Elliot’s Provocations

There is a concept, variously used in science and business, known as the “valley of death.” In essence, this is the dangerous period between research & development and on-the-ground adoption where many ideas and ventures fail.

Last fall, I received an email from a distraught mother.

Two pieces of news over the past few weeks are causing me to update my prediction and become far more concerned about the coming years.

Last year, I wrote a column on five trends to look for in 2023 (which I think in retrospect were mostly apt, though the answer to ‘is bipartisanship possible’ seems to have been ‘outlook not so good’), and thought it would be worthwhile to do it again as the calendar gets ready to turn.

If you’ve been following my work at all, you know I bristle at many “incremental” solutions to child care challenges.

Amid major union actions in the auto and entertainment industries and a historic looming strike by health care workers, I want to talk about the role of unions in child care.

If caregiving is labor, if caregiving supports child development, if caregiving boosts the economy, if caregiving enables family flourishing, then how can we say only institutional programs belong within child care policy?

I dislike the economic case for child care. I’m not talking about my take on the role of employers, but the near-constant way lawmakers and advocates of both parties rest their case for supporting child care on its function as an economic driver.

Linking early child care and school-aged care is a good idea both on the merits and the politics. I’m hardly the first one to point this out, but I want to highlight the opportunity here as we head into summer break and the acute headache it causes for many families.

If you’ve been following my work for the past year, you know I am deeply concerned about how unprepared our child- and family-serving systems are for this new reality. I’m not the only one. A new report puts a fine point on why early care & education stakeholders need to have a climate strategy, and why public officials need to have ECE in their climate strategy: a staggering number of child care programs are under threat.