The USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion just published a report estimating the cost of raising a child from birth to age 17. According to the study, a two-parent family that earns less than $57,000 annually will spend $160,000, those with incomes between $57,000-$99,000 spend $221,000 and those higher than $99,000 will spend $367,000. (Median family income for 2008 for a 4-person family is $67,019.)
Since the USDA began tracking these figures in 1960, the largest growth has been in the cost for child care, although no costs are given for this amount. The fact that this issue is not more of a public debate is very strange. Linda and I pay more than $28,000 a year to send the girls to daycare. In other words, we spend roughly what I make as take home pay to send them to daycare. We are not in the lowest costing daycare in the area, but we aren't even close to the highest costing. We could be spending a lot more if we wanted to, but we simply can't afford it. We could also be paying less, but we weren't happy with those programs. These are incredibly important years in their lives and I want to have them working with the best we can afford. I don't want our daycare to be competing with McDonald's as an employer. (no offense to those who work at McDonald's. Linda and I both worked there.)
Why aren't we as a nation talking about affordable, quality childcare? Why aren't we talking about getting good teachers teaching our infants and toddlers just as we are talking about for the regular school system? Why aren't we up in arms about how people of lower incomes aren't able to afford childcare for their kids? When I write my check every month I wonder how people making minimum wage or just a little above are able to pay someone to take care of their children and still have anything left to pay the other bills.
The simple fact is many of them can't. Every year there will be a story in the news about a child who died from exposure in a car while their parent, usually a single mother, was inside working because they couldn't afford to send them somewhere. The response is usually two-fold. One group will talk about the need for affordable childcare and the other group will blame the parent and say they just didn't try hard enough to find a place for them to go. But, the news is quickly forgotten and we move on to the next news cycle. Well the problem is not going away, in fact, it's probably getting worse, and we are going to have to confront it sooner or later.
To show you how much this problem seems to be ignored, I looked in the Book of Discipline and the Book of Resolutions for what the UMC has to say about this issue. While a resolution says "The church has important responsibilities in initiating, encouraging, and participating in the highest quality of child care for children and families, not only in the local community but also nationwide," there is not a direct call for groups to deal with this directly other than to be "diligent advocates." There is not even a call for greater funding for Head Start. To be honest, I'm a little stunned by this and will be thinking about how we should approach this, and what should be submitted, for the next General Conference.
Sunday Schools were originally started in order to give children a place to go to learn how to read and write on the only day they had off from working. The church was instrumental not only in getting child labor laws instituted but also in pushing for universal education. Often the first hospital, school and college built in a town were built by the Methodist church. Why are we silent on this issue? I think some of it is because people who don't have small children do not realize how insanely expensive child care is, and I think there is also the traditional argument that if society helps assist with these costs more women will go out to work and their place is in the home.
As I already said this is not an issue which is going to go away, and unfortunately it is probably waiting for a tragedy to happen before it is addressed.
This will be an issue I will address again. I will also discuss the $207,000 gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. I would venture to guess that a large portion of this is directly attributable to educational issues.
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