Summer 2009

Well I set this blog up as a way to keep all my peeps updated on my life when I don't have tie to do it indivually and guess what? I haven't made time to do even this... So update from the ast few months. The baby was bor (praise th Lord) and all went well . 6 pounds 4 ounces and 19 and 1/2 iches long. She is beautiful! She will be 6 months old this week and can't blieve how fast time flies. I am enjoing being a mom and am amazed eveyday by how gratifying i is to watch her grow and develop. Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Child Care and Poverty

After our class discussion yesterday on child abuse and the Family Child Support Center I was thinking about child abuse and child care. I found this article discussing poverty and child abuse and how they relate to each other. During this semester as I've blogged about child care and maternity leave etc... I have focused quite a bit on the needs of the parents (due probably to becoming a parent myself) however, it was beneficial for me to read this article and then look at it from the childs perspective. If there are not child care options for low income families (or any families) the risk factors for child abuse increase. So although my other post shows that congress has pout monies into child care options for families who qualify for TANF it is not enough. Good options for child care not only assist the parents in their juggling act but also may assist parents in preventing child abuse by offering them the assistance they need to be able to cope with their day to day struggles.
In summary this issue of child care in the US is huge, and in my opinion (which is now an educated opinion) requires more attention at the policy level.

Money for child care

While this report is a little bit old (2003) it is encouraging to me that congress was willing to put monies into assisting at least some of the families in our nation who are in need of assistance. The money discussed in this article is used to target those who are are low income (by definition of qualifying for TANF) Although this is a step in the right direction and low income families definitely need the assistance I still think that there are many families in our nation who would benefit from a ssistance in caring for their children. Whether this assistance is monetary to help with day care or in the form of social policy to encourage employers to offer paid maternity leave ore even offer day care for the children at work. Of one thing I am sure... we are still greatly lacking.

Child care gets funding!

I thought that this article was interesting. Apparently in North Dakota Senate Bill 2225 passed 68-25. This bill has been designed to help those struggling to find and afford day care. It is set up as a matching of private funds with state funds. Because child care and work are so dependent on each other I think that this is a really good idea. I'm excited to see how this works out and see if other states will follow suite. Any thoughts?

Who Should Qualify for Maternity/Paternity Leave?

I read in the news that there is a Gay couple in Israel who was granted the first paternity leave for a homosexual couple. as we are preparing to discuss gay marriage in class I was interested in your thoughts on paternity leave for homosexual couples as well as your thoughts on the rights of homosexuals to choose to parent in general whether it be through surrogacy or invitro?

6 weeks to Recover?

I'm back! Sorry I've been kinda outta things for a while but I'm gonna try to get back into the blogging thing again. The article that I'm posting is quite descriptive of the recovery process after a vaginal delivery. If you are bothered by descriptions than don't read it! (this is my disclaimer so as not to offend) However I thought that it was relevant to the issue of maternity/paternity leave to take a look at the recovery process from having a baby. I also chose this article because it is completely relevant to me as I am currently going through the recovery process myself. As indicated by the article there is a lot involved in birth and recovery and not all women are the same. However, despite this the amount of time allotted to a new mom to recover and re-establish her life is often capped at about 6 weeks. What are the implications of a woman (and her baby) being thrust back into work child care (for an infant) and mainstream life. Although I am currently enjoying my maternity leave and have been missing quite a bit of school, I am personally dreading the day (which rapidly approaches) when I have to put my brand new baby in a day care so I can return to work in order to stay above the poverty threshhold (see Patricias' post). I don't really have any solutions to what I see as a real problem but am curious about others' thought and or experiences.

To Stay Home or Not?

I read this great article from the washington post titled Who Should Care for This Child? its an interesting and thought provoking article about making decisions about child care and all the factors which must be considered. Is a full time stay at home really the best or only if that is what her aspirations are? Can a woman afford to stay home or is child care to expensive to be worth it? Would a child be better served by a mother with a career who has more finicial resources available? The author of the article says... It depends! On what works the best for the parent, because whatever works best for the parent will ultimately be the best for the child too=) Now does that sound like someone from the sanguine camp to you? I thought so... but I am curious what your thoughts and reactions are to the article.

Paid Versus Unpaid Labor.

I've thought a lot about the issues that were discussed in small groups the last few minutes of class on wednesday (and during class) concerning the cost of rearing a child and the argument that the costs are private and the gains are public (of successfully raising a child) I don't know how to fix/change/influence this, however, Lucas had an interesting idea that I would like to explore a little more in this blog.
It is based on social security benefits, I'm acknowledging right now that there is a lot that I don't know/understand about social security...mostly because I have never expected it to stick around long enough to influence me on the other end. Okay so the dilemma is that a woman who chooses to stay at home and raise children IS eligible for a certain percentage of what her husbands social security benefit would be... So, IF her husband has a decent job, anf IF they are married for at least 10 years, and IF she is unemployed for 7 years (I think thats right) then she is eligible for the pecentage. The problem here is that being a mom (i.e. homemaker or whatever you want to call it) is labour! It's just not paid, so perfect example of private cost (her loss of income) and public gain (all the kids who are raised to be industrious taxpayers). Not being a policy guru or a economics whiz I have no great solutions only frustrations and questions about a topic that I think is important.
Especially in light of the lady who just had 8 babies (on top of the 6 that she had) is there a way to support moms who are doing unpaid labor without encouraging unemployment and dependency on a government system? I haven't read anything yet that was worth posting, so I'll keep reading and add it later if I find anything helpful or profound. In the mean time I always welcome your thoughts and or opinions.

