Not a good idea...but what can we do?

Americans on average are overworked and underpaid, jobs are scarce, pay has gone down, CEO salaries have gone up, bosses have become meaner....and we still do have familiees to take care of!!!

As much as most Americans would prefer to be by their kiddos side; it is becoming impossible to even see your child for more than a couple hours a day...when you are sending them to school.

By the time everybody meets up; it's time to go to bed...pathetic!

We are become disorganized families, thats for sure....

Face the facts; we are now a third world country; they have beaten down America , so they may mold it to their corporate government, Do you think that this uncontrolled illegal immigration problem is just a accident, do you believe that no real wage increase IN 25 YEARS IS JUST A ACCIDENT, DO YOU BELIEVE THAT UN-ENDING WAR AFTER WAR IS JUST A ACCIDENT; OUR CORPORATE MASTERS HAVE PLANNED THIS EVER SINCE Brenton Woods IN 1946.

And yet another indicator of a failing society.

Hey Doc - Ill take it a couple steps further than disorganized - and call it profoundly dysfunctional. Its abhorrent.

“Nine-to-five jobs are a dream,” said Alicia Fuerstenberg, a 26-year-old single mother who lives in Elyria, Ohio. “They’re all taken or you have to have a Master’s.”

OMG...ya right, a 'Master's' to go into sales - in many ways the best paying job a high school grad can get if they don't mind WORKING & THINKING. I don't mean KMart...I'm talking commission sales. Those jobs are always out there. But young people have to work, relocate, and think.

"A dream"?.....Gimme a break.........

Is anyone at all troubled by the fact that childcare facilities did not exist, or were extremely rare and for the rich, prior to the 1980s? They were unheard of in the 1960s. Non-maternal childcare when it was needed by those of lesser means, and due to unforseen circumstances (such as the untimely death of the father), was provided by extended family (who, thanks to a functional society, were generally also mothers who were IN THE HOME).

The woman of loose morals was a pariah for a reason, and it wasnt just good christian values. It was because she was the antipathy of motherhood.

The only daycare available by strangers was for the very wealthy. They hired in-home nannies. Children didnt have access to their self-absorbed mothers, but they at least had the comfort of their own homes.

Daycare facilities are a peculiarity of "the new world order" and of the great service economy that our leaders praised so effusively back in the 1980s. This is the reality, folks. This is the end result of corporate deregulation, and of pro-feminism gone amok.

"It takes a village."

This is just the 21st century's form. At least they are parents that care enough to work hard to provide for their children. Would you prefer they didn't and just took handouts?

I know many people that do not have family members that live near by to help with child care. This is a safe, enriching enviroment that is provided by people that care about kids.

I don't think when they made that saying you had to pay the village though.

srength in numbers, i went to daycare in the 60's. my parents were both school teachers. it was a big place too, with rooms for different age groups.

Rezsia - the 21st century form is not doing a very good job of raising the children. Emotional disorders of all sorts are off the charts for children. Its not a coincidence. The saying "it takes a village" referred to the fact that a child actually could ROAM said village with his/her childhood friends - and interact with the people. They had teachers - the neighbors, the parents of their friends, the local store that they would buy penny candy from, the local theatre - their church, the library, pick-up sports, public parks, etc. It meant that they interacted with the people in their neighborhood. They were not shuffled from a distracted, rushed home, to a school, then off to a holding facility, to be picked up, put to bed, and start all over the next day.. and the next.. and the next.... And what of their summers? What of playing all day with friends, under sprinklers, making mud pies, exploring woods and fields? No. They spend thier ouside time on foam in small fenced in "play areas". In worlds so small, they cant even escape the "neighborhood bully" no, they have to take a nap next to him now.

Remember that Sesame Street song...? Who are the people in your neighborhood - theyre the people that you greet, when youre walking down the street! Well, now, children's worlds have shrunk to sad proportions. As though they were locked away in orphanages. They are stored in large detention facilities with lots of colorful plastic toys and colorful pretty things taped on the walls.

My deepest condolances, to you, allison. But I do hope you at least had summers to play with your friends in a world not entirely regimented by schedule and "rooms".

