April 8, 2013 • 25 mins
Does teleworking solve the childcare issue? Join Caroline and Cristen as they explore the high cost of childcare for working parents & single moms, as well as how workplace childcare improves job satisfaction and business bottom lines.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen Kristin Take Our Daughters and Sons
to Work Day, which in and of itself is an
excellent opportunity to bring kids to work, obviously judging by
(00:25):
the name, but to expose them to life's opportunities and
what they can do when they grow up, to give
them dreams and everything, show them how small your cubicle is. Yeah,
but it's just a day. It's just you. You can't
bring your kids to work every day, well at some places,
(00:47):
which we all get into. But just a word on
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, formerly known
as Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which was started
in I thought it had been around, was started though
by MS Glorious Dynham and the MS Foundation for Women,
and then in two thousand and three it was expanded
(01:10):
to daughters and sons. So bring all, bring all those kids,
and this year there will be an estimated thirty seven
million kids going to three point five million workplaces. Have
you ever worked anywhere where people actually brought their kids
to work? No, neither, I not for take your daughters
and sons to work out. I have are the House
(01:31):
of Works office has hosted Halloween trick or treating for
kids at the office, which is great because I get
candy from it. Um, But you mean you take it
from the children. No. I buy so much candy that
I couldn't possibly give it all away right, therefore have
to eat their leftover exact snicker bars, exact twixes. Yeah.
I have never worked anywhere. I've never been in an
(01:53):
office where I mean, like, you know, parents bring your
kids in to show them off and stuff because they're
so cute. But like, never anywhere where they've brought kids
in to show them what they do for a living,
to inspire them. But I've also never worked anywhere where
there's any sort of babysitting, daycare, you know, anything like that. Yeah,
And we wanted to talk about kids in the workplace
(02:14):
a because of take our daughters and suns to work day,
but also because there has been a lot of discussion
around this in the past few years. This is becoming
on site childcare is becoming a more common feature, especially
among larger businesses, and it was also a point of
debate with Yahoo CEO Marissa Myers is decision to cut
(02:38):
off tell working for all Yahoo employees a couple of
months ago now, and people were like, oh, well, Miss Myers,
that is a little short sighted for you know, parents
who tell a work who are able to care for
their younger kids while they work from home. Because you,
miss Myers, built a nurse hurry for your new baby
(03:02):
at your workplace. What's up with that? So, while we
are not here to try to dissect Merissa Myers is
you know, strategy for cutting off teleworking and the whole
baby gate over? You know her her child, who like
I can't like. Has has there been more ink spilled
over a child that was not you know, Kayton Williams
(03:26):
over in Britain. I don't know one of brand Jelina's. Yes,
But the fact of the matter is childcare when you
are a working parent is a huge cost. Yeah, it
is ginormously expensive. It's like college. Basically, my friend Jessica
who um, I think her son is like one and
(03:48):
a half now. But anyway, when she was pregnant, she
was already worrying about where to send this baby when
she went back to work, because you know how expensive
it would be yeah, because you want to make sure
you're putting your child in the hands of a you know,
someone credible and who will take care of that baby
with tender love and care and good care costs. Um.
(04:12):
And there was a two thousand twelve report from Childcare
Aware of America, and in two thousand eleven they reported
that the average annual cost of full time child care
for an infant in a center ranged from about forty
six hundred dollars in Mississippi on the low end, to
nearly fifteen thousand dollars in Massachusetts. And that's the average
(04:32):
annual costs, so you know the price can vast like wildly,
I'm sure. Um. And then in two thousand eleven, for
a four year old kid, the childcare costs ranged for
about dollars in Mississippi to eleven thousand, seven hundred in Massachusetts,
which is a chunk of change. Essentially, you know, you
were working to pay for your kids taken care of. Absolutely,
(04:57):
and it's really not that much cheaper to put your
kid in like a home based childcare center. For an infant,
it's dred to ten thousand, four hundred, and for a
four year old it ranges from und so it's still
so much money. Well, and and the thing is to
(05:18):
the conversation that isn't talked about a lot is how
this impacts especially low income parents. I mean, the burden
there is even bigger because a lot of times these
parents might not be working in full time jobs that
give sick days or paid time off. And if your
(05:39):
kid is sick and you have to call in a
number of times, you might lose your job just taking
care of them if you're if you don't have any
kind of backup childcare. Um, it's a it's a huge
burden that can send parents and especially single mothers into
temporary poverty if they're if they already aren't, if they
aren't on the poverty line to again with yeah, so
(06:01):
to put it in perspective, in twenty two states and
d C, center based child care fees for an infant
exceeded annual median rent payments, and in twenty states and DC,
center based childcare fees for two children exceeded housing costs.
