CHILD CARE

LAST SPRING, AT A DALLAS YWCA SEMINAR called “Climbing the Corporate Ladder,” the audience of a hundred or so women quickly dispensed with discussions of corporate politics, one-minute managing, and other things they don’t teach you at business school. That was in order to address the topic that was really on their minds: child care. For the next ninety minutes, the debate raged over the quality and quantity of local day care, and the role of the corporation versus government versus individual families in the child care issue. At the core of the discussion was a basic truth: there are unprecedented numbers of women in the work force, the majority of whom need-or will need-suitable day care for their preschool children. Society, fairly or not, still assigns child care to the mother, and for years, the issue of caring for children has surfaced in polls as women’s number one concern. If there was one theme that echoed again and again that morning, it was this: incredible pressures fell on working parents once they bear children.

In Dallas, a city that now boasts more working women than any city in the U.S. except for Washington, D.C., the child care issue is a measure both of how far we have come and how far we still have to go. In some instances, Dallas’s day care programs are models admired on a national scale. Local businesses like Lomas & Nettleton, Zale Corporation, and Trammell Crow Company provide excellent centers for their employees and have received glowing media reports. But there remains a tremendous gap. Many local service organizations list the child care issue as a high priority and have worked diligently to improve local conditions. Still, the situation is worsening for the majority of women even as it is getting better for some: the supply simply cannot keep up with the demand for day care services.

The need for day care, it is useful to remember, is relatively new. The traditional family model glued together by a stay-at-home mom fell apart as a result of two historic forces: the women’s movement and a shifting economy. First came the feminists of the Sixties who encouraged housewives to seek employment outside the home. Some even blame feminism for having caused the current child care crisis by failing to foresee the conflict that would arise between work and family life. But the big blow was dealt by economic forces. Suddenly the middle-class dream of having a house and a two-car garage carried a dual-income price tag; it was no longer possible for the average family to acquire the necessities, let alone the luxuries, of American life on one breadwinner’s income.

The addition of millions of women to the American work force has had profound effects. But while we have become increasingly dependent on female labor, we have been slow-maddeningly slow, some authorities say-in providing women with the support services that they require as a result of their movement into the working world.

“It is really shocking to see how our society views birth and rearing of children compared to other industrialized nations,” Karen Nussbaum, executive director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women told Time magazine. “The United States is the worst. We are the only Western industrialized society that believes it is the sole financial responsibility of women to bear and rear children.” Indeed, the U.S. lags behind almost every other industrialized nation, and much of the world, in offering quality child care. More than a hundred other countries have national policies, and many European nations have extensive networks of centers that are subsidized and regulated by government. The U.S., on the other hand, lacks any legislation guaranteeing parents a leave of absence following the birth of a baby. Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last January that states may require businesses to provide maternity leaves with job security, only 40 percent of working women receive such protection. And even for them, the leaves are generally brief and without pay.

As the Eighties draw to a close, few disagree that the day care problem is reaching crisis proportions. Increasingly, the debate centers on the question of who will pick up the tab. How much responsibility for child care belongs to the corporation? To the government? To the individual family? Some businesses are already viewing child care assistance as “the perk of the Nineties.” According to Harvard economist David Bloom, the generation of workers graduating from college right now may have an easier time than previous generations. “They belong to the baby bust generation, and their numbers are small. Child care arrangements will be their fringe benefit,” Bloom told Time. “If nothing else, the economics of the situation will provoke a change of attitude in business-just as the politics of the situation are changing the attitude of government. In order to attract the necessary women and men into the labor force, employers are going to have to help them find ways to cope with their duties as parents.”

Not all Dallas-area businesses share in this enlightened view. Many have shown lit-tle interest in helping their employees cope with child care arrangements. Some are skeptical of the potential payback in employee productivity. Some are ignorant of the options open to them, while others are wary of committing resources in a bad economy, some businesses plead all three reasons. A epresentative from Electronic Data Sys-ems, who served on the panel at last spring’s ’Corporate Ladder” seminar, explained that er company is wary of an on-site child care operation because of the problems that might arise in employee-management relations. If, say, an employee is unhappy with the care her child is receiving, she might carry those feelings of ill will over into her job, officials at EDS fear.