@Strength in numbers my mother, who is 64, had to babysit her younger brothers after school and start dinner, starting when she was in 2nd or 3rd grade....both her parents worked back then, as did many of the people in her family AND her neighborhood...at times, she and her family lived with her grandparents, but that was not what went on for most of her childhood...the "good ole days" were not good for everyone, and there is a need for some of the changes that have happened over the years...women have ALWAYS worked, who were YOUR teachers when you were young? probably at leat 75% were women, and nurses are a (low) 96% female now, secretaries, cleaning people, store clerks, phone operators...all overwhelmingly female workers, who were married and had kids and had to scramble for child care, especially if family were not nearby...the "Leave it to Beaver" world in the 50's bears as much resembalance to the real world as the" Real Housewives" shows resemble the majority of American families...barely at all.

and for the record, I was a stay at home mom until about just over 4 years ago when my husband left and I had to work fulltime to support myself and kids...the following summer, my kids went to full day camp, and they liked it more than hanging around like they did in prior summers, and we spent most days at our YMCA pool...at camp they ahve gone on field trips, hiked, camped, canoed, done crafts, partidipate in the annual camp show, learned about wildlife, go swimming every day unless it rains...every January, my daughter cannot wait to choose the camp she will attend each week, this year it includes fishing ( she has been fishing for over 11 years now) camera skills, gardening...sounds like f**cking torture, doesn't it?? and similiar camping experiences are offered all over, courtesy of the YMCA.

The first "day cares" or "day nurseries" started in Boston in the 1840's, to care for immigrant children whose mothers were widowed or had to work. It's not that new a phenomenon.

Is anyone at all troubled by the fact that childcare facilities did not exist, or were extremely rare and for the rich, prior to the 1980s? They were unheard of in the 1960s.

StrengthInNumbers - you don't have a clue! Both of my parents worked during the 50s. My younger sister was in childcare during the day. I wasn't a problem because I was already in elementary school. Childcare did exist prior to the 1960s, and it wasn't just for the rich. If we had been rich, my mother would not have been working.

Get a clue and check your facts before posting nonsense. As for "pro-feminism gone amok", get your mind out of the Middle Ages and move forward into the 21st century.

Sorry - sticking to my guns on this. Daycare was for the rich. I knew not a single child in daycare when I was growing up. We all walked home from school everyday. I grew up in a blue-collar factory town.

Theres an exception to every rule, but by and large, daycare prior to the 1980s was the exception.

@Strength:

CHILD CARE IN THE UNITES STATES: YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Marlys Ann Boschee, Ed. D.
Associate Professor
University of South Dakota

Geralyn M. Jacobs, Ed.D.,
Assistant Professor
University of South Dakota

CHILD CARE IN THE US: A BRIEF HISTORY

The beginning of the day care movement originated with the welfare and reform movements of the 19th century. "Day care grew out of a welfare movement to care for immigrant and working class children while their impoverished mothers worked (Scarr & Weinberg, 1986, p. 1140)." The day care centers of today evolved from these day nurseries which began in Boston in the 1840s.

The early nurseries cared for children of working wives and widows of merchant seamen who were an economically deprived and disadvantaged group in society. Settlement houses were especially active in promoting day care for immigrant children. Jane Adams, a well known reformer in her era, developed nurseries for poor children who needed supervision and care while their parents endeavored to survive in a new land. "Day care," according to Scarr and Weinberg (1986), "was founded... as a social service to alleviate the child care problems of parents who had to work, and to prevent young children from wandering the streets (p. 1141)."

GOVERNMENT SPONSORSHIP

Child care in the United State has, like many other national enterprises, has been a melting pot of ideas and interests. During the Great Depression, day care was sponsored by the Federal Government. This sponsorship was motivated by a desire to employ out-of-work adults, however, not from a belief in early education.

During World War II, the Federal Government sponsored day care for 400,000 preschool children. Again, this was not done because Congress perceived day care to be beneficial for children, but because the mothers of these children were needed to work in industries producing war materials. Ironically, after the war, the Federal government abdicated all support for day care and instructed women to quit working, go home, and take care of their children. Many women, however, chose not to accept that advice. The ranks of working women have been steadily increasing since World Was II (Scarr & Weinberg, 1986).

PRIVATELY SPONSORED CHILD CARE CENTERS

In addition to the Federal sponsorship of child care during World War II, a unique program began in Portland, Oregon in 1943. The Kaiser shipyards opened a child care center at the entrance of each of their two shipyards. In building the centers, they hoped to reduce the rate of absenteeism among their working mothers. Henry Kaiser built the centers, which were the world's largest child care centers and were in operation 24 hours a day. These centers had a nurse on site for children who were ill, and also provided hot meals for mothers to take home with them. The centers were models of child-centered construction, built around a courtyard with wading pools. The playrooms branching off of the courtyards had large windows and window seats that allowed children to watch the construction taking place in the yards. Cost of the care was shared by parents and the Kaiser company. In the two years they were open they served 3,811 different children (Gordon & Browne, 1996).