Center based childcare fees for two children exceeded housing costs
for homeowners with a mortgage. For the majority of the country,
(06:23):
the average annual cost of center based infant care exceeded
ten percent of the states that states median income for
a two parent family, and it's higher than a year's
in state tuition at a public college. In other words,
happy a child is very, very expensive. You know, this
is this is a very real challenge for parents and
(06:44):
especially for working moms. This was something that NPR reported
on in April two thousand and twelve. Two thirds of
women with young children now work, and nearly half of
them are their families primary breadwinner. Yeah, And in that
same story, they cite Kristen Rowe fink Biner, head of
the advocacy group Mom's Rising, who says that having a
(07:05):
baby in this blue my freaking mind, having a baby
is the leading cause of temporary poverty. Many women, she says,
without maternity leave, end up, like christ and said, quitting
to care for the baby, and it's hard to get
back into the labor for She calls this the quote
cascading impact of motherhood because as we know, women tend
to make less anyway, So if they don't have that
(07:27):
built in maternity leave or any benefits to provide for
them to be able to stay home, they end up
quitting their jobs. They don't have any money to pay
for childcare. It's just it's a whole cycle of awful. Yeah.
And and there's obviously a government assistance out there for childcare,
but because of you know, recession era budget cuts, a
lot of states have had to slash subsidized childcare programs,
(07:52):
which impacts a lot of these working mothers very harshly. Right,
And another aspect to think about is, yes, you have
subsidized care, but um, it doesn't necessarily mandate that you
have to have a licensed daycare provider. So the government
does provide grants to states through the Childcare and Development
Block Grant, which subsidizes the monthly cost of childcare for
(08:14):
low income families, but it doesn't require the use of
licensed care. And about one five of the children who
received this assistance, which is about one point seven million,
are in unregulated settings. And in Hawaii, Michigan, and Oregon
more than half of the children receiving assistance are in
unlicensed care. And so that brings up issues of health
(08:34):
and safety. I mean, granted, yes, I'm sure there are
plenty of unlicensed places that are healthy, safe, you know,
good for the babies, But but there are a lot
that aren't. There's no guarantee. Yeah, and then it leads
into the question of are you setting up a cycle
where you know the kids aren't getting off to a
good start for a solid future, and they're going to
be in the same situation unable to you know, put
(08:58):
their children in quality daycare. And this is something you know,
we're about to straight off into a whole another podcast
that we could do on that um. But the question
that a lot of you know, larger workplaces are asking
is whether or not on site childcare could be you know,
a real benefit for employees and also improve their bottom
(09:22):
line as well. Yeah. One of the benefits obviously of
employer provided or assistant childcare is the idea that you know,
parents have to miss fewer days if the kid is
on site. You know, then then somebody's watching him and
you can come to work and everything's fine. And one
company that's way ahead of the curve, way ahead of
everybody else in providing childcare is Stride Right. Stride Right Shoes,
(09:46):
the shoe people, the shoe people, and I have fond
memories of Stride Right. On a side note, because I
don't know why my mom really liked Stride Right shoes,
maybe because they were so baby friendly. But those were
the ten issues that I ever had that I can remember,
and I remember the stride right box and everything. But yeah,
(10:07):
it was the first U S corporation with an on
site daycare established in ninety one, and then in New
York Times where a story about how they were setting
up the first intergenerational daycare center for employees who were
caring for not just kids but also seniors. That's a
you know, a care issue that also doesn't come up
very much. You might be caring for babies, but what
(10:28):
about the growing elder population as well? But it also
sounds like maybe the happiest place on earth, like because
they were talking about how at the time when it
got going, there were only a few seniors in the center,
but like kids would go over and and read with them,
like get read too, And I just think, I'm like,
oh my god, I would love to work there. I mean,
I don't want to get sick, because I feel like
(10:49):
kids just make me sick all the time. I'm around
a child, and I instantly get sick. But it would
be cute to watch from like behind disinfected glass. But
so okay, so Arnold Hyatt, who was the board chairman,
forced I'd write this whole thing was his concept, and
it's so great, and they said, they said, why why
are you doing this? He cited increased productivity and decreased turnover,
(11:09):
but he still had some reservations because he said, you know,
as great as this is, I don't believe corporate daycare
answers the need of intervening in the lives of twenty
million children under five. And that's true. This, this childcare issue,
uh is not gonna be solved just with presto everybody
gets a daycare center at work. But you know that
this is, you know, an important benefit for employees. And
(11:33):
today companies are seeing real dividends, not just on their
bottom line, but also just from looking real good for
providing on site childcare. For instance, one third of Fortune's
Best Companies to Work For I believe this was in
their two thousand ten or through two thousand eleven lists
offered an on site childcare center. Public Supermarkets had the
(11:58):
lowest monthly rate for a three year old at just
one dollars a month, which is a steel that's a
bargain um And Cisco is one of the nation's largest
providers of on site childcare with eight hundred kids enrolled,
and parents at the Cisco headquarters contract their kids via computer,
which is looks like doggy daycare. Well that's also very Cisco,
(12:21):
you know, these software developers, um and in two thousand eleven,
the number one Fortune company s A S was allotted
for its high quality childcare at four ten dollars per month.
And the question then is, you know, well, is bring
kids to work a good thing for employees and businesses?
Obviously it looks good, you know, for these companies. You
(12:42):
and I are both swooning over stride right and the
idea of an intergenerational daycare center. That must be very sweet.
