Earlier this month, the Trump Administration sent a clear message to American families: child care is a personal problem, not a public responsibility.
The president’s executive order repealed federally mandated provisions that helped stabilize the child care industry after the COVID-19 shutdown. Without these safety nets, more programs will close their doors. What little federal support childcare providers had was already inadequate. I know this firsthand because, after three decades in the child care field, I was forced to face a harsh reality and close my doors.
As an organizer, I am now fighting in my home state of North Carolina to ensure others don’t do the same. But that fight is getting harder, with higher prices due to tariffs and the war. Now, childcare providers are facing these rollbacks. If America values children, then America must finally value child care and the people who provide it by committing to the public investment required to keep the system from collapsing.
For decades, the U.S. has structured child care as an individual burden carried primarily by women, families, and an underpaid workforce expected to hold together one of the country’s most essential systems through sacrifice alone. As a result, America continues to operate what is essentially 50 fragmented child care experiments layered onto a federally funded system with no consistent national floor for affordability, provider stability, or compensation.
The situation got more dire on Monday with the Trump administration’s executive order. It removed the cap that limited co-payments to 7% of the family’s income; eliminated requirements that direct services be provided through grants and contracts; and rescinded provisions that allowed childcare providers to be paid in advance for their service. In addition, it mandated reimbursement models for programs based on enrollment rather than by attendance. These provisions were enacted as a safety net to offset significant workforce shortages due to chronically low wages.
The same day, across the country, thousands of child care providers and parents protested, sending loud messages to legislators to “fix” the problem. While the needs may differ from state to state, there is one resounding national reality: the system is failing the very people it depends on to survive.
The consequences are impossible to ignore. The rollbacks are driving up costs for childcare providers – and families – at a time when people can least afford it. Rents are rising. Food prices are rising. Utilities are rising. And, for the first time in three years, American wages are not keeping up with inflation.
As an organizer, it rankles me to know that this year marks nearly 106 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, yet women still disproportionately carry the labor-intensive and financial burden of care work. The framework of child care has persistently shifted the economic risk of the care economy onto providers themselves. And when I meet with these providers, I hear the same refrains. They are continuously being asked to do more. More training. More documentation. More educational attainment. More compliance. More quality measures. But nowhere in that conversation is there the same urgency around childcare subsidies that help lower-income families afford care, sustainability, or whether the people carrying the system can continue to survive under its weight.
In almost any other industry, experts would recognize this as an unsustainable business model. But child care has historically been cast as “women’s work,” making it easier for society to normalize low wages, unpaid labor, and impossible expectations.
But these changes don’t just affect providers. For families, when quality programs disappear, that lack of access can ripple through every part of their lives. Parents may experience higher absenteeism at work, lost wages, and ultimately even job loss when stable care is no longer available. When families become desperate to keep their jobs to meet basic needs, some may feel forced to place their children in unvetted child care settings, simply because it is the only care they can access or afford.
The welfare of children sits at the center of mandated health and safety requirements, higher education expectations, and increasingly stringent quality systems. Many of these goals are important. But too often, the system appears to be designed to sustain itself rather than to adequately meet the needs of families, providers, and children simultaneously.
What continues to hold this structure together are the caring hearts of providers and the belief that children deserve safe, nurturing environments. But passion cannot continue to subsidize public policy failures.
Childcare providers cannot continue carrying this burden alone. If America truly values children, then legislators must make the public investment to keep the system from collapsing.
Danielle Caldwell is an organizer, early childhood Education Consultant and advocate. She is also a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.
