What happens when you promise child care for every kid?
And wage boosts for child care care workers!
I figured I should send this out before the election, since there will be likely little else to discuss after Tuesday night. Consider this a little weekend child care policy distraction :)
I’ll be working Election night and every day for the week after— aiming to bring reporting and analysis for Vox about the results, especially abortion rights and homelessness. I’m also on Twitter, but hoping to use it less going forward given how awful Elon Musk is. I’m on Instagram a lot, and gonna try to use Threads and Bluesky a bit more, as my sense is they’re getting better as Twitter alternatives.
I published a feature this week at Vox that I’m proud of, taking a look at how universal child care in Germany going. Back in 2013 the country established it would be a right for all parents to send their kids to daycare (kita) once they turn one. In 2016, Germany’s highest court also ruled that parents who cannot find a kita spot could sue their local governments for lost wages due not being able to return to work.
This all sounded very interesting and I was really curious to how how this is working for moms in particular. I was lucky to be able to travel there this summer, and work with a translator for some aspects of the reporting. I found the process altogether agitating and surprising, and parts even left me feeling appreciative of the US in ways I definitely wasn’t expecting.
The story ended up being about more than just kita. It’s also about cultural norms, how policies interact with other values and goals, and some of the broader economic pressures on families and countries. I think there are lessons for Americans and policymakers as we have our own conversation here about the future of child care. You can read that story here. And! for the first time, there’s actually also an audio version for Apple News + subscribers, if you happen to be a subscriber.
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The second story I’d consider a “solutions” kind of piece, also in the child care world. This story looks at the idea of wage supplements, which in my view is a practical, and good idea! It’s a way to deal with the problem of extremely low wages in the child sector, without raising fees on stretched parents further. It’s also something a growing number of states are realizing they can do, and I explore some of those models in the piece, and talk to one early childhood educator about how it really changed her life. You can read that here.
Both of these pieces, I should add, which were supported by a grant from the Bainum Family Foundation, and as a result have original photography in them, which I love. We don’t have the budget at Vox to do that for most stories — and I am glad these pieces get to be illustrated with beautiful photos of actual sources in the articles.
Hope everyone has a good weekend, and that you are getting ready to vote if you haven’t already! I’ll see you on the other side..
Rachel