Op-Ed: DC must do more for families by fully funding the BirthtoThree Act

Originally published in The DC Line on February 27, 2020

When my husband and I first began looking for child care while I was pregnant with our first child in 2013, we were overwhelmed by the difficulty of finding it. We toured several child care centers, paid application fees and heard nothing back. We never made it off the waitlists. I did receive one call from a day care center saying that a spot was finally available — when my new baby was 3 years old and enrolled in public pre-K.

This experience isn’t unique to my family. In 2020, we can do more for families.

This is why I’ve joined the Under 3 DC coalition to advocate for Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council to fully invest in high-quality, affordable and accessible child care by funding the Birth to Three for All Act. The act, which was passed in 2018, would expand subsidies to make child care more accessible to more families, increase the salaries of early childhood educators, and invest in additional supports, such as home visits and health services for families of infants and toddlers. These promising reforms can only be implemented if our leaders provide adequate funding in the city’s annual budget every year.

Because we never got a spot at an infant day care center, we hired a professional nanny who cared for our baby along with another child. When our daughter was 18 months old, our nanny gave us two weeks’ notice of her resignation. At that point in my life, all the struggles that come with being an employed mom in a patriarchal society with minimal support systems for parents were weighing me down. The reality that we needed to find child care within two weeks was the straw that broke my back. And so I quit my job and became a full-time mom. I managed to do some part-time work during my daughter’s naps and with the occasional babysitter. We eventually found a full-time preschool program for my daughter, and I was able to focus on my career again. 

We had our second child, and all of the child care struggles began again. My second daughter was in three different child care centers during her first three years of life. Two notified us that, as of the very next day, she could no longer attend because of licensing issues with the center. I couldn’t believe that we were — again — scrambling for last-minute child care. We finally settled at a wonderful center that took amazing care of my daughter, but it cost us more than $425 per week — that’s $22,100 annually — which is actually slightly less than the average cost in DC, the most expensive jurisdiction in the country for infant child care.

It was a lot of money, but what is more troubling is that the wonderful caretakers and educators who made us feel so cared for and safe are themselves likely being compensated just a little over that. The average annual earnings of early childhood educators in DC is only $32,330, despite the specialized care and professional expertise they provide our youngest and most vulnerable residents. At this salary, many are barely able to provide for their own families. 

There is a sexist and racist history behind the low wages earned by early childhood educators. The labor market for domestic service and care work in the United States has been the domain of women of color ever since white settlers enslaved Black Africans and their descendants, as explained in the National Women’s Law Center’s report “Undervalued.” Persistent stereotypes about gender and race continue to devalue the jobs in which women, and especially women of color, predominate. Today 93% of child care workers in the region are women and nearly 75% of child care workers in DC are Black or Hispanic. They and other women of color are also generally paid less than white women for doing the same job, mirroring the reality that the income wage gap between Black and white women is the fastest growing form of income inequality in the United States.

By investing in the Birth to Three for All Act, we can expand access to child care for all families while reversing the centuries-old practice of underpaying and undervaluing the often Black and brown women who care for and educate our youngest residents.

The District has been a leader in its investments in public preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. It is time to also reach our babies and toddlers, meet the diverse needs of families, and support working mothers. Just as important, we need to value the work of child care workers and educators. By fully funding the Birth to Three Act, the District can make these investments, strengthen our communities and lift up the working families who need it the most.