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Thank you for taking the time to talk today. I’m not sure exactly how to label our theme — early childhood care, child development, education, child care, home-based child care?
There’s actually a running debate in our field about whether to refer to childcare as education or care. It’s so interesting to me because it’s fundamentally both. You can’t separate the two things.
In fact, there’s a lot of research showing that all learning, whether it’s learning what you need to know for school or just learning how to be a person in the world, has to start with caring and with trust and with love.
I teach an undergraduate seminar with my co-founder, Janna Wagner, and we talk a lot about what messages resonate with people. For the first several years of All Our Kin, I talked about kids all the time.
You would think everybody cares about kids. The evidence is so clear that from the moment children are born — really even while they’re in the womb — their experiences are shaping their brains, who they’re going to become, and how they’re going to thrive in every aspect of their lives.
But it was only when we started speaking the language of business and economics that folks started taking our work seriously.
We speak these different languages, and we communicate to folks in different ways, depending on what aspect of our work they’re able to engage with and care about. I don’t mean to say that no one cares about children. I can just tell you what’s been most effective for us, and what kind of difference we noticed.
Similarly in justice reform, sometimes the conversation could be about developing brains and second chances, forgiveness and love — that feels so clear and obvious to me. But some people were only convinced by economic arguments, all the research showing how much less effective — and more expensive — incarceration is, compared to weaving a depth of community connections that enable real repair and growing to a path of health and future economic success.
Absolutely. And in that same vein, family childcare educators are also supporting their neighborhoods and their communities. They’re running small businesses and bringing in money to the community.
Sometimes they hire people and they’re earning a living and building wealth for themselves — that’s a really important part of the triangle that gets left out a lot. There’s children’s wellbeing. There’s parents’ well-being. And there’s educators’ well-being — it’s about all three.
Childcare providers are amazing to me. They provide these safe and nurturing learning experiences for children at the most important point in their lives, and they also provide support, learning, and mentorship to parents a lot of the time. It’s hard to be a parent. Parents look to their children’s educators for guidance.
In this moment, when so many adults are working multiple jobs to keep up with housing and food and other basic expenses, quality childcare feels more important than ever.
It is. Because of the central role that educators play in the lives of children and families, they are often a stabilizing force, kind of the port in the storm.
Every situation that sends shock waves through a community, whether that’s COVID, whether it’s immigration enforcement activities, whether it’s cuts to vital services, or a local tragedy — all these things affect children and families.
So, educators are often the folks who are providing the reassurance, the connection to resources, the comfort, and the stability in really tough times since they live in the very same neighborhoods that they’re serving.
That really flags the complexity of how to support caregivers, as they support families and their communities.
Yes. We support them in every aspect of their work — becoming licensed and setting up and running good businesses, but also teaching about child development, curriculum, and external facing advocacy, and how to help the world understand why this matters so much.
That having-to-convince others that it matters feels steeped in patriarchy — all the ways that “nurturing” careers are coded female and dismissed or diminished. In this current moment where we’re witnessing patriarchy reasserting itself, have you been seeing echoes of it in the field?
First, I’ll back up and speak to how patriarchy and in an intersectional way, racism have shaped the childcare field, and then talk about specific challenges.
One of the reasons childcare has always been so underfunded, and in some cases regarded with incredible suspicion, is this idea that women “should be” in the home caring for their own babies. Anything that threatens to disrupt that undermines this fundamentally patriarchal system.
That has pretty much always been true. For example, Congress almost passed a universal childcare bill in 1972 but Nixon vetoed it. There was a later attempt in 1975 that was undermined by a campaign saying childcare would destroy the “sanctity of the home.”
So I think this idea that women should be home with their kids has almost always been true. There was one time it wasn’t — and I don’t mean to get nerdy and boring.
Not boring at all.
It helps put today into context.
During World War II, women needed to work jobs that men had been doing before they went away to war, and the Women’s Army Corps was established. It allowed women to serve in different non-combat roles like postal work, which was predominantly a male occupation, especially in a military setting.
The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-Black Women’s Army Corps unit, was sent overseas to clear a huge backlog of undelivered mail in Europe. Despite enduring racial and gender discrimination and awful working conditions, they completed their mission, which significantly boosted troop morale.