After the war these centers closed, but today more and more businesses are following Kaiser's example and are providing on-site child care centers for their employees. New innovations in corporate day care settings are also being tried. Stride Rite Corporation began their day care center in 1971 and have now opened an intergenerational center which provides services to toddlers and preschoolers, as well as the elderly (Berenbeim, 1992). Two Marriott hotels in Atlanta have joined forces with the Omni hotel to build a 24 hour a day, subsidized child care center. The center will offer family-support services, including immunizations, linking parents with social workers, and offering parenting classes. Eighty percent of their 250 slots are reserved for children from low-income families (Shellenbarger, 1994).

My grandmother and my oldest aunt had only 7th-grade educations because of the lack of daycare in the 40's and 50's. Their families made them drop out of school to watch their younger siblings.

There are some aspects of the "good old days" I wouldn't want to see happen again.

StrengthInNumbers--there were daycares, though they were not called daycares for the most part. Many daycares were run out of homes by women who cared solo for other people's children (my husband stayed in one such daycare in the 1960s), other daycares were run out of homes by women with larger homes and a few coworkers or staff, and they provided a "kindergarten." I went to one such kindergarten back in the 1960s, before public schools instituted kindergartens. We were all working-class people.

Prior to that time, back in the early 1900s and 1800s, there were different arrangements. Widowed family members and childless aunties went from family home to family home, caring for the small children so that the younger women could work in the fields or in the family shop. People who did not have a female family member who provided such services would go to the nearest orphanage and get an "orphaned" (that is, an illegitimate) preteen or to offer a job to a preteen from a home with a single father who was a drunk--this young girl would then be tasked with watching younger children until she became old enough to marry and leave.

This was a good way for young girls from "bad homes" or "bad situations" to demonstrate that they were dependable and morally upright--they could then marry nice, if relatively poor, young boys. Some who were "lucky" would come to the attention of an older man with some wealth and marry into money.

Seriously--have you never read Anne of Green Gables? Yes, that was commonplace. Middle class families (lawyers and doctors) might have an au pair or just a family acquaintance who needed a place to stay. People with a bit more money would have a nanny or governess (did you see The Help--those people weren't "wealthy," just middle class and/or affluent). The very wealthy would have a young woman from an aristocratic, if impoverished, family who was either plain or had been jilted or had gotten too old for a good match--and she would give an excellent education to their children, based on the fine education she had gotten in a girl's academy. (Heck, girls' academies were run by impoverished genteel women whose husbands had trashed their fortunes and left them with no more than a good education and a fine, large house.)

Women have always worked--in the fields, in the family business, "helping" their husbands by serving as their assistants (in law, in medicine, in theology, in the academy--the old rule was that if a woman wanted to be a lawyer, she married one, and "practiced" law as his assistant)--and they have always had a method of seeing to it that the children were cared for. By the time of the 1900s, when young women (from bad families or not) could get jobs in factories easily, the old methods of providing care were gone. So, women went into business caring for children--usually they worked from their own homes, but they were still businesses.

Remember that just because you were blissfully unaware of arrangements that weren't like those in your own home doesn't mean they didn't exist. Seriously--read something other than the carefully tailored histories handed to you by people who are good at fiction. There has always been a way of providing care for children while mom worked. I think that some are worth revisiting (I really do think that having a trustworthy, impoverished relative move in is a great idea--as it provides for care and also helps the indigent).

strength in numbers, i liked going to daycare. we lived in a rural area and my sister was my usual playmate. it was fun to play with other kids. i learned too- i was way ahead of the pack when i got to 1st grade. while the other kids were learning to read, i was reading independently. and yes, we were home during the summer- as i said, my parents were school teachers.

frank,

i typed in my bing box - abc and me newark delaware - and some came up. good luck and congrats.

chocolatekat: have you checked with your child's school or your local DES office? also, the YWCA can be a good resource. and, depending on your child's special needs, you can find a local support group that can help you further. also, single/solo parent support groups in your area can be a great assistance. you can do a google search, if you have not already, of your child's disability and child care; call those centers and see if they have resources...sometimes they have scholarships from private funding sources. start networking with parents that have a similar situation...when you pool resources, it can be a great help! good luck, dear! i understand what you are going through, i have been there. don't lose faith!