So far, on-site day care has drawn most of the media attention. A few visible, highly successful facilities like the one at Lomas & Nettleton-which was the focus of a nationally televised report on the MacNeil/ Lehrer Newshour last June-offer tangible evidence of the worth of such centers. According to Kate Wheeler, director of the Lomas & Nettleton School, the center attracts prospective employees and reduces turnover of current workers who don’t want to pull their children out of the school. Nearly every study done on the topic, including one by Lomas & Nettleton, finds that on-site care reduces employee absenteeism for parents with children in the school, sometimes by as much as 50 percent.

But as valuable as these corporate day care programs are, they are not the only solution. According to Susan Lund, executive director of Child Care Partnership, “Corporate child care is not the answer for everyone, and in fact, it leaves out a lot of people, namely those who work in corporations that don’t or can’t fill that void.”

Local corporations are moving in other ways to assist their employees, ranging from assistance in finding a good day care center to innovative ways of helping pay for it. Parkland Hospital and IBM have both opted for the relatively inexpensive solution of hooking in with a Dallas-area research and referral service, which is sold to companies at a cost determined by the number of employees and the number of times those employees use the service. Steven R. Nathan, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Parkland, says that the system is working very well. “For only $11,000 a year, we can help to provide child care for our staff.” This is the first year for the program, and sixty-four Parkland employees have availed themselves of it.

The S&A Restaurant Corporation (owners of Steak & Ale) also offers a referral service to its employees, but added a twist: the Dependent Care Spending Account Plan. An employee first determines how much money he or she spends annually for child care. Then that amount is withdrawn each pay period on a pre-tax basis, For example, a couple making $35,000 determines that they spend $3,000 on child care. They then commit $3,000 in tax-free dollars per year to the Dependent Care Spending Account. Each month, after submitting proof of child care expenses, the employee is issued a tax-free check for $250. This way, the employee lowers her taxable income and raises the amount she has left to spend.

Levy Curry, vice president of human resources for S&A Restaurants, says the company may take the child care credit system one step further: child care vouchers are on the horizon, he says. (Procter & Gamble is currently offering this program nationally.)

But most activists in the child care field don’t believe that corporations should bear all the responsibility for footing the child care bill: they look to government to pitch in, too, Locally, Dallas has been slow to respond, but thanks primarily to the political footwork of former mayor Starke Taylor, the city is at least off to a halting start. The city helps to fund Child Care Partnership, a nonprofit group that offers research and referral services, educational materials on the issue, and assistance to local companies investigating dependent care assistance. The city continues to fund a few low-income centers, but because of budget cuts can cater only to the working poor, and only to about one hundred families at that. A long-term goal at City Hall is to have a city-run resource and referral system.

For now, Child Care Answers, a joint project of the Child Care Partnership and Child Care Dallas, is going a long way to fill the referral void. Staffed by volunteers from the Junior League of Dallas, the center offers parents free referral the first time they call, and only a minimal charge for searches thereafter.

The most sweeping changes currently being discussed would come from proposed new laws. Pending at both the state and national level is legislation to require companies employing fifteen or more persons to grant up to eighteen weeks of unpaid leave over a twenty-four-month period to parents coping with birth, adoption, or the serious illness of a child, without discontinuing the parent’s benefits. The bills were the subject of an evening seminar sponsored by the Women’s Center of Dallas last July. Speaking in favor of the legislation was Linda Coffee, a Dallas attorney who served as co-counsel for Jane Roe in the landmark Roe v. Wade case. “We cannot count on companies to offer parental leave on a volunteer basis,1’ Coffee said. “Companies will continue to slide by with what little they can give employees, especially in the current economy where health benefits and extras are the first to get cut. Without some piece of legislation, too much is left to the employer’s discretion.”

But the legislation has attracted even more vocal and vociferous opposition. According to Jennifer Youpa, attorney at Jenkins and Gilchrist, the bills are basically anti-small business. Such a mandate, she says, could cripple a small firm forced to go eighteen weeks without a key employee. Youpa-who was seven months pregnant at the time of the seminar-believes that employee benefits should be negotiated between employer and employee without interference from the government. “If the government begins to mandate certain benefits, you’ll take away the competitive edge in business. And employee benefits are a big negotiating tool.”

