Tag: Motherhood

Childcare Programs: Closures, Resignations and Tuition Hikes After Federal Funding Expires

It’s been two months since the federal government’s $24 billion in childcare stabilization grants expired, sending the sector over what many have come to refer to as the “childcare cliff.” Tens of thousands of Americans missed work in October, the first month without stabilization grants, due to childcare problems. In the weeks after the funding expired; 29 percent of U.S. families reported that their childcare tuition had increased; 28 percent of childcare providers said they had reduced staff wages; and another quarter of providers reported that they were serving fewer children than when they’d been receiving stabilization funding. 

The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve $16 billion in supplemental funding to support the early care and education sector. Short of that—which would be something of a miracle in the current political environment in Washington—providers and families are left to fend for themselves. “It’s an economic imperative. It’s a moral imperative. But lawmakers should also see it as a political imperative: It’s affecting families’ bottom line.”

Lillian Vernon’s Legacy of ‘Kitchen Table’ Entrepreneurs Celebrated at Smithsonian

More than half a century before the COVID-19 pandemic normalized working from home, Lillian Vernon (1927-2015) launched what would eventually become a multi-million-dollar catalog business from the kitchen table of her modest home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. Her accomplishments as a pathbreaking entrepreneur were recently recognized with the installation of an exhibit: “Lillian Vernon, Kitchen Table Millionaire,” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Ms. Magazine’s Prison and Domestic Violence Shelter Program: Let Women on the Inside Know They Are Not Alone

Women in prison often spend 17 hours a day isolated in their cells, with no reading material except the Bible, or with only books and magazines they must share with hundreds of other women. And this past year has seen reading bans inside prisons grow at a more concerning rate than those in public schools and libraries.

If you would like the deep satisfaction of knowing you’re a part of letting women know they’re not alone, please make a tax-deductible contribution to the Ms. Prison and Domestic Violence Shelter Program.

Rest in Power: Rosalynn Carter—Feminist, First Lady, and ERA and Mental Health Advocate

In the many tributes written since Rosalynn Carter’s death on Nov. 19, one word often is used to describe her: trailblazer. Indeed, Rosalynn Carter was like no other first lady. She testified before Congress on mental health issues; made policy proposals on caregiving and established the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers in 1987; worked to advance women’s rights; and helped in the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Carter’s own words are the most powerful about her belief and commitment to equality. “Although there has been progress, women still struggle to take their full, rightful places in politics, the media, business and athletics. … I would like for people to think that I took advantage of the opportunities I had and did the best I could.”

‘Torn Apart’: Ms. Magazines New Podcast Shows How the U.S. Welfare System Destroys Black Families

On Monday, Ms. Studios is dropping a brand-new podcast: Torn Apart: Abolishing Family Policing and Reimagining Child Welfare, hosted by Dorothy Roberts, which investigates how the U.S. child welfare system destroys Black families.

Over four episodes, Professor Roberts brings listeners front and center with the oppressive child protection system and what we need to do to reimagine child welfare.

Front and Center: ‘We Need More Resources as Single Moms to Take Care of Kids’

Front and Center is a groundbreaking series created in partnership with the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which aims to put front and center the voices of Black women who are affected most by the often-abstract policies debated at the national level.

Yamiracle first shared her story with Ms. in 2022. While she was receiving funds through the Magnolia Mother’s Trust program, she was able to pay off debt and put a down payment on a car, but is struggling to navigate receiving any benefits from the traditional social safety net.

“Programs like the Magnolia Mother’s Trust don’t make people lazy—they make us feel like we have people who understand where we’re coming from and what it’s like to be a single mom trying to raise and take good care of our children.”

Who Pays the Price for Men’s Wars?

The people who are least responsible for this war—women, children, innocents of all kinds—are bearing the heaviest burdens of this war.

I’m on the side of the women whose children’s lives have been stolen, of the women who were told to flee but had nowhere to go, of the women who fled but were bombed anyway, of the women who don’t have clean water or medicine or electricity or a safe place to hide, of the women who like so many women are desperate down to the marrow to protect their children, of the women who cannot do that one singular thing, of the women scrawling names on their children’s limbs so someone might be able to identify them, of the women who are pulling their children’s bodies out of piles of rubble, of the women who lost their lives to a war they didn’t start and wanted nothing to do with.

Front and Center: ‘We’re Working and Making Money, It’s Still Not Enough. Our Kids Are Going Without.’

Front and Center is a groundbreaking series created in partnership with the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which aims to put front and center the voices of Black women who are affected most by the often-abstract policies debated at the national level.

“The last time I applied for SNAP, they told me I made too much to qualify. So, I’m not making enough at work to be able to care for my people, and at the same time I can’t get food stamps? It doesn’t make any sense. … And what we do bring home goes toward rent. And just like the Rental Assistance Program, as soon as I’m making a little bit more money—boom, I’m paying the full amount of rent. So how can we ever save? How can we ever do better for ourselves?”

We’ve Gone Over the Childcare Cliff. Now What?

On Sept. 30, Congress let federal childcare stabilization grant funding expire. What happens next?

First, providers will be forced to raise tuition prices to offset the loss of stabilization grants. Then, staffing shortages. Finally, childcare programs—as many as 70,000 by our projections—will have to shut down altogether.

The good news: If Congress can get their act together to fund emergency childcare before the end of the calendar year, they can stem the worst of these consequences.