Most day cares won't take a sick child. I have heard some have a sick room, but I think the kids only stay in there until the paent can pick them up. Special needs should be offered almost everywhere.

With 40 million people on food stamps we should have them work 10-20 hours/week taking care of these children. Enough of this entitilement welfare society. These people keep telling us how responsible they are, let the cities provide the space and the food stamp people watch over the children. A no-cost solution to a real problem.

@Jerry-450071 -- Would you really want welfare recipients FORCED to watch your children in order to obtain welfare/food stamp benefits? Sounds like an invitation for child abuse and neglect.

@Jerry Really?

Fact: Over 1,000 TN state employees are on food stamps.

Why: Because employers (including the states) want to pay the least for the most work. Not pay equal to the work provided.

Fact: My husband who is a firefighter has not received a raise in 9 years and I work over 50+ hrs a week. We still can't afford childcare.

I hate to sound judgmental, but I'd never want a food stamp person to care for my child.

I'm thankful I'm lucky enough to be able to stay at home.

Sorry, but, you do sound judgmental, kamity. You can't make a snap judgement that the character of a person is poor simply because they're receiving food stamps. Funny how we always blame people who are struggling financially, but, never consider that the greed of corporations is what has many people and their families struggling in the first place.

US corporations have been downsizing and outsourcing without abandon for over 40 years. This is what happens after decades of sending our jobs somewhere else. And, I'm so tired of that "...there are jobs out there..." argument. Yes, there are jobs out there, but, if they pay any kind of decent money, 500 people could apply for one position. I after being downsized by a major telecommunications company TWICE during the last two decades, I finally secured a job with a nearby school district. HUNDREDS of people showed up to go through a very lengthy hiring process - and there weren't even any positions for that job title available at the time. I only finally got a position because I ranked so high on the eligibility list. Even so, it's only a part-time, substitute position, which means I get no benefits, no sick leave, no vacation and, because I'm not considered a "regular" employee, I'm earning much less than the starting wage for the position. In other words, it's a jungle out there when it comes to finding a decent job where you're not in a position where you need food stamps to survive. Thankfully, I don't, but, a lot of people do. That doesn't make them monsters.

Obviously though, since you don't have to work, you have no clue as to how difficult the jobs market is.

wow, kamity, you bourgeois-elitist attitude about made me fall off my chair. let me guess, you and the hubby like to take a leisurely drive to the city's southside on a sunday afternoon to show the kids what a ghetto looks like? is that your idea of a family excursion? i bet you any money it is, "stay at home mom". go back to your freecycling and coupon clipping, and leave commentary on real life situations to those of us who get it.

Bravo!

Um, hey? Not so much with the Bravo.

Granted, Kamity does sound pretty darn judgemental, but so does real_life. Being a stay at home mom doesn't make you someone who doesn't get real life, and she was JUST as insulting as Kamity was. I'm a stay at home mom, for a very simple reason. When I started back to work after my first son, I quickly discovered that once I paid for child care, gas, lunch, and work clothes, I was working 40 hrs a week for almost no net gain. No reason in the world for us to put our kids in child care for half their waking lives without us having more than spending money to show for it. So I stayed home, ran a little business from home, and you bet your a$$, I freecycled and cut coupons. Cause, see, that savings helped us scrape by on the one income. And I have to say, I don't much appreciate being painted with the bon-bon brush that Real_Life just whipped out. We don't Freecycle and cut coupons beause we have nothing better to do, we do it beause we are doing the best we can to feed our families and keep clothes on their backs and roofs over their heads. Maybe even just like you, even though different choices got us to this place. I'd estimate that I save 3 grand a year on groceries, just from couponing, and that is significant when you're on a budget. I guess "judgemental" cuts both ways.

I wouldn't mind if someone on foodstamps watched my kids. As long as they were qualified to.

Thousands of people are on foodstamps. Some are hard working people who fell on hard times. Others are drug using abusers who can't even take care of themselves.

If Susan or Fred the qualified teachers aide who got laid off and hasn't been able to get work gets food stamps and can watch kids, sure!

If it's Susan or Fred the not qualified meth addicts who stuff packets of cold medicine in their pants to make their next batch... no.

My mom ironically enough, was on food stamps. She was a state qualified day care provider and was one for 20 years before a very bad back injury kept her from doing daycare. After that, she had to go on welfare to receive benefits until she could get disability. This was years ago, but I will still trust her to watch kids despite being on foodstamps.