But what is the real outcome of this? Well, I
mean it's not as bad as we think it'll be.
I mean they're you know, jaded, cynical people like me
who are like babies at work. Babies at work, shot up,
(13:03):
Shot the baby up. But Mary's secret. And not to
make myself sound like I'm a monster or anything, uh anyway,
but Mary's secret, who's a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University
in two thousand five, didn't analysis of fifty five baby
friendly businesses and found that people often, like Caroline Irvine,
anticipate disaster, but there is rarely a negative effect on
(13:24):
coworkers or productivity. And she found having babies around can
actually boost morale, and she points out, hey, look, there
was never a separation of work and family, so bringing
babies to work it's good all around. Yeah, I mean
that that morale boost is understandable when you think about
this two thousand seven report from the National Conference of
State Legislatures which cited childcare as the biggest family related
(13:48):
problem in the workplace because it's a huge source of
absentee um and tardiness and business. We excited a cost
benefit study conducted at the Union Bank in Pacady To, California,
which showed that the institutions on site daycare programs saved
it one hundred thirty eight thousand to two hundred thirty
two thousand in annual operations costs due to the reduction
(14:11):
in both turnover and absentee is um. And that's just
in one place. And then the Business Week article also
cited the book Kids at Work, The Value of Employer
sponsored on site childcare Centers, in which they estimated the
savings in wages of a hundred fifty thousand to two
hundred fifty thousand to for just two companies that provided
(14:31):
on site childcare, and there's definitely an effect as far
as new mothers go to UM. Another Business Week story
from October twelve found that it was a good way
to get young mothers back to work. I mean, maternity
leave isn't cheap, and it's a good way to make
sure they don't quit after having children. Sure well, I
mean it shows that as an employer, you are taking
(14:53):
the whole person into account, not just their life at
their cubicle, but what happens outside of the cubicle and
how home life impacts uh, you know, the work that
they're doing. UM. And one thing too in all of
this is the availability of backup childcare. This isn't just
you know, an on site daycare where you can bring,
you know, a kid to work, but say your child
is sick, having backup child care is also a crucial resource.
(15:18):
UM Bright Horizons, which is a company that provides backup childcare,
sponsor to survey, and not surprisingly, they found that, you know,
having backup childcare is a really great thing. But nevertheless,
even though the results might be a ted biased Uh,
they looked into backup childcare for eight hundred employees and
it resulted in a net savings of over twenty hundred
(15:41):
work days because you know, you don't have to you
don't want to take that time off. Yeah, but it's
not totally cut and dry to everybody. Courtney Lee Adams
over at Business Week said that the whole taking your
kids to work thing having on site daycare is unrealistic,
and she says it only benefits a small amount of women.
She points out the professional managerial women make up only
(16:02):
eight percent of the female workforce, whereas of women hold
low wage blue collar jobs. So great Cisco wants to
have on site daycare, How does that benefit the woman
who works as a cashier at the grocery store? Right, Yeah,
I mean and and that and that is the problem.
Like that I felt like when, for instance, the whole
debate about Marissa Meyer at Yahoo cutting off teleworking and
(16:25):
impacting those working parents, and then her having the you know,
the the nursery built in her CEO suite totally missed
the point of what, you know, the work that really
needs to be done from almost the bottom up of
looking at these lower income working moms who are the
primary breadwinners who are being sent into temporary poverty or
(16:45):
long term poverty because of you know, lack of access
to quality, affordable childcare. But I digress, and you know,
she says there are bigger issues like families needing flexible
work schedules and just playing gender equality, right. I mean,
some would argue that it doesn't just having on site
(17:06):
daycare is not getting at the heart of the matter,
that the child care burden does still fall largely on women,
although a recent survey out of the Pew Research Center
has found that that gap is narrowing, but still men's
work in a way is valued more highly than women's
work because we simply expect for, you know, women to
(17:28):
to take care of the kids. Yeah, I'm speaking of
taking care of the kids. What about staying at home?
You know, we talked about teleworking at Yahoo, but there
was a column over it she knows dot com that
talked about, well, you might not actually be getting as
much work done from home as you think you are
as you think you will. Um, you might be shooting
(17:49):
to stay home and spend time with your family but
also get work done. But that could lead to like, actually,
I have to take care of the kids all day
and then stay up until two am working. Oh yeah,
I mean if you were working from home and trying
to take care of a baby. At the same time,
you're taking care of a baby and maybe getting some
work done on the side. Yeah. So the writer actually
encouraged moms who find themselves in that situation to consider, like, Okay, well,
(18:09):
what do you make, what do you do, and what's
the situation with your kids, and is it worth it
to bring in an outside person to just be there
to supervise while you work. Yeah, because a lot of times,
like you, you know, you need to be able to
pay undivided attention to your work to get it done.
Imagine if we had a baby in the podcast studio,
would be kind of fun. Okay, that'd be a weird podcast.
