Phyllis Roland is a retired advocate for early learning. Prior to that, she spent 35 years as an early childhood educator.
How can we expect to thrive and grow as a community, a state or a nation when we don’t support the women who are holding our families together?
After 35 years of working as an early childhood educator, I can attest the job often feels like a “beatdown.” You’re a low-wage earner feeling unappreciated, unvalued, overworked and underpaid.
Bleak though it may seem, that’s the mentality many in our workforce face after years in the classroom or home care setting. That feeling and reality are particularly harsh for women and women of color — who, data tell us, hold up the industry.
The early education and child care workforce is 94% female, and 38%-40% of that group is comprised of Black and Brown women. According to a recent Center for American Progress report, early learning workers earn an average full-time wage of $14 per hour — a number that has dropped 6.5% since July 2022. Most recent Delaware data shows hourly rates closer to $11, with about half of the local workforce relying on public assistance.
Black workers face 50% higher poverty rates compared to other women in the child care workforce and earn an average of 78 cents less per hour than White child care workers.
The report says “more than one in six women who are child care workers live below the poverty line — twice the poverty rate for women workers overall — and poverty rates are even higher for women of color in the child care workforce, especially those who are supporting children of their own.”
These women, some young mothers themselves and even grandmothers, must apply for state services as supplements to support themselves and their families. They experience the same challenges of finding affordable care for their children, so they can go to work caring for someone else’s children.
The child care trenches are demanding and time-consuming. And those conditions often make it hard to advocate for yourself and for your colleagues.
Before I retired, I was an early childhood educator for 35 years. Over the course of my tenure, I participated in over 125 hours of professional development and specified training courses related to my day-to-day responsibilities in the classroom. I pursued my Bachelor of Science degree and earned a master’s in public administration, utilizing the educational benefits provided by my employer.
Yet my pay remained close to national averages — around $14 per hour.
With no ladders for growth, development or pay increase, my frustrations grew over the years. But professional demands still required us to continue to be trained or to take courses on topics like mental health. Unlike most other industries, increased professional development doesn’t come with an increased paycheck.
My colleagues shared their struggles with me. One talked of managing care for her three children under 7. Time and money were a constant problem, leaving her feeling overwhelmed, as she and her husband went through their lives as passing ships in the night. Both struggled with long hours, low- to moderate-wage jobs. He worked two jobs, late nights and weekends, and left her with the children most of the time. Many low-wage jobs require employees to work early or late hours — hours when most child care is not open.
Other colleagues — women between 25-35, well trained and educated — all held bachelor’s degrees or were working on a master’s. Yet they lived at home with their parents, unable to afford to live on their own.
Has Delaware made some progress in recent years supporting the early learning workforce? Yes. But frankly, progress is not unfolding fast enough.
Truly, we need to pick up the pace because, if you look at the long-term issues that we see in our society, it’s because the foundation is unstable. The women who are helping us build that foundation are not properly cared for, and they’re leaving. In fact, in the last three years, one in six child care workers have left the field. You can only oppress people so long before they say, “Either we’re going to rise up, or we’re just going to walk away.”
And what happens if you abandon educating young children?
It’s time for urgent and persistent change — and we call upon our Delaware lawmakers to respond.
Visit bit.ly/del2022ece today to support families and women in Delaware.