So the statement made by the woman who said she'd never let ANY person on foodstamps watch her kids is a shallow baseless and rather snotty opinion. Fortunately for the rest of us, it is just that, an opinion, one that can easily be ignored.

firefly, what I prefer is that they dont go down so gently into that good night. What I prefer is that we FIGHT, and that we dont try to rationalize this situation as acceptable or good, because we find ourselves in it.

Dont let them serve you dog poo in a fancy bowl, and call it chocolate pudding. Its still dog poo!

This daycare system is not the ideal environment to raise a child. This is greatly inferior to just a few decades ago. My working-class upbringing was idyllic compared to this dystopian hell on earth we have created. Its downright Dickensian, but with television.

No firely - what I want, is for people to FIGHT, to say HEY! This is NOT a good situation!

Fight for a return to a more family-friendly time, when one working-class income was sufficient to raise our families.

Working hard, firefly to the point where you are largely absent from your child's life, does indeed MAKE you a "bad" parent. It does not mean you CHOOSE to be a bad parent. You are compelled by a dysfunctional society to be an absentee parent.

tfbar,

They CAN afford care. The article is about kids who are receiving childcare, if you'll take the time to read it. The difference from most families is that this care is provided outside of normal business hours, because these parents work outside of normal business hours, and PAY for childcare during those hours.

wow...so, parents who have to work are bad parents??? you must live in a Brady Bunch existence, where spouses never die, where families don't divorce, and single parenting doesn't exist. please go back to your Leave it to Beaver life...the real world is inhabited by real people.

If the only people who had children were the ones who had all the resources necessary and could spend all their time focusing on their kids, this country would be depopulated in very short order.

Life does not go according to plan. This woman is attempting to make the best of a tough situation. And you are criticizing her choices and her situation based on very few details. I hope you aren't a parent because if you are, you're setting a bad example for your kids.

people who have little and little prospects are the most likely to spend their free time making babies and the most likely to have a blase attitude towards the importance of providing their kids with a good life because their parents didn't set them up so well in life either

Do they still have those? This is 10s America we are talking about not 90s America.

Just read an article about them written in 2010. People still work night shift in 10s America.

So let's talk about the bad choices that YOU have made and what others did to help you out of the mess that you created... where shall we begin?

Shame on you Melissa. I waited until my 40's to have children, don't have cable, a new car but affordable child care? Yeah, that's for the $100K plus crowd. Not the working poor or even middle-class families like mine. You sound like a single lonely woman that has no clue how life works, only what you've been brainwashed to believe. Oh, and I'm married. Dual incomes doesn't cut it, either.

Well government has been instituted to protect all people's rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Hard to be happy on an empty stomach, if people can't eat then government has a duty to intercede.

The problems started as soon as the war was won, all of a sudden all that revolutionary spirit got quieted down when they realized what they had all signed that got things going in the first place.

"Well government has been instituted to protect all people's rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness..."

Not in the Constitution! The 5th Amendment does offer protections to our "life, liberty, or property," noting we cannot be deprived of any of them without due process of law. Taking my property to give to someone else is against the Constitution.

tmdurant #19: Um...we know of many people that work the normal 9 to 5 jobs and have NO higher education much less an associates, bachelors OR masters degree and we live in Cleveland.

So those must be the jobs that are taken that Ms. Fuerstenberg referred to.

I agree with your assessment, Mike. Middle-aged folks that are ready to retire -- people I personally know of whom voted for right-wingers back in the G.W. Bush Era of the 00's -- were quietly admitting to me that they're regretting it now. They've seen their 401K's and the value of their homesteads go downhill -- especially after the Republican Tea Party had a big ideological influence on Capitol Hill. in downgrading the nation's Triple A Rating. And they say they're seeing their states yield much less help to their grown-up children and grandchildren too, due to Republican-led budget cuts in government assistance to the working class, middle class, and the poor, within their own communities. They also said that depending on local Christian churches for help comes with really big strings attached ...binding ropes, "balls and chains," would be more like it.

Amendment 3 Quartering of soldiers

Do you have to draw them first?

Yella u must be a GOP member ur granddad prob worked for wpa---or made boot leg booze

Cherokee my friend. My grandfather was career Navy. I am no more than a single father who raised 3 children with support from NO ONE. Call me what you will. I'm the one who finds comfort in my own skin. And I do not have to take your inventory to do so.

how bout we call you a bore and leave it at that

You missed the part about "promote the general welfare?" Try reading it again.

