
shared economic health
you may never need child care but you
will need your care
or your family’s care prioritized at
work
but it would be a whole lot easier if it
was with
work whether you see
child care as an economic or equality
battle a feminist issue
the government’s problem a childhood
development strategy or
simply this parent needs a god damn
day off plea
this is your fight too
here’s the thing supporting colleagues
at work
with kids also lessens the load on the
ones who don’t have kids
for example you can put in no meetings
role between 8 to 10 am
and 4 to 6 pm that’s when kids are
hungry and loud
or brunch meetups instead of evening
team beers
we’ve created a wildly imbalanced
professional world where
not everyone can fully participate
marginalized genders precarious workers
and especially
people of color are disproportionately
affected by this
backwards work first approach
we start to resolve this by accepting
that the productivity and prosperity of
parents
is linked to the productivity and
prosperity of non-parents of business
and of the economy that care and
business are indeed
two sides of the same coin
what happens when we start prioritizing
care at work
starting with child care sets the stage
for many other opportunities
mental health challenges family changes
all the things that make us
human the economy is made up of the sum
of our collective efforts together
we can build a better a new version of
capitalism
that sees child care directly related to
our
economic and personal potential
with my daughter’s birth i learned it’s
much easier to bring your head and heart
through
first then everything else follows
smoothly
it’s why we normally birth babies head
first
what happens if you show up with your
whole identity
passions and loved ones first
everything else is easier once you
accomplish that
a new way forward is possible
start with child care
will you join me in caring
[Music]