Child care is essential because it provides a loving, safe place for children to develop their creativity and self-identity

Child care is essential because it helps us form community bonds and share commonalities

Child care is essential because it supports a more egalitarian division of care within households

Child care is essential because it allows parents to be people defined by something other than parenthood

Child care is essential because it helps single families, families facing illness and grief, and families with all kinds of struggle

Child care providers and teachers are essential workers, many of whom are Black and Brown women, who sustain both their own communities and white communities with their labor

Child care is essential, yes, because it allows parents to work and supports economic growth

We need to support it as a society for this AND for all the reasons listed above and more

I signed a letter of support for child care relief funding, similar to the federal relief that the airline industry received

#SaveChildCare

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/content/uploads/2020/06/18140211/Economists-letter.pdf

More information about the coming child care crisis can be found here via @amprog @CAPEarlyEd: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2020/06/22/486433/coronavirus-will-make-child-care-deserts-worse-exacerbate-inequality/

On a more personal note, it's been a really tough few months without child care

My spouse is an essential worker doing COVID testing (hi Andy! ), so I've took on most of it over the past few months https://twitter.com/SarahCohodes/status/1274670988991639553

I love our toddler and we've spent a lot of special time together, the highlights of which have been documented on Twitter

But it is... a LOT https://twitter.com/SarahCohodes/status/1247363590677381120

We've been lucky to be able to get a little bit of help recently, which has been a light at the end of a tunnel, but I miss her child care center and the loving and thoughtful teachers and community there

We have so much privilege and so many resources that will help us solve our own child crisis at the individual family level (still LOTS of uncertainty and stress)

And that's fine for me and for our family

But for all families, for the country, we need real policy solutions that support child care as part of the fundamental fabric of our society

A start, a START, would be funding like that I support in the letter above

That's the