First off, only the first ten amendments are called the "Bill of Rights." Second, This is the preamble to the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence*, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Thirdly, Section Eight: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence* and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

*Spelling of "defense" original to document.

I think amendment one is a good start and amendment seven, 6, 9, 14, 19.

The generation that messed up were the ones born in the 50s into that post-WWII, cold war, pre-civil rights mentality. The same kids who are now adults running the show. They were the ones who introduced that whole work till you drop, get milked like a cow mentality. They were the ones who started the astronomical divorce rates.

Oh, you are referring to ME??.....Lets see, Single father of 3, no child support, no food stamps, no free housing. Put 2 daughters thru college w/ no grants. They did EARN some scholarships.

Now tell me more about YOUR generation. Could it be the one of the Entitlement Culture??, I.E. free housing, food, health care, college, eye care, cell phones and contraception?? You mean the generation who started the astronomical "where's yo daddy" rate??

Dude, do not be writing checks with your mouth that your ass cannot cash.

So let me get your argument straight, you are against entitlements and yet have done your best to raise expectations of entitlements in your children by putting them through college rather than letting them work for it themselves?

Yella hate to break it to you but I don't need to write or cash a check, you just did both for me.

And I'm not trying to insinuate that the problems have not continued to the present generations, they have, I am only pinpointing the origins of those problems as starting with that generation. Yes my generation sucks but it sucks because our parents (the ones born in the 50s) were too busy working and divorcing (then working even more to pay lawyers and for two shelters) than to spend time at home. Now my generation are adults with kids of their own, repeating the same processes they witnessed as children.

Mr. Dan,

Being a parent is a trial and error process. As a parent, my hope is for my children to make their own decisions and that someday, they can fend for themselves. But as a parent, as long as these kids make an effort in their lives, I have their back. That is my responsibilty. They have demonstrated a sincere and honest effort by maintaining 3.5 GPA's and work 2 jobs in the process. They ask very little from me.

My advise to anyone who is a parent, let me say. By the time you get it figured out, it won't matter anyway. Because grandchildren await you....LOL

I have been a professional/technical working mom since I had children with a daughter in 1995 and a son in 1998. I graduated from college and met my husband there. We married after graduations and married within five years have a girl and a boy who are now 16 and 14 respectively. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to college and meet a college educated man who did not want for much. We struggled to find our first employers in 1989 and 90 respectively. Crappy job market at the time for young people, just like now. Personally, I do not think our society's capitolisim should leave any parent or child in its wake. I earn 50-70 K+ OPE a year and childcare costs were brutal in the 90s (and now) compromised our net income to an extreme. I remember paying La Petite Academy (corporate daycare) over $1200 a month to take care of my children 2 and 4 years old for a couple of years so mom and dad w/o our family daycare could go to their jobs. Our parents are loving grandparents and not interested in being daycare providers, but living their lives are individuals wish to pursue. It was insensitive for me to expect them to be a full or even part-time caregivers of my children at no cost. This full-time, dual income with children pursuit was a death sentence for my first marriage. It was difficult just like it is difficult for a single parent with children to raise. In my 25+ years of parenting I can ell you our system of childcare is extremely broken. Just like education our pre-K care/education system needs to be revamped and quickly for the betterment of our society. We can learn a lot from our countries that put a priority on the health and education of women and their children, which are the backbone of this society. Sorry boys/men. You are so important and special, but you are nothing without women. It is a shame that I contemplate whether it would be more healthy and prosperous to live in other countries for my parents, me and my children to raise their families. I never reply to blogs, but I was in the right moment to do so. Good luck.

Just so you will know mommy, Universities across this nation are ramping up their early childhood education programs and being a graduate of one of them, I assure you they are intensive. The NAEYC, have set stringent standards for Pre-k and K and states and counties are being forced to comply. There is a strong sentiment in this country for quality education for our children. But like many other things, economics are always a problem. Kindergarten teachers make between 10 and 12 dollars an hour. How many young people really want to spend 40 grand on a college education to work for that kind of money? However this is not to short change the teachers with A.A.'s and CDA's as these are well qualified and caring people. Try a little volunteer time at your headstart or early headstart schools and you will see how dedicated these folks are. Not just you mommy44, all these schools welcome volunteers from all walks of life, no special skills needed, just a love of children.