The bill has also been criticized as amounting to little more than “Yuppie Welfare,” skewed toward those who can afford to be without a paycheck for eighteen weeks. Opponents also charge that it might lead to discrimination against women of child-bearing age simply because businesses can’t afford-or refuse-to ante up for the leave. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which actively opposes the bills in Congress, has weighed in with objections based on costs. The chamber estimates that such mandated leave would cost American business $23.8 billion annually. They theorize that companies might be forced to reduce other benefits to compensate for their increased costs, just when the idea of “cafeteria-style” benefits is taking hold. More and more businesses are offering a series of benefits (dental care, eye care, child care) from which an employee can pick and choose. With mandated parental leave, opponents of the bills say, companies might not be able to offer such a full plate.



OTHER LEGISLATION PENDING IN CON-gress would shore up the day care industry itself-an industry that has suffered its own crises even as demand for care grows. Highly publicized scandals involving kidnappings and child molesting-not to mention skyrocketing insurance costs-have diminished the appeal of the day care field. Just at a time when parents are demanding more and better care, working conditions within the field have been shown to be abysmal. Long hours, low pay, high stress, and few perks are frequent complaints among workers in day care. “Child care workers are subsidizing the industry by accepting these conditions,” says Susan Lund of Child Care Partnership. “Parents-especially new parents-complain that day care is expensive, but I don’t think they understand what they’re buying. It is sad that the people who take care of our children could make more money working in a fast-food restaurant.”

There’s a fundamental mindset in this country, say child care educators, that lumps caring for children in with menial labor, Local colleges that offer child care and child development courses are trying hard to erase that stigma. They report no shortage of students-but they say today’s graduate in the field wants more than a glorified babysitting job. “We urge them to chart a career course that may start with teaching, but will eventually grow into some other kind of leadership role,” says Deanna R. Tate, associate professor of Family and Consumer Studies at Texas Woman’s University. Usually that means starting their own child care centers, and like any other small business, this path is fraught with booby traps that can lead to financial ruin in a hurry. “Many of the centers we’ve looked at are undercapitalized to begin with,” says Tate. “The owner digs into his own pocket to subsidize the business, and goes at it until he’s either worn out or completely disinterested.”

“The industry [attracts] people who don’t have much business experience,” says Shirley Smith, accreditation coordinator for Child Care Partnership. Accreditation, say industry experts, can change that.

Accreditation, which is sweeping the day care industry, is a voluntary process through which a center can undergo an exhaustive self-examination with the help of representatives of the Academy of Early Childhood Programs. The academy makes recommendations to bring the center up to the stringent guidelines of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. It’s not cheap. The self-evaluation process costs $50 to $200 depending on enrollment size, but currently thirty-one of the estimated 600 to 700 local day care centers in Dallas County have been accredited and another sixty-four are going through the process.

For many centers, it’s the first crash course they’ve taken in small business management. “Everyone benefits from goal setting and self-examination,” Smith explains, “but it can be intimidating. I mean, we’re talking about a group of people Who are already overworked and very personally involved in their programs, and we’re asking them to take a hard look at themselves and how they do business. That’s scary.”

The rewards, however, appear to be worth the risks. The NAEYC guidelines reach much further than typical state regulatory standards, which cover nutrition, health, and safety but do not address staff development or curriculum.



WITH CONTROVERSY SWIRLING WITHIN the day care industry and around it, it’s clear that the issue of who provides child care and who pays for it is here to stay. Just two months ago, a bipartisan group of congress-women led by Colorado Democrat Patricia Schroeder banded together to encourage employer programs by singling out the nation’s ten most innovative child care programs. Spurred by a fear that budget constraints will reduce the federal role even further, the group appears eager to substitute the carrot for the stick.

There will always be employers and legislators and lobbyists who believe that parents should bear responsibility for childcare. Sweeping social change occurs slowly, and the day care issue requires many torethink ideas about family and work that arerooted several generations back. The key,says Susan Lund, is education-and that willtake time.

Lund believes that the answer to the child care question now and for the future lies in a pluralist approach: many solutions and choices for both parents and employers. “The media is in love with] the idea that the corporate benefit of the Nineties will be on-site child care programs,” Lund complains. “I spoke with the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour people for two solid days, expressing my belief that that won’t be the only way the world will go. But they still focused on that in their program. In the future we must work on all fronts. We need to professionalize the child care industry. But we must be careful not to put all our eggs in one basket.”