It used to be that one person in the family could work to put food on the table and a roof over the family’s head. Those days are long gone, however, and both parents have to work to afford mortgage payments, trips to the grocery store, electricity and more.
With both parents working their tushies off, it often creates a conundrum when school is done for the day. It’s not always possible for parents to work different schedules so that at least one of them is home at the same time the school bus drops the children off. That means sending kids to a child care facility until one of the parents gets off from work.
That’d be a good thing — if there were enough facilities. There aren’t, though, and that makes it very difficult for the working class when they’re required to be at a job eight or more hours per day. Not everybody works from home now that the pandemic’s over — except for farmers, of course — and not every workplace is cool with letting the rugrats hang out until the five o’clock that’s somewhere actually gets here.
Growing up, I had to watch my younger sister when my mother went back to work full-time, because one paycheck was not enough to keep us solvent. However, society today frowns on children ages 10 and 11 being left to handle the younger kids while the parents are at work. Thus, the need for child care.
The need is so great that the schools are trying to fill that void, too. The Shawano School District is proposing having part of Hillcrest Primary School be dedicated to child care as part of its spring referendum. The Wittenberg-Birnamwood School District is also looking at developing a child care facility as it grapples with the issue of keeping staff in western Shawano County and not losing people to places where child care is more abundant.
So how do we fix the situation? Unfortunately, adjusting our economy so both parents aren’t required to work to afford a home, food and more doesn’t seem likely or even feasible. Therefore, things need to shift to providing more child care facilities.
Of course, things look bleak, according to Gov. Tony Evers’ latest State of the State address. He noted that the Child Care Counts program is coming to a close in terms of federal funding, and without continued investments, more than 2,100 child care programs will come to a close, leaving over 87,000 children without someone to watch over them.
Evers took $170 million in emergency state funding to keep the program up and running for a while longer, but that money will eventually run out, which means the ball is in the Wisconsin Legislature’s court to find a solution.
In the meantime, the schools are picking up the slack when they already have the enormous task of educating children for seven or eight hours a day, and then having to watch over them in the early mornings or late afternoons. That works for school districts that can afford it, but what about the districts that can’t?
Where does the ultimate solution lie? Do we storm our municipal governments and task them with finding a solution? Do we hope that the state government can put aside party politics and come up with a plan? Do we get desperate and ask the federal government to resolve the issue?
Then there’s the question of what the solution will be. Should the schools be the solution? Should we send the kids to the area libraries, which would be a good idea if the libraries could afford to be open every day that parents are working? Should there be a recruitment effort to get more people into the child care business and maybe make it simpler for them to get the training they need to handle a dozen or so hyperactive munchkins?
It’s clear we’ve got a problem. The solution is not so clear. Hopefully someone more qualified than I can take this problem and help it to evaporate.
Lee Pulaski is the city editor for NEW Media. Readers can contact him at lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com.
Categories
