Last week, TEDxToronto launched a new talk by Amanda Munday on why everyone should care about childcare. The diet version is this: Helping parents access work is critical for the economy. Childcare is not a children’s issue, and it’s not a women’s issue – it is a societal economic imperative.
This is a topic that’s been top of mind for us since we gave birth to our own kids back in 2014. As we stared down the end of our year-long maternity leaves, we were faced with the same shitty decision plaguing so many (coupled) working mothers: go back to work full time in order to *just barely* cover the $25k annual daycare expense (per child… if you can even get in, that is) or scale back at work and take on the (temporary) role of primary caregiver.
Before we tell you which option we chose, let’s all pause to ask ourselves: what the fuck kind of decision is that for someone to have to make? Nobody should have to choose between quality of life and quality care for their kids.
The reason we started The Rebel Mama is because we knew we wanted to have it both ways and we knew we had enough grit and talent between us to make it happen. We were aware of the unfortunate reality that the flexibility we’d need to realize both our economic and personal potential would only be ours if we were our own bosses.
We were enabled to take this leap because, like many women in traditional (gender binary) relationships, our male partners out-earned us (shout out to the gender wage gap) and were able to keep the family finances afloat while we got our business off the ground (while simultaneously working part-time jobs to cover some of the bills – GOOD TIMES).
Needless to say, the road that’s gotten us to where we are today (wherever this is) has been long and winding; it’s been filled with an incredible amount of work, dedication and sacrifice. And throughout the journey we’ve had to make a laundry list of impossible decisions with not so much as a roadmap to help guide our way.
Enter: Get Your $hit Together. a handbook for financially empowered moms that we wrote to serve as the roadmap we wished someone could have given us five years ago. In it, we intentionally dedicated a large portion to helping women figure out when and how to get back to work.
We break it down by category and explain the pros and cons of each as well as hot tips for surviving one’s choice without losing one’s shit. There’s the BO$$ (she works full-time and earns over $65k annually); the HU$TLER (she works either full or part-time but makes less than $65k annually); the $CHOLAR (she’s putting in the work now to become a BO$$ in her not-so-distant future), and finally, the $AHM (she works her ass off but sees no revenue returns for her efforts).
The glaring issue confronting us all is that none of these options is particularly appealing. It’s a shitty decision for anyone to have to make because the reality is that the workforce as we know it was not designed for women to thrive within its confines. In order for us to even have a shot at scaling corporate ladders or being successful small business owners, we need support and a solid starting point would be receiving that support in the form of universal access to affordable, quality childcare.
It is an absolute travesty that quality childcare in the province of Ontario costs more than the average person’s mortgage. We want parents to be productive, do we not? To contribute their talents to the country’s GDP? Then why the hell have we been sleeping on this issue of childcare for so goddamn long?
Want to know why the pandemic saw women get pushed out of the workforce in alarming numbers? A lack of available CHILDCARE.
Want to get women (and men) back into the paid labor force? Provide CHILDCARE.
Save for a few lucky ones who reap the financial benefits of the free labour provided by their significant other, the rest of us are unable to access our whole selves because we keep stumbling on the obstacle of CHILDCARE.
We agree with Amanda. We absolutely need to build a new version of capitalism that sees child care directly related to our economic and personal potential. A new way forward is indeed possible: start with childcare.
The Rebel Mama also works alongside The Prosperity Project in support of their mission to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian women who are being disproportionately affected. TPP is working hard to ensure the federal government of Canada takes the lead on creating and funding a national childcare program that charges relatively low fees.
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