Child Care

How America should spend on child care

Unlike most rich European countries, America lacks a coherent public child-care regime. But it has come surprisingly close to having one. During the second world war Congress set up federal child-care centres to encourage women to work in factories; these were later dismantled.

Child-Care Workers Might Not Come Back

Centers are closed, pay is low, and young kids aren’t vaccinated. Some caregivers have had enough.

One weird trick to fix our broken child care system

Early education in the US is endlessly convoluted, and a massive expense for lower- and middle-class families. What if the solution were as straightforward as making child care a “good” job?

Public School Is a Child’s Right. Should Preschool Be Also?

Europe provides an example: Many countries there provide universal early childhood programs, free or subsidized. In many nations, more than 90 percent of children are in preschool at age 3; in France and Britain, it’s nearly 100 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Silicon Valley Discovers an Age-Old Child Care Hack: The Neighbors

Otter, a new child care platform, is attracting millions of dollars in venture capital. But can it fix a broken industry?

The case for revolutionizing child care in America

Parents of the world, unite! OK, so Dana Suskind's call to arms doesn't have quite that revolutionary zeal. But it comes close. In her new book, Parent Nation, Suskind says millions of kids in America are getting left behind during their first three years of life — years that a heap of scientific evidence says are crucial to their brain development.

Why Child Care Should Be a Right—Not a Perk

For families struggling with so much out of their control, Warner suggests, it’s time for a major intervention—both societal and governmental—to ensure that all women are able to work in a way that lets them be independent and ensure the security of their families.

A Day in America Without Child Care

We asked parents all around the country to record how one weekday unfolded for them, hour by hour.

Why Expanding Access to Childcare Isn't Enough

Quality matters quite a lot—especially for boys.

Affordable Child Care: The Secret to a Better Economy

High-quality child care is a win-win, helping to raise earnings now and increase productivity over the long term while enriching the lives of children.

An Open Letter to Daycare

We know it isn’t cheap or easy to keep your programs running. But we appreciate everything you do, every single day. We know you care. We really, really do.

Confessions of a {Former} Daycare Teacher

So here are 6 things I wish I could have said as a daycare teacher...

Day Care Disrespect: Why What We Call Child Care Matters

The term day care prioritizes the “day” over the “care” — and days don’t need any care. They just roll along on their own. We know children do not roll along successfully on their own. We know the good outcomes that can occur when they receive good care.

How Child Care Enriches Mothers, and Especially the Sons They Raise

As many American parents know, hiring care for young children during the workday is punishingly expensive, costing the typical family about a third of its income. Helping parents pay for that care would be expensive for society, too. Yet recent studies show that of any policy aimed to help struggling families, aid for high-quality care has the biggest economic payoff for parents and their children — and even their grandchildren.

How To Run A Home Daycare

This site is designed to help new and experienced child care providers. It helps answer the question “How do I start a daycare?” It also guides new caregivers through the first year of growing pains, and supports the experienced caregiver with fresh ideas and inspiration.

How Universal Child Care Affects Boys vs. Girls

While a child’s gender may affect how they respond to a program, many behavioral issues could be the result what happens at home. It remains critical that parents play an active and positive role in their child’s life, regardless of whether they have access to universal care—or whether they have a son or a daughter.

The Case for Day Care at the Office

Child-care centers can be expensive and complex to run. But companies say they pay off in employee morale and retention.

The Cost of Child Care in America Is Even More Outrageous Than You Thought

The average cost of enrolling a child age 4 or younger full-time at a child care center in America is $9,589 a year, which is higher than the average cost of in-state college tuition.

The Hell of American Day Care

An investigation into the barely regulated, unsafe business of looking after our children.

The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In

The culture of motherhood, post-recession, had altered considerably, too. The women of the opt-out revolution left the work force at a time when the prevailing ideas about motherhood idealized full-time, round-the-clock, child-centered devotion.

