Bush Dismantles Child Care

What kind of society have we become? Before members of Congress departed for recess, they gave President George W. Bush -- hardly known for his wisdom or compassion -- the right to define what constitutes torture and to suspend the constitutional right of habeas corpus. But our elected representatives couldn't find time to pass the Labor, Health and Human Service appropriations bill which, among things, funds child care.

The "Child Care Crisis" -- the absence of anyone to care for America's children, elderly and disabled -- has turned into the new millennium's version of the "Problem That Has No Name," It is the 800-pound elephant that sits in Congress, our homes and offices -- gigantic, but ignored.

And, it keeps getting worse. According to a new 50-state report on child care policies just released by the National Women's Law Center, the Bush administration has successfully dismantled government services for children. State funds for child care assistance have fallen for the fifth year in a row. The problem will soon become catastrophic when large numbers of single mothers bump up against their five-year life limit on welfare.

The report portrays a bleak picture of our national child care deficit. Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of NWLC, says that: "The new federal welfare work requirement [passed this year] creates more demand for child care assistance without providing enough funding to meet that demand." No big surprise here. Many of us always knew that the elimination of guaranteed welfare -- replaced by Temporary Assistance to Need Families -- was designed to reduce the number of women on the welfare rolls, not to reduce poverty.

The report also finds that states are failing to adequately compensate providers. Helen Blank, NWLC director of leadership and public policy, describes the consequences of paying child care workers such poor wages:

Low-income children are denied critical early learning experiences. Parents find it difficult to access the child care they need to work. And providers, who are often low-income women themselves, face earning less or going out of business.

Poor working mothers face other barriers as well. Two-thirds of the states have raised the income eligibility and copayments for child care and 18 states have long waiting lists. All of these barriers to adequate childcare make it extremely difficult for women to work, feel confident that their children are safe and to get off welfare.

But do either Democrats or Republicans think this constitutes a threat to the national security of our society? No. In fact, more than three decades after Congress passed -- and President Richard Nixon vetoed -- the 1971 comprehensive child care legislation, child care has all but dropped off the national political agenda. And, with each passing year, the child care crisis only grows larger, burdening the lives of working mothers. But it never reaches our nation's political agenda.

Anti-feminists naturally blame the women's movement for abandoning their children for the impossible ideal of "having it all." But it was journalists and popular writers, not women's rights activists, who created the myth of the "superwoman." Feminists of the 1960s and 1970s always knew that women couldn't do it alone. In fact, they insisted that men share the housework and child rearing and that government and business should provide and subsidize child care.

Single mothers naturally suffer the most from the child care crisis, but even with two parents, there is not much time for family life. Parents become overwhelmed, children feel cranky, workers quietly seethe and gulp antacids and sleeping pills, and volunteering in community life gradually vanishes.

Overworked American families, whose time spent at work has increased three extra weeks between 1986 and 1997, suffer from what sociologist Arlie Hochschild has called a "time bind." But both social conservatives and the Religious Right, who glorify "family values," refuse to support any national effort to help working families regain a sense of stability and balance.