Information
Whether by necessity or choice, women are usually caretakers within their families—most often for children. While all families with children struggle and make sacrifices, for those families with children not yet in school, the choices are much more limited. Options for care remain scant, and are usually determined by a family’s location and economic circumstances. Families with preschool-aged children spend, on average, between 10 and 20 percent of their earnings on care for their children. These costs are a significant sum for all families, and for low-income families, the burden is particularly severe.
The federal Head Start program funds local centers to provide prekindergarten for children of low-income families, but there is no federally funded program for young children in all families. We can look to some states that have universal prekindergarten programs, such as Georgia, as best-practice examples, and fight for similar programs in our own states. Georgia’s program has proven extremely successful in creating real options for families. About 70 percent of all 4-year-olds in Georgia are enrolled in the program; families can choose which type of care they prefer, whether it is a private center, the local YMCA, a public school, or a religious institution.
The present situation for families with children is bleak; we must support the expansion of child-care choices for all families. For young women, the time to act is now; without a significant change in our current child-care system, our already limited and unaffordable child-care options could be further diminished.
Take Action!
Visit the Family Initiative at www.familyinitiative.org. A project of Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), the goal of the Family Initiative is to educate, engage, and mobilize families from all walks of life to support major public investment in quality child care, preschool and afterschool. The initiative’s Web site is action-oriented, with a different online campaign every week.
Links
Early Education Programs by State from Education Week.
The Family Initiative
A project of Legal Momentun (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), the goal of the Family Initiative is to educate, engage, and mobilize families from all walks of life to support major public investments in quality child-care, preschool, and afterschool programs. The initiative’s Web site is action-oriented, with a different online campaign every week.
Families and Work Institute
Families and Work Institute (FWI) is a nonprofit center for research that provides data to inform decisionmaking on the changing workplace, family, and community.
Mothers and More
Serving over 7,500 mothers in the United States and beyond, Mothers and More is a nonprofit membership organization that cares for the caregiver. It provides a nationwide network of local chapters for mothers who are—by choice or circumstance—altering their participation in the paid workplace over the course of their active parenting years.
National Institute for Early Education Research
The National Institute for Early Education Research supports early childhood education initiatives by providing objective, nonpartisan information based on research. The goal of NIEER is to produce and communicate the knowledge base required to ensure that every American child can receive a good education at ages three and four.