America’s Child-Care Equilibrium Has Shattered

Although care is expensive for parents—often obscenely so—providers are paid a pittance. And now there isn’t even enough expensive child care to go around.

British child care is expensive

Making it more affordable would help some mothers into paid work.

Child Care Is A Public Good. Our Government Should Start Treating It That Way

Even before the pandemic, half of U.S. families were living in child care deserts, and too many families were spending far too much of their income on child care. If we don’t want to reverse course and go back to the ways things were, we need our government to treat child care as a public good that is vital to the wellbeing of our society and our economy. We need child care that is affordable and accessible for everyone.

Child Care Providers Face Challenges Looking After The Children Of Essential Workers

They're really trying to weigh the balance between safety of themselves, of the children, of the people who come to work with them against their own financial needs.

Child Care Should Be Universal and Well-Paid — Not Just Affordable

Child care in the United States is frustrating for everyone involved: Families pay way too much for daycare, or are priced out of child care programs altogether and care providers earn far too little. The pandemic has made a child care overhaul both more challenging and more necessary.

Childcare : what the science says

People get very upset when they feel that science disagrees with their personal choices, whether that’s on climate change, vaccination, GMOs or childcare. You probably have strong views on childcare. If so, please stop reading. You’re not going to get anything out of this, and I hate making people unhappy.

How Do Your Childcare Costs Compare to the Rest of the Country?

While there are torrents of reliable information on the price of education, healthcare and other essential costs of raising a child, the expected bill for childcare is much hazier.

Is Childcare a Right?

Even before COVID-19 shut down many providers, finding good, affordable childcare has been a longstanding problem for many families. Legal historian Deborah Dinner writes that back in the 1960s, feminists tried to address this issue. They saw childcare not as a market commodity or need-based social program but as a right.

Is it safe for day care centers to be open right now?

Even as they weigh the risks of reopening, the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to put many child care centers out of business.

Meet the women “disrupting” the child care industry with Loom

Child care has always been a fraught topic of conversation, especially within the context of big business. Not everyone has access to basic information, satisfactory care and a network of doctors who can guide them through their first years of child rearing. But two women in Los Angeles have taken matters into their own hands to change that.

The Child Care Crisis: Innovations To The Rescue.

The pandemic has created an unparalleled need and opportunity for reimagining how Americans access and receive child care. Demand for quality solutions is rising, and innovations are meeting the diverse needs of families seeking child care. It is now time for the next piece of the child care puzzle: greater public funding to make access to innovations and quality solutions more equitable.

The Day Care Dilemma

Forget whether “opting-out” is good or bad for parents. How does it impact kids?

The early years are getting increasing attention

Early-childhood education and care is attracting a surge of interest in most rich countries. Increasingly, it is moving out of the home and into institutions, a process experts inelegantly call “defamilisation”. Across the oecd, average enrolment of three- to five-year-olds rose from 75% in 2005 to 85% in 2016. One reason, as already noted, is to make it easier for women to go out to work,

The future of the economy hinges on child care

We must bail out the industry that allows millions of parents to work.

The Right of Women to Child Care in the United States

This essay argues that international law binds the United States to adopt comprehensive policy providing accessible and affordable child care as a right of women. Women disproportionately assume the responsibility of unpaid and undervalued child care and therefore are impeded from full participation in public life.

The U.S. Leaves Parents On Their Own for a Reason

America’s lack of family support rests on a false assumption: that providing help discourages parents from taking responsibility for their children.

The Working-to-Afford-Child-Care Conundrum

Many parents get caught in such a loop, but that doesn’t mean the solution is to just stay home with the kids.

Why Child Care Is So Ridiculously Expensive

Three broad reasons obtaining care for kids now costs as much as buying a brand new Hyundai Elantra each year

Why the US doesn’t have universal child care (anymore)

Why the US doesn’t have universal child care (anymore)

The Childcare Crisis

Affordable childcare is at once one of the most tantalizing promises of contemporary American life, and the most broken. Our modern economy cannot function without a system for the nurturing of our youngest citizens—as of 2017 there were nearly 15 million children under 6 in this country with all available parents in the workforce.

