BRINGING UP BABY October 23, 1997 NEWSHOUR TRANSCRIPT

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The White House hosted a day-long conference focusing on how to make child care safer, more available and more affordable. After a background report, Phil Ponce explores the issues surrounding child care with Ellen Galinsky, the head of the Families and Work Institute; Marcy Whitebook, co-director of the National Center for the Early Childhood Work Force; Stanley Greenspan, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics; and Charmaine Yoest, so fellow at the University of Virginia.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: February 6, 1997 States try to find child care for welfare receipients moving into the workforce. May 29, 1997: A report on child on brain development leads to a call for better child care. January 22, 1997: In a dialogue with David Gergen, Anne Roiphe talks about her book, "Fruitful: A Real Mother In The Modern World." Browse the NewsHour's coverage of youth, and welfare.

PHIL PONCE: Now, four perspectives on child care problems and solutions. Two of our guests were at the White House conference today. Ellen Galinsky is the head of the Families and Work Institute in New York. Marcy Whitebook is a co-director of the National Center for the Early Childhood Work Force in Washington. We're also joined by Stanley Greenspan, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University, and Charmaine Yoest, a University of Virginia Government Department fellow and co-author of "Mother in the Middle," a book supporting parental care for children. Welcome all of you.

And, Ellen Galinsky, you were at the White House. What is your opinion of how well the child care system is working?

ELLEN GALINSKY, Families and Work Institute: Studies show that the child care in this country is uneven. About 12 to 14 percent of kids are in care that really enhances their growth and development. Somewhere between 12 and 21 percent across three national studies--one of which Marcy Whitebook did, which I did--with other colleagues--those studies show that between 12 and 21 percent of kids are in care that could be considered dangerous. Most kids are in situations where it's--where the care is--they're safe but they're not really learning. But that's the bad news. On the good news side is we've done a series of studies showing that it is very possible to improve the quality of child care, that with improving the ratios or number of adults for each child, with improving the educational credentials that the staff has, with providing training for child care providers; you can really change the most essential part of what child care offers, which is the--which is a warm and caring relationship between the child care provider and the child.

"The best quality child care is mother care or father care."

PHIL PONCE: Charmaine Yoest, you're sitting here shaking your head. Is there such a thing as good quality child care, in your opinion?

CHARMAINE YOEST, University of Virginia: The best quality child care is mother care or father care, and I think that's what we really have to stay focused on, is as you are designing a policy for the nation, we need to figure out what is best for our children. And we keep talking about really second best solutions when we talk about institutionalizing daycare across the entire country. Children--even Mrs. Clinton today was talking about the brain research that shows that children under the age of three need very, very particularly close, intimate connections that last over a lifetime. In daycare you see a succession of providers. This can be very, very damaging to the attachment process with children, and that's a real great concern to me when I hear us talking more and more about investing resources in a substandard kind of situation.

PHIL PONCE: Marcy Whitebook, is it possible to invest enough resources to make the system "a good system?"

MARCY WHITEBOOK, Center for Early Childhood Work Force: I think it is, and I think one thing we have to keep in focus here is that 50 percent of women who are working outside the home are in families with incomes below $35,000 a year. And we see so concerned about making sure that people are working in the work force we have to--we do need to have some kind of child care solutions. Right now in child care the 3 million people who take care of children for a living--probably a million and a half of them will look for other jobs this year, and that's terrible. But they're not leaving because they don't know how to do a good job, or they don't want to stay in child care. They're leaving because they can't make a living wage for their own family. The average child care wage is about $6.89 an hour. People don't have health benefits; they can't afford child care, themselves. They don't get paid vacations. And we need to do something to improve those jobs. And I think if we do that, then we'll be able to create the kind of care that we know is good for children. And I don't think anybody in the child care community wants to see children in situations where they can't form attachments to child care workers.

PHIL PONCE: Stanley Greenspan, can good quality child care provide what a family can provide?

STANLEY GREENSPAN, Psychiatrist: Well, good quality child care is important. We have to improve it and use training as Ellen and others have said, but we have to recognize there are limitations. Families can do certain things better than non-families, so if you have a well functioning family with caring parents who can provide quality interactions, at this time in this country it's very hard to find an equivalent type of care in an average daycare center.

PHIL PONCE: Are you saying that even good quality, or the best quality child care centers do not provide what a family provides?