(18:32):
Can we just have a puppy? Okay, we're kidding. So
the takeaway, it seems like from this whole question of
childcare at the workplace is that, you know, parenting at
work is becoming more common among larger businesses, even down
to more mom and pop operations where it's totally fine
for someone to bring baby with him or her to
(18:55):
work and telework and flexible options are something that is
very desirable for working moms in particular who might need
a little more flexibility with their schedules. So it's good
that that kind of stuff is being opened up as well,
But there is still the you know, these problems of
what about for the majority of working moms who might
(19:15):
not be working at jobs that would provide such lavish benefits, right,
And there are you know a lot of moms out
there who are in danger if they fall into this
temporary poverty of getting caught in a welfare and subsidies
cycle and not being able to get out of it
because you know, they lose their jobs, they can't pay
(19:37):
for child care, you know, they it's it's just a
cycle of not being able to get back into the workforce,
right and considering the fact that the government safety net
in a way is not as buoyant as it used
to be because of recessionary budget cuts, the situation has
gotten even bleaker in terms of that. So, I mean,
for for this episode, I really do want to hear
(19:59):
from working parents out there who you know are dealing
with childcare issues. I mean, you and I obviously don't
have kids, and when you start to look at the
costs of childcare. You know, I don't know if it
puts it puts not having a child so much more
into perspective, because you know, it is such a huge
cost and something. You know, I worked at a daycare
(20:21):
center when I was in late high school and early
college and um, yeah, I mean it was it was
so hard to watch the parents for the first time
taking their their kids there and then putting their their
babies into my arm to take care of it. Like,
who is this young whipper snapper taking my child away?
I promised I did the best I could. Um, but yeah,
(20:42):
I mean it's it's expensive, it's time consuming, it is
not easy. Um. So I want to hear from parents
to whether or not on site childcare really is, you know,
a great thing that they could take advantage of. And
I should say that how stuff works as parent corporation,
Discovery Communications does provide on site childcare at their headquarters.
(21:04):
So now that we've given you all this information on childcare,
send us your thoughts mom stuff at Discovery dot com.
You know, we want to hear from you. What what
are your opinions, what what have you dealt with? We
want to we want to read your mail. Well, I've
got an email here from Toby about our episode on
women in the military fighting in combat positions, and Toby writes,
(21:28):
I think the arguments used by proponents of women in
combat is actually doing a disservice to future women's soldiers.
Unlike other military positions where women simply adapt and learned
to work within the confines of an all male environment,
this is one situation where the military needs to make
concrete steps to formulate viable solutions for the successful incorporation
of women into the new role. To simply place one's
(21:50):
faith on the professionalism of soldiers and to make off
handed assumptions that the insertion of female soldiers and combat
units would not create any tension, sexual or otherwise demonstrates
a complete lack of understanding of the realities of war.
Unit cohesion and combat readiness would undoubtedly be affected for
better or worse, and refusal to recognize this fact is
naivete at the highest levels, to say the least. Therefore,
(22:13):
changes will have to be made to accommodate women and
to ensure that women can serve their country in a
dignified environment so that they may demonstrate their talent to
the full potential. Uh, to which I say, since women
have already essentially been fighting in combat positions, because the
rules of warfare have changed so much in that the
front line has largely disappeared, I think women have been
(22:37):
acclimating themselves to those new environments. But yeah, sure, the
army you know, should take every step to uh prepare
their soldiers and thus you know have have them protected
as much as possible because you don't want to lose
more lives because of women being in combat. And I
don't think that's going to happen. So thanks for your
(22:59):
perspective on that. So Jack shared a picture with us. UH.
He said that this is a statue at the Memorial
Park in Huntsville, Alabama, and it shows a man and
a woman uh bringing their wounded brother in arms off
of the battlefield. He just said that it was a
great Uh. It was great that women are getting visibility
(23:20):
for being in harm's way. But he goes on to
say that I agree with lifting the band on women
in combat. I recognize that the arguments for the band
fall into three categories that you mentioned, and all of
them are baseless. I've heard all three arguments and the
disruption to unit cohesion is the most common. The U
S Military is a professional armed force. As professionals, the
men and women serving in the forest can control their
(23:40):
actions and are not distracted from duty by soldiers of
the opposite sex. He goes on to say I served
in the Air Force from two thousand three. During that
time I earned the Combat Readiness Medal. It is awarded
for twenty four months of service in a combat force.
The duty title was Missile Combat crew Member. This is
the job of being ready to launch nuclear i CBMs
should we enter into a nuclear conflict. I served alongside
(24:03):
women in this role and they too earned the Combat
Readiness Medal for the study. The job involved having two
crew members spend twenty four hours in a secure bunker
underground ready to turn keys that would launch our I
CBM force. In a twenty four hour alert, one crew
member had to remain awake, so we split the time
into sleep shifts. Crews were made up of mixed genders.