11 Terrifying Childcare Inventions From The Early 20th Century

There are certain areas of expertise that came naturally to us over the years: cars, space, aviation, and computers, to name a few. During the first half of the past century, we even provided practical features for scientifically-minded housewives. But children and babies? Not so much.

12 Things Your Daycare Provider Wishes You Knew

I retired from daycare almost a year ago and think about those years often when I meet new moms who are putting their child in daycare for the first time. I always like to offer advice from the perspective of the daycare provider and share things with them that I wish had been shared with my parents when they first started in my daycare. So here is a list of the things your daycare provider wishes they could tell you...

5 charts that show child care in the US is broken

There are many weaknesses to child care in the US. Until children are school-aged, many parents are left to scramble for a way to work without neglecting their children. And many of those families end up paying high prices...often without getting high quality in return.

8 Truths About Home Daycare from a Provider

I frequently see articles that offer “truths about home daycare” (and childcare in general) pop up across social media. The thing I notice most about all these articles is that they almost always offer a completely negative view on childcare and daycare providers. They tell parents that their child is not safe, is not eating healthy, is watching TV all day, and many other negative things.

Dreading that daycare drop-off? Here are 8 tips to make it easier

“We know from the research that a good daycare is very positive for your baby’s growing independence, learning and socialization,” Wittenberg says. But to make that leap, we’ve rounded up a few tips to smooth the transition to daycare for both parent and child.

Daycare.com

Daycare.com was founded in 1997 by Sheri and Michael Castello. The concept for a daycare site was driven by Sheri's frustration when she embarked on her own search for suitable daycare for her and Michael's son, Jonathan. The mission of Daycare.com LLC is threefold: First, we wish to provide parents with an easy to use daycare finding resource. Second, to provide daycare operators with an efficient and effective means of announcing their services. And finally, we wish to provide both communities with value-added information related to child care services and products.

Otter

Otter matches parents who need childcare with caregivers in their community.

Care.com

Care is a global need without geographic or demographic boundaries. At some point, every person and every family will have care needs, be it for children, seniors, pets or even homes. Our

UrbanSitter

Your community’s most trusted babysitters & nannies. On‑demand.

Bright Horizons

Bright Horizons Family Solutions® is a leading provider of early education and preschools, employer-sponsored child care, back-up care, educational advisory services and other work/life solutions.

Child Care Aware

Child Care Aware® is the nation’s most respected hub of child care information for parents and child care providers. Our program helps families and providers locate child care resources in their communities across the United States.

DaycareAnswers.com

This site is geared to anyone working in the child care industry including childcare providers, preschool teachers and nannies.

ZERO TO THREE

Our mission is to ensure that all babies and toddlers have a strong start in life. At ZERO TO THREE, we envision a society that has the knowledge and will to support all infants and toddlers in reaching their full potential.

Child Care Marketing Solutions

At Child Care Marketing Solutions you will receive training and coaching from our professional, highly educated and experienced staff. We put our diverse skill-set to work in helping you to succeed and grow your business.

National Child Care Association

Our mission is to promote the success of licensed providers in quality early care and education, including the provision of professional development, advocacy and community engagement.

Procare Solutions

Easily manage every part of your child care business by letting Procare organize family information, track attendance, automate tuition collection and do more for you!

Teach Preschool

Welcome to Teach Preschool! Here you will find a library of DIY projects to promote play-based learning in your classroom. You'll also find a selection of workshops and music you can purchase today!

Tom Copeland's Taking Care of Business

I’m Tom Copeland and I’m here to assist family child care providers become more successful in their business. Family child care is a unique home-based business where children are cared for in the home of the provider.