STANLEY GREENSPAN: The best quality child care centers in this country now, except for experimental centers, for example, change care givers every year, so the baby moves from the infant room to the toddler room, to the preschool room. Also, you have one person even at the best centers caring for four babies--very few moms. So if you have the best mom and dad at home, motivated, nurturing, caring, and you have the best child care center, motivating, nurturing, caring, mature care givers, the setups are very, very different. We've identified the six building blocks of healthy minds, which also build healthy brains, and it's hard to provide that as richly in a non-home setting. Now if we were--my solution is something we call the four thirds solution, where parents are encouraged to work part-time, both parents, share in the child care and reduce the number of kids who require daycare. Then, with less numbers requiring it, we can subsidize daycare; we can do better training and get all the centers up to high quality because the chore won't be quite as big.

"We're talking as if there's child care versus parents."

PHIL PONCE: Ms. Galinsky. Then I'll get to you, Ms. Yoest.

ELLEN GALINSKY: We're talking as if there's child care versus parents. And that's really not right. Parents are always first and foremost in children's lives. That's absolutely essential to children. Children need good quality care in their families, and I believe for those children who are in child care they need it in child care. And so rather than should they or shouldn't they work--which is something I think we spent long in debating and then has led to the kind of situations that Marcy is describing--let's try to make the workplace more family friendly so that families can stay home. Let's try to give families more income so that they can be at home, but let's also at the same time try to do what we can to make sure that those children who are in child care have warm and nurturing relationships that are durable.

PHIL PONCE: And how do you respond specifically, though, to what he said, that even the best quality child care, as I understand it, is not as good as a family?

ELLEN GALINSKY: Well, I think we've never really done studies in families in the same way that we've done them in child care. I think that, you know, what the research shows is I think very important. What it shows is that simply the fact that a mother works doesn't tell you very much about children's development. It depends on that relationship with the family, and it depends on what happens to that child in child care. So I believe absolutely families are first and foremost. I strongly believe that, but I also believe that children, those children who do work can form good relationships and we can figure out how do that.

PHIL PONCE: Charmaine Yoest.

CHARMAINE YOEST: There's so much to address so quickly. Let's draw a real bright line. The problem is, is that when you start bureaucratizing and setting up federal subsidies of daycare you're going to start squeezing out other--the parents' choices. Every time pollsters go out and talk to moms what they come back and say is I want more time with my own child; I want flexibility, I want part-time work, I want to be home with my own child. And when you look at low-income mothers, 58 percent of low-income mothers do not purchase child care. That's because they're turning to informal networks to support.

You know, 150 years ago De Tocqueville said that the strength of America lay in our voluntary associations and the strength of Americans to be self-reliant. As we talk about the federal government coming in and trying to solve these kinds of very personal, intimate problems for people, we are going against the grain of what we need to see happening, of emphasizing community solutions, of parents solving their own problems, of parental care, and not just--real quickly--if you look at the research, the majority of people are looking for familial situations where the grandparents or the aunt or the sister--and if you start looking at raising taxes to support a federally subsidized program, you're going to start squeezing out those kind of parental solutions.

PHIL PONCE: Marcy Whitebook, what do you say to people who look at the situation and say as a matter of realism some parents simply have no choice but to explore daycare?

MARCY WHITEBOOK: I mean, I think there are millions of families out there who do rely on some kind of out-of-home care, and I think the discussion today that went on was not at all discussions creating some big federal program but, in fact, creating moneymaking--I don't think so--what I heard today was making money available to states to also create public/private partnerships and to do things at the community level. Nobody was talking about one kind of child care. People were talking about different choices for parents, and I think really that no one is saying that--and many, many parents want parental leave--they want more time with their children, but even still, some people need some kind of care for their children. We need to make sure that when children use out-of-home care that is the best care as possible.

The science of child care.

PHIL PONCE: Stanley Greenspan, what does the latest research show about the relationship between a child and a parent and what child care made--how child care may impact that relationship?

STANLEY GREENSPAN: What the latest research shows is that children need certain kinds of interactions. We've identified six types that they need, but one of the most critical types is ongoing, loving nurturance by one or a few people over many years. Another thing they need early in their first year is lots of communication--we call dialogues without words--smiles, coos, all of the kinds of games that parents and good daycare staff play with babies. But what we have to realize is that if we as a society begin institutionalizing daycare as the norm--okay--rather than giving parents the flexibility to care for their own, we're going to possibly sacrifice the richness of this early nurturing, the ongoing one-on-one relationship we can have for many years. Now let me make one other point. So we have to support parents through solutions like the four third solution where we--the government creates incentives so parents can work part-time, so they can care for their kids. But we have many families where there's no choice--to put bread on the table both parents have to work, or it's a single parent working family. For those families we have to improve daycare with better quality, better training, the kind of thing that Ellen is talking about. We have to do both. We can't politicize the issue and pretend that we're either for improving daycare or for giving better family options. We have to do both.

