Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us about Work and Family

SIX. Child Care Dilemmas

72 chapter six  Child Care Dilemmas Cry, baby bunting, Father’s gone a-hunting, Mother’s gone a-milking, Sister’s gone a-silking, And brother’s gone to buy a skin To wrap the baby bunting in. english poem, 1784  How American society configures the relationships among mothers, fathers, and children tells us something important about how our culture shapes gender, work, and identity. While biology determines the reality that women give birth, it is our culture that situates mothers as the principal caretakers and companions of young children.1 While individuals may buck these norms, they often find they are swimming against the current. Jane, a twenty-six-year veteran in the field of child care and the director of a child development center we interviewed for this study, told us that while she has noticed more interest and involvement on the part of dads in child care issues, moms continue to play the dominant role. This cultural norm of women’s role as primary caregiver collides with the competing role of ideal worker. The key issue in all of this is who, how, when, and where the kids are cared for while mom is at work. Struggles over how to negotiate this dilemma surfaced as a key concern for women we interviewed. In some cases, the child care dilemma resulted in women quitting their jobs or downsizing their careers. As working moms ourselves, we do not intend to say that combining children and careers cannot be done. On the contrary, as Child Care Dilemmas 73 documented in chapter 4, many women find viable ways to combine paid work with raising children. Some couples are able to share child care responsibilities between themselves. Others have the advantage of extended family members who assist with caring for the children. And still others manage to find nonrelative care options that fit their family’s needs and budget. Some families are quite satisfied with how child care fits into their lives and think their children benefit in terms of practice at social interaction, problem solving, and selfsuf ficiency skills. Unfortunately, however, as we heard from many of the women we interviewed who are working or who have left their jobs to be at-home moms, many families continue to struggle with reliable, long-term solutions to their child care dilemmas. Women we interviewed described how even when resolved to work, finding someone to care for their children created a significant barrier to employment. In this chapter, we focus on the structural obstacles that create these difficulties, namely the mismatch between the availability of acceptable and affordable care options and the child care needs of working families. This mismatch between care options and workplace demands is central to understanding the phenomenon of women reducing or resigning from their careers. Why Is Child Care a Barrier? Why do so many women at all income levels say that securing suitable child care presents a barrier to employment? The simple answer is that for many families, good quality, affordable child care is not available when and where they need it. Sometimes the care is available , but expensive. Often, even the expensive, high-quality care is not available. And even when available and affordable, the hours provided may not meet the needs of workers, especially dual-career parents. The modern workplace imposes demands on workers outside of a traditional nine-to-five workday, and these demands often collide with child care arrangements that conform to this schedule (in part so the child care workers can get home to care for their own children). Parents want high-quality care for their children, in a convenient 74 Chapter Six location, that offers flexibility in the daily schedule. Parents want to leave their children in a clean, safe, and nurturing environment, preferably close to their homes or their workplaces. They desire low child-teacher ratios, qualified teachers, and the option of dropping off their children before, or picking them up after, standard working hours. The mismatch between what parents want and what is available for child care can be seen in terms of available “slots,” the quality of care, costs, and schedule. All of this stands in stark contrast to the child care options available to families. Jane, the child development center director, remarked , “The industry is slow growing.” She went on to note that “low pay, few benefits, high...