Elliot’s Provocations

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.

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.

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.

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?