The Federal Government: Providing support or intruding?

PHIL PONCE: Ellen Galinsky.

ELLEN GALINSKY: We're having this discussion as if it were like 1971, and when we were talking about creating a federal system of child care, which of course didn't happen.

CHARMAINE YOEST: But we are.

ELLEN GALINSKY: No, we're not.

CHARMAINE YOEST: We already have. The federal spending on daycare has just gone through the roof. It's really scary.

ELLEN GALINSKY: But if you look at what the federal spending has gone to, most of the spending goes to give families money to help support their choices. I think--

CHARMAINE YOEST: Federal money always comes with strings, and it's kind of a "we know what's best--this money has to go in this particular way. It doesn't--

ELLEN GALINSKY: It actually doesn't.

CHARMAINE YOEST: But they can't take the money, for instance, and fix their car or--

STANLEY GREENSPAN: Well, the bigger problem is not so much--

ELLEN GALINSKY: Well, the block grant--let me just say--the block grant, which is the major spending for child care, goes to states and then goes to communities for them to make choices--your community by community solution. Nobody is talking about a federal system. People are talking about going down to the grassroots levels and letting families and communities solve problems together.

STANLEY GREENSPAN: We need better funding, so I agree with you, and I disagree with you. We need the federal government involved. We need states; we need communities; we need better funding, better training, better consultation, high quality. But also we have to get away from establishing out-of-home care as a norm. New parents coming into parenting now believe that they're supposed to both work full-time till 8 o'clock at night and they're supposed to farm out care of their children elsewhere. We've got to get away from that. We've got to reinstill a value in taking care of your own children. But if you need to, we have to have high quality care as a good option.

Individual stories.

PHIL PONCE: Charmaine Yoest, you have children. Would you ever under any circumstances explore child care for your own family?

CHARMAINE YOEST: child care as defined by family support--I have a lot of family support. I have community baby sitters that I use on occasion, but I would under absolutely no conditions put my children in a day care. I have an eight-month-old and I look at her, and I just can't imagine, as Stanley talks about the intimate, the on--the intense need--the man hours that are required to take care of a child in an institutional setting--it boggles my mind. And, you know, we have chosen--made some real sacrifices for--to not have to put our children in an institutional situation. And that's the kind of thing we need to be talking about, is how we can support parents in doing that kind of thing.

PHIL PONCE: If it's not too personal, what kinds of sacrifices have you made?

CHARMAINE YOEST: We have one car; we live very near my parents. That's not a sacrifice, but, you know, so many people do not have--(laughter among group)--so many people don't have that kind of support though. And when I look at our family as a whole, that's an integral part of our child rearing is having extended family assistance. And we need to be talking about those kinds of things as how we can--and the point that--since I'm the only one who's talking about not pouring more federal money into the daycare situation, I have to say that as you--you know, Ellen, we have to be realistic about the fact that if you put more federal money in daycare dollars, then it's coming out of tax dollars. You're not talking about refundable tax credits and cutting taxes; that puts cash into people's hands to make decisions across-the-board as to what their family needs. You know, my family, when we look at child care, it would be something entirely different from what your family would need, so why should money be earmarked for daycare?

PHIL PONCE: Marcy Whitebook.

MARCY WHITEBOOK: Well, you know, I've been a single parent since my child was in preschool, and I used out-of-home child care for him, and--

CHARMAINE YOEST: And it wasn't institutional. It was a person who cared--

MARCY WHITEBOOK: And it wasn't institutional. And there are people who cared about my son and still care about them; we still have relationships with those people, and it made him open to the world and has enriched his life and enriched mine and gave me a lot of support. So you can have your choice--

CHARMAINE YOEST: But you know that kind of care is just not available for the average person.

MARCY WHITEBOOK: But it needs to be available. And I think when you talk about what is out there for people, you have to realize right now day by day there are children in situations that need to be improved. We know how to improve them. And we need to put our energy toward improving that. We need to make--invest in child care so that the people who do that work can afford to take care of their own families and they can stay on the job and build the kind of relationships with children that they need.

ELLEN GALINSKY: We need to invest in policies that support you to be able to stay home with your child--

PHIL PONCE: Unfortunately, we need to conclude the conversation at this point. I thank you all very much for being here.

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