There were no problems. Everyone in the wing were professionals
(24:25):
and acted professionally. So thank you for sharing your story, Jack,
and also thank you for the picture of the statue
in Huntsville, Alabama. And thanks to everyone who's written into
Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com again send us your
thoughts on parenting and childcare in the workplace. You can
do it there, or you can head over to our
Facebook page. Like us while you're at it, and follow
(24:47):
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You dot tumbler dot com. And if you'd like to
get smarter this week, you should head to our website
soul stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Caroline and I'm Kristen Kristin Take Our Daughters and Sons
to Work Day, which in and of itself is an
excellent opportunity to bring kids to work, obviously judging by
(00:25):
the name, but to expose them to life's opportunities and
what they can do when they grow up, to give
them dreams and everything, show them how small your cubicle is. Yeah,
but it's just a day. It's just you. You can't
bring your kids to work every day, well at some places,
(00:47):
which we all get into. But just a word on
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, formerly known
as Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which was started
in I thought it had been around, was started though
by MS Glorious Dynham and the MS Foundation for Women,
and then in two thousand and three it was expanded
(01:10):
to daughters and sons. So bring all, bring all those kids,
and this year there will be an estimated thirty seven
million kids going to three point five million workplaces. Have
you ever worked anywhere where people actually brought their kids
to work? No, neither, I not for take your daughters
and sons to work out. I have are the House
(01:31):
of Works office has hosted Halloween trick or treating for
kids at the office, which is great because I get
candy from it. Um, But you mean you take it
from the children. No. I buy so much candy that
I couldn't possibly give it all away right, therefore have
to eat their leftover exact snicker bars, exact twixes. Yeah.
I have never worked anywhere. I've never been in an
(01:53):
office where I mean, like, you know, parents bring your
kids in to show them off and stuff because they're
so cute. But like, never anywhere where they've brought kids
in to show them what they do for a living,
to inspire them. But I've also never worked anywhere where
there's any sort of babysitting, daycare, you know, anything like that. Yeah,
And we wanted to talk about kids in the workplace
(02:14):
a because of take our daughters and suns to work day,
but also because there has been a lot of discussion
around this in the past few years. This is becoming
on site childcare is becoming a more common feature, especially
among larger businesses, and it was also a point of
debate with Yahoo CEO Marissa Myers is decision to cut
(02:38):
off tell working for all Yahoo employees a couple of
months ago now, and people were like, oh, well, Miss Myers,
that is a little short sighted for you know, parents
who tell a work who are able to care for
their younger kids while they work from home. Because you,
miss Myers, built a nurse hurry for your new baby
(03:02):
at your workplace. What's up with that? So, while we
are not here to try to dissect Merissa Myers is
you know, strategy for cutting off teleworking and the whole
baby gate over? You know her her child, who like
I can't like. Has has there been more ink spilled
over a child that was not you know, Kayton Williams
(03:26):
over in Britain. I don't know one of brand Jelina's. Yes,
But the fact of the matter is childcare when you
are a working parent is a huge cost. Yeah, it
is ginormously expensive. It's like college. Basically, my friend Jessica
who um, I think her son is like one and
(03:48):
a half now. But anyway, when she was pregnant, she
was already worrying about where to send this baby when
she went back to work, because you know how expensive
it would be yeah, because you want to make sure
you're putting your child in the hands of a you know,
someone credible and who will take care of that baby
with tender love and care and good care costs. Um.
(04:12):
And there was a two thousand twelve report from Childcare
Aware of America, and in two thousand eleven they reported
that the average annual cost of full time child care
for an infant in a center ranged from about forty
six hundred dollars in Mississippi on the low end, to
nearly fifteen thousand dollars in Massachusetts. And that's the average
(04:32):
annual costs, so you know the price can vast like wildly,
I'm sure. Um. And then in two thousand eleven, for
a four year old kid, the childcare costs ranged for
about dollars in Mississippi to eleven thousand, seven hundred in Massachusetts,
which is a chunk of change. Essentially, you know, you
were working to pay for your kids taken care of. Absolutely,
(04:57):
and it's really not that much cheaper to put your
kid in like a home based childcare center. For an infant,
it's dred to ten thousand, four hundred, and for a
four year old it ranges from und so it's still
so much money. Well, and and the thing is to
(05:18):
the conversation that isn't talked about a lot is how
this impacts especially low income parents. I mean, the burden
there is even bigger because a lot of times these
parents might not be working in full time jobs that
give sick days or paid time off. And if your
(05:39):
kid is sick and you have to call in a
number of times, you might lose your job just taking
care of them if you're if you don't have any
kind of backup childcare. Um, it's a it's a huge
burden that can send parents and especially single mothers into
temporary poverty if they're if they already aren't, if they
aren't on the poverty line to again with yeah, so
(06:01):
to put it in perspective, in twenty two states and
d C, center based child care fees for an infant
exceeded annual median rent payments, and in twenty states and DC,
center based childcare fees for two children exceeded housing costs.
