“Across the board, there is difficulty in hiring folks in the early childhood sector,” Hamm said. “We had kind of a quiet crisis before the pandemic in the sector. And now that’s … really coming to the forefront.”
Let me ruminate on that for 15 years. Oh wait I have.
It’s like the food service “crisis.” Or the “crisis” of anyone working a shitty* job. I put quotes around it, because it’s a problem that could be solved in a day. And it’s not hard.
Subsidize childcare.
Oh, but we don’t have the money for it.
Then maybe we should tax the dicks going to space, and their aircraft, too. How about companies pay their fair share? I mean, they are people. Or we lay off the military spending. Or just pretend that most childcare workers are white men.
Here’s the part where I tell you why the crisis is “quiet.” Because, like nursing, teaching is an industry full of women. Sure, there’s a man here or there. But honestly, we’re still in the mindset of “Oh, it’s one of those jobs the womenfolk can get to have a little bit of spending money.”
Despite our Bachelors’, Masters’, and Doctorate degrees, not to mention continuing education.
Despite the Early Childhood years being the most crucial to a person’s life.
Despite the fact that we have 12-20 children’s lives in our very hands for 7 to 11 hours a day.
Let me appeal to the conservatives in the country: Honestly, I don’t get paid enough to not teach children to be little socialists**. If you want to make a country of cold, hard capitalists, then you’re gonna have to pay cold, hard capitalists to do it. And I’m not gonna lie, that’s gonna take quite the budget.
AND NOW…TWO TALES.
A Hummer, an MQ-9 Reaper, and an F-35A ride into a bar. Then they smash the bottles and tables, run over all the customers and rip their clothes off and demagnetize their credit cards. They suck all the money from the till. Nobody stops them. The world is shit.
Someone who just gave someone a hummer, the Grim Reaper, and a 35-year-old walk into a bar. They ask for a martini, some absinthe, and a seltzer, respectively. They sit down, and discuss world events. There are customers all around them, talking quietly, or just relaxing. Only a few of them tip, because the serving staff’s wages are high enough to make them a nice living. The economy is booming. Nobody is an asshole, because they all went to preschool.
*I say shitty as in pay. Most teachers adore what they do. But if you work at your dream job on minimum wage, it’s a shitty job. If you have to go to another job to support yourself, or live on 2 meals of ramen a day, or have to live in your parents’ basement because you can’t afford an apartment, IT’S A SHITTY FUCKING JOB.
**Heaven forfend kids might learn how to share and take responsibility and care for other people besides themselves, and work for a better and more equitable world.***
***I wonder what kind of early childhood education Mitch McConnell had. Or Kayleigh McEnany.
The problem will remain: preschool teaches you the values you need to create community and work together for the betterment of the world. If it’s followed up by something like Harvard, that’ll beat the ethics right out of you.