Powerful Child Care: Not What You Think

August 1, 2023   |   Brigette Weier

Powerful Childcare: I’ve been in childcare of some form, since the time I was 12 years old and often cared for children several nights a week and on weekends. When I was 16, my dad said it was time for a “real” job-not childcare. So, I went to work at a fast-food restaurant, which I hated. The year was 1988 and honestly, at the time, I was making about as much taking care of neighborhood kids as I was at Wendy’s-which is another blog post, as oh have the tables have turned. But it was striking to me that no one, not my parents, friends or acquaintances, considered childcare a real job. Minimum wage at a fast-food joint, now that was “real.” I kept “babysitting” as I loved it. But I would get asked a lot: couldn’t you work more at Wendy’s instead of babysitting? Shouldn’t you be working on real job skills?  The subtext was and still is childcare isn’t going to gain you influence, stability or power in your life.

That subtext was sometimes not so subtle. In my freshman year of college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I declared an elementary education major. As part of that major, I needed a biological science course. One that sounded interesting was Bioethics, but it was a 301 level and required that as a freshman, I had to receive the professor’s recommendation to enroll in the course. I set up an interview with the instructor and dean of the biology department. He quizzed me on biology, why I wanted to take the class, was I aware I’d be classmates with competitive pre-med students, and he wouldn’t coddle me. I met his every joust with confidence and competency. Finally, he stared at me for a long time and said: “You are too smart to only be a teacher. You should do something more meaningful.” To this day I’m shocked that I had the wherewithal to quip back, “Shouldn’t teachers of young children be smart too?” He had no response to that and enrolled me in the course. (An aside is that I got an “A.”)

Throughout my career in early childhood/childcare (I personally don’t see a distinction-childcare IS education-just on an extended hour basis), whenever folks would find out my vocation, the assumption was that I was uneducated, I only “played with kids” all day, I didn’t really work, and worst of all for me, that I didn’t have any sense of self, agency or power. Oh, those poor, misguided people! Nothing is further from the truth for me or my colleagues in the field!

This is why I am now working to organize with childcare educators. They have always known their own power, and they know it so intimately that they share it with the youngest and most vulnerable in our society: young children. Early childhood folks inherently know what power is about and for: building someone else up and building a robust, thriving community. The most powerful women I have ever known and attempt to emulate are childcare educators. These are women (many women of color) who wrap their power around others in a warm smile, healing hugs and soothing lullabies. I just spent a weekend in Columbus, OH in childcare organizer training with a cohort of such powerful women, learning and listening to their desire for more power not for themselves but to ensure that families and children receive authentic and equitable care.

What would it be for this named and shared power, even if invisible and unvalued by leaders and decision makers, to collaborate and ripple through neighborhoods, communities, and state? What transformation would we see in every other struggling social system? We know that what happens in the early years sets the trajectory for later in life. This is well documented and undisputed. Why is there fear of naming the power of early childcare education and educators?

There may be many responses to that fear, but do you know who is unafraid? Those very people (mostly women) who educate, journey alongside and support young children and their families. These women are unafraid of their power and the power of caring for kids. They are unafraid of messes, hard conversations and their own voices. They are unafraid of builiding their own businesses and unafraid of the future. They know the power of childcare. When we speak of building powerful childcare systems, it’s not a whisper for career justification, but it’s a cry for the sustainability of the most influential, stabilizing and powerful social system that our world has ever known.