Center based childcare fees for two children exceeded housing costs
for homeowners with a mortgage. For the majority of the country,
(06:23):
the average annual cost of center based infant care exceeded
ten percent of the states that states median income for
a two parent family, and it's higher than a year's
in state tuition at a public college. In other words,
happy a child is very, very expensive. You know, this
is this is a very real challenge for parents and
(06:44):
especially for working moms. This was something that NPR reported
on in April two thousand and twelve. Two thirds of
women with young children now work, and nearly half of
them are their families primary breadwinner. Yeah, And in that
same story, they cite Kristen Rowe fink Biner, head of
the advocacy group Mom's Rising, who says that having a
(07:05):
baby in this blue my freaking mind, having a baby
is the leading cause of temporary poverty. Many women, she says,
without maternity leave, end up, like christ and said, quitting
to care for the baby, and it's hard to get
back into the labor for She calls this the quote
cascading impact of motherhood because as we know, women tend
to make less anyway, So if they don't have that
(07:27):
built in maternity leave or any benefits to provide for
them to be able to stay home, they end up
quitting their jobs. They don't have any money to pay
for childcare. It's just it's a whole cycle of awful. Yeah.
And and there's obviously a government assistance out there for childcare,
but because of you know, recession era budget cuts, a
lot of states have had to slash subsidized childcare programs,
(07:52):
which impacts a lot of these working mothers very harshly. Right,
And another aspect to think about is, yes, you have
subsidized care, but um, it doesn't necessarily mandate that you
have to have a licensed daycare provider. So the government
does provide grants to states through the Childcare and Development
Block Grant, which subsidizes the monthly cost of childcare for
(08:14):
low income families, but it doesn't require the use of
licensed care. And about one five of the children who
received this assistance, which is about one point seven million,
are in unregulated settings. And in Hawaii, Michigan, and Oregon
more than half of the children receiving assistance are in
unlicensed care. And so that brings up issues of health
(08:34):
and safety. I mean, granted, yes, I'm sure there are
plenty of unlicensed places that are healthy, safe, you know,
good for the babies, But but there are a lot
that aren't. There's no guarantee. Yeah, and then it leads
into the question of are you setting up a cycle
where you know the kids aren't getting off to a
good start for a solid future, and they're going to
be in the same situation unable to you know, put
(08:58):
their children in quality daycare. And this is something you know,
we're about to straight off into a whole another podcast
that we could do on that um. But the question
that a lot of you know, larger workplaces are asking
is whether or not on site childcare could be you know,
a real benefit for employees and also improve their bottom
(09:22):
line as well. Yeah. One of the benefits obviously of
employer provided or assistant childcare is the idea that you know,
parents have to miss fewer days if the kid is
on site. You know, then then somebody's watching him and
you can come to work and everything's fine. And one
company that's way ahead of the curve, way ahead of
everybody else in providing childcare is Stride Right. Stride Right Shoes,
(09:46):
the shoe people, the shoe people, and I have fond
memories of Stride Right. On a side note, because I
don't know why my mom really liked Stride Right shoes,
maybe because they were so baby friendly. But those were
the ten issues that I ever had that I can remember,
and I remember the stride right box and everything. But yeah,
(10:07):
it was the first U S corporation with an on
site daycare established in ninety one, and then in New
York Times where a story about how they were setting
up the first intergenerational daycare center for employees who were
caring for not just kids but also seniors. That's a
you know, a care issue that also doesn't come up
very much. You might be caring for babies, but what
(10:28):
about the growing elder population as well? But it also
sounds like maybe the happiest place on earth, like because
they were talking about how at the time when it
got going, there were only a few seniors in the center,
but like kids would go over and and read with them,
like get read too, And I just think, I'm like,
oh my god, I would love to work there. I mean,
I don't want to get sick, because I feel like
(10:49):
kids just make me sick all the time. I'm around
a child, and I instantly get sick. But it would
be cute to watch from like behind disinfected glass. But
so okay, so Arnold Hyatt, who was the board chairman,
forced I'd write this whole thing was his concept, and
it's so great, and they said, they said, why why
are you doing this? He cited increased productivity and decreased turnover,
(11:09):
but he still had some reservations because he said, you know,
as great as this is, I don't believe corporate daycare
answers the need of intervening in the lives of twenty
million children under five. And that's true. This, this childcare issue,
uh is not gonna be solved just with presto everybody
gets a daycare center at work. But you know that
this is, you know, an important benefit for employees. And
(11:33):
today companies are seeing real dividends, not just on their
bottom line, but also just from looking real good for
providing on site childcare. For instance, one third of Fortune's
Best Companies to Work For I believe this was in
their two thousand ten or through two thousand eleven lists
offered an on site childcare center. Public Supermarkets had the
(11:58):
lowest monthly rate for a three year old at just
one dollars a month, which is a steel that's a
bargain um And Cisco is one of the nation's largest
providers of on site childcare with eight hundred kids enrolled,
and parents at the Cisco headquarters contract their kids via computer,
which is looks like doggy daycare. Well that's also very Cisco,
(12:21):
you know, these software developers, um and in two thousand eleven,
the number one Fortune company s A S was allotted
for its high quality childcare at four ten dollars per month.
And the question then is, you know, well, is bring
kids to work a good thing for employees and businesses?
Obviously it looks good, you know, for these companies. You
(12:42):
and I are both swooning over stride right and the
idea of an intergenerational daycare center. That must be very sweet.
But what is the real outcome of this? Well, I
mean it's not as bad as we think it'll be.