All across the country, we suddenly had child care, and universal childcare funding for women who needed it so they could go to work, living out the Rosie the Riveter story. But as soon as the war was over, those child care centers were dismantled, and the culture returned to the assumptions that women should be in the home and shouldn’t be taking jobs that “belong” to men.
I appreciate you sharing that background and context. You also named racism in the history of the field?
That history is really important to acknowledge. When I started in the field, folks really were not talking about it; I’m glad we are now. If you really look at the history of childcare in this country, it starts with slavery and the unpaid involuntary labor of Black women. And then later, the undervalued and exploited labor of brown women. And all of this still persists today.
That’s part of the reason that we as a nation have been so disrespectful, and so slow to support the incredibly important work of childcare educators. That fundamental way of thinking and all these stereotypes that go along with it are baked into how the system was built.
Thank you for lifting it up.
So now, here we are in this moment. There is so much that is at risk for our educators and our children and our families.
The first thing that is hitting most directly is these very disruptive and very frightening immigration enforcement actions in communities all across Connecticut and the country. These enforcement actions are deeply disruptive.
Children are scared. Parents are scared. And some of the educators themselves are scared. In some cases, parents aren’t taking their children to childcare.
The Immigration Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has had for many years a policy in place called the Protected Areas Policies, which says schools, childcare and houses of worship are off limits. That doctrine has been dismantled now. Which means completely. It’s gone.
That’s a massive shift. You can still say to ICE, “You can’t come into my private place of business;” but imagine what it feels like to have to put a sign on your church saying “This is a private community.” But that’s what they have to do to keep their congregants safe.
Do I understand right that any “public space” — a library, or any place where the general public, all are welcome — is now unprotected?
Yes. And when you think about just what it means, how do we think about these places that we have given special value to? It’s very, very troubling. And even if you have a sign posted, and they bang on the door and you open it, that is actually considered an invitation. So you can’t even open the door.
Wow.
I know. This is not my core area, so I’ll stop there. But, one more thing I will say, and this speaks to the deep, deep relationship educators have with families.
One thing that we’re training educators to do is to help parents prepare for the worst scenarios by creating family plans, just in case. As in, what happens to my kid if, for whatever reason, I can’t pick them up? That’s something that all parents should have, but the fact that so many parents feel the need for it now speaks to where we are.
Are you training educators on how to handle things if ICE knocks on their door?
We’re partnering with folks who are leaders in immigration work, so that they deliver those trainings. Then we’re doing specialized trainings like the guardianship agreements, helping educators talk to children about scary times, and other pieces like that.
What other shifts are you experiencing in the field lately?
There’s so much uncertainty about what all the executive orders mean. It’s a very, very scary time, and there’s a general feeling of terror among anyone who’s not white, male, able-bodied, cis-gender, or straight.
It has a huge impact on our work, which is explicitly rooted in a commitment to racial justice and gender justice. It again adds to the feeling of uncertainty — what’s allowed, what’s not allowed.
Educators feel fear, and they help parents navigate fear. Children pick up on their parents’ feelings — it all ripples out. The role that educators play in affirming that children’s identities are welcomed and valued is foundational at a critical point in their lives.
Then there are the cuts on the table to programs that families really need, like Medicaid, SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — and WIC, the Program for Women, Infants, and Children.
If those hit families, they’ll struggle, and educators will scramble to help them find information and connect them to resources, including information on how to help them pay for care. When parents are struggling economically, educators often indirectly take that economic hit because they forego payments to help them through.
Have you noticed a difference in the climate of different communities or states where you’re working?
That’s a great question. In Connecticut and New York, we do direct service work for family childcare educators; then we have partners we’re working really closely with in 33 states on training and technical assistance. What we do is super-relational, so we absolutely see what they’re experiencing. And every state is different, worried about slightly different things.
In other states, our partners are feeling the painful consequences that come with cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and institutions like public education. This makes it so much tougher for families and undermines access to high-quality child care. It’s devastating.
