Crisis Conversations: Childcare Reckoning

Schools, summer camps and childcare centers are closed — and many may not reopen until next year. How are parents supposed to manage work, childcare and homeschooling? The childcare crisis is about to become even more acute, as many parents who lost their jobs due to the pandemic have already exhausted the temporary 12-week paid leave Congress passed in early spring. What will it take to build a truly high-quality, universal system that benefits everyone?    Host: Brigid Schulte, Director, Better Life Lab at New America   Guests: Caitlyn Collins Sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving Renée Boynton-Jarrett Professor of pediatrics at Boston University, social epidemiologist and the founding director of the Vital Village Community Engagement Network who focuses on the role of early-life adversities as life course social determinants of health.  Marla Schuchman Entrepreneur, mother of two, struggling to launch a start-up with no child care. Alycia Hardy Policy Analyst on childcare and early education for the Center for Law and Social Policy who wrote about including parent voices in policy solutions and her struggles with remote work for her two children and caring for her nieces while her sister and husband risk their health as essential workers Adriana Y Garcia Furloughed salon and social justice worker, and mother of four, living in Portland, Oregon. Maria Cancian Dean, McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown who researches the dynamics between public policies and family wellbeing