I mean they're you know, jaded, cynical people like me
who are like babies at work. Babies at work, shot up,
(13:03):
Shot the baby up. But Mary's secret. And not to
make myself sound like I'm a monster or anything, uh anyway,
but Mary's secret, who's a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University
in two thousand five, didn't analysis of fifty five baby
friendly businesses and found that people often, like Caroline Irvine,
anticipate disaster, but there is rarely a negative effect on
(13:24):
coworkers or productivity. And she found having babies around can
actually boost morale, and she points out, hey, look, there
was never a separation of work and family, so bringing
babies to work it's good all around. Yeah, I mean
that that morale boost is understandable when you think about
this two thousand seven report from the National Conference of
State Legislatures which cited childcare as the biggest family related
(13:48):
problem in the workplace because it's a huge source of
absentee um and tardiness and business. We excited a cost
benefit study conducted at the Union Bank in Pacady To, California,
which showed that the institutions on site daycare programs saved
it one hundred thirty eight thousand to two hundred thirty
two thousand in annual operations costs due to the reduction
(14:11):
in both turnover and absentee is um. And that's just
in one place. And then the Business Week article also
cited the book Kids at Work, The Value of Employer
sponsored on site childcare Centers, in which they estimated the
savings in wages of a hundred fifty thousand to two
hundred fifty thousand to for just two companies that provided
(14:31):
on site childcare, and there's definitely an effect as far
as new mothers go to UM. Another Business Week story
from October twelve found that it was a good way
to get young mothers back to work. I mean, maternity
leave isn't cheap, and it's a good way to make
sure they don't quit after having children. Sure well, I
mean it shows that as an employer, you are taking
(14:53):
the whole person into account, not just their life at
their cubicle, but what happens outside of the cubicle and
how home life impacts uh, you know, the work that
they're doing. UM. And one thing too in all of
this is the availability of backup childcare. This isn't just
you know, an on site daycare where you can bring,
you know, a kid to work, but say your child
is sick, having backup child care is also a crucial resource.
(15:18):
UM Bright Horizons, which is a company that provides backup childcare,
sponsor to survey, and not surprisingly, they found that, you know,
having backup childcare is a really great thing. But nevertheless,
even though the results might be a ted biased Uh,
they looked into backup childcare for eight hundred employees and
it resulted in a net savings of over twenty hundred
(15:41):
work days because you know, you don't have to you
don't want to take that time off. Yeah, but it's
not totally cut and dry to everybody. Courtney Lee Adams
over at Business Week said that the whole taking your
kids to work thing having on site daycare is unrealistic,
and she says it only benefits a small amount of women.
She points out the professional managerial women make up only
(16:02):
eight percent of the female workforce, whereas of women hold
low wage blue collar jobs. So great Cisco wants to
have on site daycare, How does that benefit the woman
who works as a cashier at the grocery store? Right, Yeah,
I mean and and that and that is the problem.
Like that I felt like when, for instance, the whole
debate about Marissa Meyer at Yahoo cutting off teleworking and
(16:25):
impacting those working parents, and then her having the you know,
the the nursery built in her CEO suite totally missed
the point of what, you know, the work that really
needs to be done from almost the bottom up of
looking at these lower income working moms who are the
primary breadwinners who are being sent into temporary poverty or
(16:45):
long term poverty because of you know, lack of access
to quality, affordable childcare. But I digress, and you know,
she says there are bigger issues like families needing flexible
work schedules and just playing gender equality, right. I mean,
some would argue that it doesn't just having on site
(17:06):
daycare is not getting at the heart of the matter,
that the child care burden does still fall largely on women,
although a recent survey out of the Pew Research Center
has found that that gap is narrowing, but still men's
work in a way is valued more highly than women's
work because we simply expect for, you know, women to
(17:28):
to take care of the kids. Yeah, I'm speaking of
taking care of the kids. What about staying at home?
You know, we talked about teleworking at Yahoo, but there
was a column over it she knows dot com that
talked about, well, you might not actually be getting as
much work done from home as you think you are
as you think you will. Um, you might be shooting
(17:49):
to stay home and spend time with your family but
also get work done. But that could lead to like, actually,
I have to take care of the kids all day
and then stay up until two am working. Oh yeah,
I mean if you were working from home and trying
to take care of a baby. At the same time,
you're taking care of a baby and maybe getting some
work done on the side. Yeah. So the writer actually
encouraged moms who find themselves in that situation to consider, like, Okay, well,
(18:09):
what do you make, what do you do, and what's
the situation with your kids, and is it worth it
to bring in an outside person to just be there
to supervise while you work. Yeah, because a lot of times,
like you, you know, you need to be able to
pay undivided attention to your work to get it done.
Imagine if we had a baby in the podcast studio,
would be kind of fun. Okay, that'd be a weird podcast.