In Connecticut, in some ways, we’re really fortunate. We have leaders at the federal level who are active in advocating for the things that matter most. We have a governor who’s expressed a deep commitment to childcare. We have an administration that I think is actively working to help children and families right now.
And it’s still a hard and scary place to be even with all of that.
Some may think of Connecticut as very wealthy and insulated. But the truth is, Connecticut is a state with tremendous disparities in wealth and access to resources. Where you’re located can influence your experience — and how welcoming the community is to those who look different. So there’s not one unified Connecticut experience.
How did your path lead you to the field of childcare education?
I’ve done a lot of thinking about this over the years and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have a sibling who was born with a host of physical, emotional, and mental challenges — an unbelievably difficult road.
I’m only a couple of years older, but for much of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, in many ways, I was my sibling’s primary advocate, and sometimes caretaker.
I learned through some of those experiences how welcoming or unwelcoming the world can be to children who really need special love and attention. And just the tiniest bit of experience in what a burden the work of care can be.
I think that brought me into a passion for caring for children generally and about wanting every child to be happy and thriving and nurtured and loved. Then, when I actually spent time with family childcare educators, and I saw what the work of care looked like? Wow.
These are educators who have the patience and dedication and welcome all children, including children like my sibling. They work unbelievably hard and they do such an incredible job. I’m in awe of what they do all day, every day, often for more than eight hours a day.
Anything I can do to support those educators, I want to do. And I’m not exaggerating — it’s genuinely an honor to be able to do that. It feels like a blessing to me that I’m able to do this work.
It’s always inspiring to hear when a person and your calling find each other. I know you also went to law school; at what point did this career path become clear to you?
Yeah, I had a very zigzagging path. I originally was not going to do this kind of work. My loves were literature and theater and that’s what I majored in. I deeply believed I was going to change the world through art. I thought my particular calling was theater.
I grew up in Greenwich Village basically on the NYU campus, where my mom teaches and runs a legal services clinic. I was in college at Barnard and Columbia, and I got a job working as an artist in a Manhattan public school. That’s where I met and started to fall in love with middle schoolers and the possibility of working with children.
When I was around 21, I left the city for theater, going on tour with a show to be an actor.
We were on the road and — I shared this story in great detail with my CLP cohort — we got into a very, very bad car accident. Everyone survived, but everyone was really badly hurt — except me. I wasn’t scratched. It was this intense moment, the loneliness of being untouched when everyone else had been.
I remember thinking: ‘I almost just died, and I’m actually not willing to die for this. This is not what I’m here for. What am I willing to die for?’ I thought about the kids in that school — I knew I was here to work on behalf of kids, that’s my calling — although I didn’t know what that meant in reality.
My mom’s work is also part of what shaped me. She does civil rights law — that was always iconic to me. She would tell me stories over the dinner table. I applied to social work school and law school, and I came to New Haven for law school, thinking I was going to go do policy work.
At just the time I entered law school, President Clinton signed this law into effect that had a tagline of “ending welfare as we know it.” It meant that parents on cash assistance essentially had to move into jobs really fast, even if they had really young children. And I was looking for internships. I ended up interning with an organization that later turned into Connecticut Voices for Children.
I was researching the impact that welfare reform was going to have on children and parents who needed childcare. And I was horrified by what I saw. Like the incredible cruelty of forcing parents to make this choice when there were not enough basic places to put kids, let alone nurturing and developmentally appropriate places to put kids.
Once I started to really learn about the disaster of childcare and what was happening right here in New Haven, I really could not stop thinking and worrying about it. I saw a potential small-scale, community-based grassroots solution and ended up being part of its launch.
I started talking to a handful of folks, parents and educators all over New Haven, including Janna Wagner, our co-founder. Anyone who talked to me shared tremendous excitement and enthusiasm about the idea of supporting home-based childcare educators — and I decided this was what I wanted to do.
I would never have envisioned this life for myself in a million years — so many zigzags that led me here. I feel really lucky that we’re still here after 25 years.
Interview with The Circle’s Creative Director & Editor, Lara Herscovitch (Cohort 10). To reach Lara directly: thecircle@clpnewhaven.org or Lara@LaraHerscovitch.com
Learn more about Jessica at All Our Kin and connect with her on LinkedIn