Elliot’s Provocations

The phrase “corporate child care” has always struck me as a bad joke, something that belongs more in a Boss Baby movie than as a substantial part of the U.S. child care landscape.

Some companies are responding to the child care crisis in a somewhat predictable way: they’re looking after their own. Stories have been emerging about a proliferation of on-site child care programs; an NPR article a few weeks ago noted that

The U.S. child care system falls deeper into crisis with every passing day. The sector is still missing 100,000 educators compared to before the pandemic, and amid a competitive labor market, the staffing recovery has slowed to a crawl.

I wrote last year about the strange schism between early child care and school-aged child care, and I don’t want to belabor the point other than to say parents of school-aged children represent a shockingly untapped care constituency. Instead, I want to talk about summer care, and summer camp specifically.

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

In our talk of care, we frequently focus on questions of where, who and what. We rarely ask questions of why we care and what it means to care. Similarly, much of the modern care conversation centers around (very real!) struggles and scarcity. That’s why I was so pleased to read journalist Elissa Strauss’ new book, When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others.

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.

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.

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.

A recent column by the popular center-left writer Matt Yglesias reinforced for me yet again why we need a different foundation for our care arguments.