(18:32):
Can we just have a puppy? Okay, we're kidding. So
the takeaway, it seems like from this whole question of
childcare at the workplace is that, you know, parenting at
work is becoming more common among larger businesses, even down
to more mom and pop operations where it's totally fine
for someone to bring baby with him or her to
(18:55):
work and telework and flexible options are something that is
very desirable for working moms in particular who might need
a little more flexibility with their schedules. So it's good
that that kind of stuff is being opened up as well,
But there is still the you know, these problems of
what about for the majority of working moms who might
(19:15):
not be working at jobs that would provide such lavish benefits, right,
And there are you know a lot of moms out
there who are in danger if they fall into this
temporary poverty of getting caught in a welfare and subsidies
cycle and not being able to get out of it
because you know, they lose their jobs, they can't pay
(19:37):
for child care, you know, they it's it's just a
cycle of not being able to get back into the workforce,
right and considering the fact that the government safety net
in a way is not as buoyant as it used
to be because of recessionary budget cuts, the situation has
gotten even bleaker in terms of that. So, I mean,
for for this episode, I really do want to hear
(19:59):
from working parents out there who you know are dealing
with childcare issues. I mean, you and I obviously don't
have kids, and when you start to look at the
costs of childcare. You know, I don't know if it
puts it puts not having a child so much more
into perspective, because you know, it is such a huge
cost and something. You know, I worked at a daycare
(20:21):
center when I was in late high school and early
college and um, yeah, I mean it was it was
so hard to watch the parents for the first time
taking their their kids there and then putting their their
babies into my arm to take care of it. Like,
who is this young whipper snapper taking my child away?
I promised I did the best I could. Um, but yeah,
(20:42):
I mean it's it's expensive, it's time consuming, it is
not easy. Um. So I want to hear from parents
to whether or not on site childcare really is, you know,
a great thing that they could take advantage of. And
I should say that how stuff works as parent corporation,
Discovery Communications does provide on site childcare at their headquarters.
(21:04):
So now that we've given you all this information on childcare,
send us your thoughts mom stuff at Discovery dot com.
You know, we want to hear from you. What what
are your opinions, what what have you dealt with? We
want to we want to read your mail. Well, I've
got an email here from Toby about our episode on
women in the military fighting in combat positions, and Toby writes,
(21:28):
I think the arguments used by proponents of women in
combat is actually doing a disservice to future women's soldiers.
Unlike other military positions where women simply adapt and learned
to work within the confines of an all male environment,
this is one situation where the military needs to make
concrete steps to formulate viable solutions for the successful incorporation
of women into the new role. To simply place one's
(21:50):
faith on the professionalism of soldiers and to make off
handed assumptions that the insertion of female soldiers and combat
units would not create any tension, sexual or otherwise demonstrates
a complete lack of understanding of the realities of war.
Unit cohesion and combat readiness would undoubtedly be affected for
better or worse, and refusal to recognize this fact is
naivete at the highest levels, to say the least. Therefore,
(22:13):
changes will have to be made to accommodate women and
to ensure that women can serve their country in a
dignified environment so that they may demonstrate their talent to
the full potential. Uh, to which I say, since women
have already essentially been fighting in combat positions, because the
rules of warfare have changed so much in that the
front line has largely disappeared, I think women have been
(22:37):
acclimating themselves to those new environments. But yeah, sure, the
army you know, should take every step to uh prepare
their soldiers and thus you know have have them protected
as much as possible because you don't want to lose
more lives because of women being in combat. And I
don't think that's going to happen. So thanks for your
(22:59):
perspective on that. So Jack shared a picture with us. UH.
He said that this is a statue at the Memorial
Park in Huntsville, Alabama, and it shows a man and
a woman uh bringing their wounded brother in arms off
of the battlefield. He just said that it was a
great Uh. It was great that women are getting visibility
(23:20):
for being in harm's way. But he goes on to
say that I agree with lifting the band on women
in combat. I recognize that the arguments for the band
fall into three categories that you mentioned, and all of
them are baseless. I've heard all three arguments and the
disruption to unit cohesion is the most common. The U
S Military is a professional armed force. As professionals, the
men and women serving in the forest can control their
(23:40):
actions and are not distracted from duty by soldiers of
the opposite sex. He goes on to say I served
in the Air Force from two thousand three. During that
time I earned the Combat Readiness Medal. It is awarded
for twenty four months of service in a combat force.
The duty title was Missile Combat crew Member. This is
the job of being ready to launch nuclear i CBMs
should we enter into a nuclear conflict. I served alongside
(24:03):
women in this role and they too earned the Combat
Readiness Medal for the study. The job involved having two
crew members spend twenty four hours in a secure bunker
underground ready to turn keys that would launch our I
CBM force. In a twenty four hour alert, one crew
member had to remain awake, so we split the time
into sleep shifts. Crews were made up of mixed genders.
There were no problems. Everyone in the wing were professionals
(24:25):
and acted professionally. So thank you for sharing your story, Jack,
and also thank you for the picture of the statue
in Huntsville, Alabama. And thanks to everyone who's written into
Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com again send us your
thoughts on parenting and childcare in the workplace. You can
do it there, or you can head over to our
Facebook page. Like us while you're at it, and follow
(24:47):
us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast. And you can
also find us on Tumbler at stuff mom Never Told
You dot tumbler dot com. And if you'd like to
get smarter this week, you should head to our website
soul stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
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