Socialized Child Care?

It is not my intention to beleaguer this topic. However, we have already read (and discussed some) about maternity leave, paternity leave and parental leave in general. I have also posted some information (and opinion) on child care, the history of it and the current trend of it often being very unaffordable.
I found this little clip on youtube that discusses all of these issues and how they are approached in Sweden (there's lots of info that comes from Sweden) It's only a few minutes long if you want to watch it click here and then I would be interested to hear your thoughts and opinions.
To me the idea of affordable child care for everyone is highly appealing. Sweden goes so far as to guarantee a spot for each child in a facility. However, when discussing this topic with some friends they indicated their belief that any program which is "socialized" decreases in quality and effectiveness. As an example they cited health care in other countries. Now I am not trying to change topics here but it is an interesting idea. Would child care programs decrease in quality if there were some federal policies which increased the availability and affordability of childcare? I am so far without a definite opinion on this, for an opinionated person that is not comfortable!!! So if anyone has idea or opinions on the topic I would be highly interested in your thoughts.

History of child care in the United States

In reading about child care options both in the U.S. and in other countries I came across this article A Brief History of Federal Financing for Child Care in the United States
which discusses (as implied by the title of my post) the history of out of home child care, how/why it started, and the original funding sources. If you are interested in reading it this is the link, however, if your not interested I'm gonna share the parts which were the most interesting or salient to me personally.
First was that child care (for all family structures) is not a new issue. Out of home child care has been offered from a variety of sources and for several reasons. Inlcuding increase of maternal employment due to economic need.

However, due to the very individualistic nature of our society there hasn't been (until recently) much support for federal involvement in funding child care. The general attitude has been that individuals are responsible for the care of their own children. In fact According to the 1930 report issued by the White House Conference on Children, “No one should get the idea that Uncle Sam is going to rock the baby to sleep.” (See attached article)
It has only been in the last 60-70 years that as more middle class women have entered the workforce, that attitudes have changed to be more supportive of child care in general.

Federal funding (while it does exist) has been very difficult to structure and still lacks the criteria of being organized, consistent, and structured. The intertia behind the original organization of federal funding for childcare did not outlive the depression which had necesitated it in the first place. Currently our federal care financing system is really no system at all, but is actually a collection of funding streams.

The article discusses at length the various social policies (which concern child care) which have been put in place during the last 70ish years. It's not my intention to recap what I read (so I didn't) just to share a brief glimpse of what I've learned in order to comment on it. My views on social policy and government involvement are (admitedly) still forming. The readings that we've had and some of the discussions in class, combined with my ever increasing realization of the enormous responsibility of careing for a child are sparking some very interesting debates... with myself! These questions have invited me to examine my own values (i.e. indiviudalistic) and the values of my subculture (in particular my family and religion) and then try to sort out what my opinions are... which ones are flexible to change... and why my opinions are what they are! I can not say that this is a comfortable process ( I get in fights with me frequently these days) however, I am excited to form opinions on policy issues (such as child care) which I had not really considered before.
Now that was a little bit of a personal rant (hope you'll forgive me) but the purpose of this blog (as I understand it) is an open forum to express our opinons and thoughts. Currently these are my opinions and thoughts. Tune in for more at a later time.

Child Care Options in the U.S.

I am interested in this topic for several reasons. Initially I realized how inadequate the options are for working mothers when my little sister (a single mom) went to work after a divorce in order to support her and her son. However, the high cost of child care makes it impossible for her to make enough money to pay other bills. As discussed in class on Wednesday the options for child care which are currently available are highly inadequate.

In fact according to what I read a single parent who makes an average of $19,000 a year can expect to pay 41 percent of that income or an average of $7,800 a year to pay for child care. A single parent family with two children needing child care (these numbers are specifically for North Carolina but are fairly typical) will pay about $14,556 on average or 76.6 percent of the median family income. With costs like this it would actually be cheaper to send your child to College than to pay for childcare or kindergarten.

There is an interesting article on this if you are interested in reading. The information is good but I have to admit to being a little discouraged by the whole thing. I am not a family finance/consumer science person (although I do like money) and yet can't help seeing the really negative repercussions financially of the high cost of child care. Honestly, No wonder the birth rate in the U.S. is negative there are lots of reasons to not have children (the discomforts of pregnancy being only one=) and there are TONS of reasons to delay having children or significantly limit the number you have. The financial burdens are high for a two parent family... The cost to a single parent is comparatively astronomical. On a more positive note, hopefully there are policies that could be implemented to alleviate the burden of child care for both single parents and the two parent families.

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