Multiple surveys of American parents over the past few years have revealed that pressures are mounting. In Stress in America 2023, an annual survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, parents were more likely than other adults to report certain stressors; reported that on most days, their stress is completely overwhelming. In April 2025, more than of parents of young children indicated experiencing emotional distress, according to data from the RAPID Survey Project. A survey published in May by New America found that who have children under age 6 expressed that they wished they had more quality time with their children. 

With this reality for parents, it鈥檚 no wonder that debates over the American childcare sector are intensifying as the midterm elections approach. 

A recent report, , reveals that in the absence of a functional childcare system that meets their needs, many families rely on a patchwork of informal and formal care for their babies and young kids. More than two-thirds of children under age 5, the analysis found, receive care from a relative and grandparents play a large and growing part in this picture, with nearly half of children under age 5 cared for by a grandparent.

Authored by economist Sarah Jane Glynn and published by the Roosevelt Institute, the report draws upon 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau鈥檚 , a longitudinal survey that provides detailed information on families鈥� childcare arrangements as well as income, employment, household composition and government program participation. Over the years, the U.S. Census Bureau has released reports on childcare using data from the survey, but the most recent version was published in 2013 with data gathered in 2011. Glynn鈥檚 analysis compares the data from 2023 with the data from 2011. 

: 鈥淔amilies are assembling care from the options available to them. A week of care might include a grandparent, an after-school program or a parent watching a child while trying to work. Some arrangements fit a family鈥檚 needs. Others reflect a more difficult reality of formal care that may be too expensive, too far away, or unavailable when parents need it.鈥�

In the interview below, Glynn, whose career includes time with the U.S. Department of Labor and the Center for American Progress, highlights how the current childcare economy differs from the more traditional center-based model often reflected in legislation and political debate. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When analyzing the data, what are the big patterns you noticed?

The biggest change has to do with mothers reporting that they’re caring for their children at the same time that they’re doing other things. More than six times as many moms are saying that in 2023, relative to 2011. 

Do you anticipate that this trend will continue?

I think some of that is going to be sticky, honestly. We have seen some shifts in terms of expectations and the ways that people are organizing their work lives and their personal lives. And you can spin that in multiple ways. Whether it’s viewed as a positive or a negative, I think depends on perspective. 

Does this obligation of simultaneous work and caregiving represent a new way of balancing the economy on the backs of women?

Absolutely. And I think the age of the children really matters a lot here too, because if you’re thinking about a parent who’s a mom in her home office working, and her 8-year-old or 9-year-old is at the kitchen table working on homework in the afternoon after they’ve come home from school, technically, that mom is still supervising her child in some way. She’s still in the house. It’s what time-use researchers would call 鈥渟econdary childcare.鈥� You’re sort of supervising the kid and that you’re home if there’s an emergency or something, but you’re not actively engaging with them in the same way you would with a younger child. But we still see really high rates of moms reporting that they’re caring for their kid while they’re working or otherwise busy for children who are under 5. 

When you’ve got over a quarter of mothers saying that they’re watching their child who is under 5 while they’re working or doing something else, that is, to me, a very striking finding and is showing just how incredibly stretched those moms are, because that’s a lot to be juggling at the same time. You’re working, you’re going to school, you’re doing something else that requires your full attention and you’re taking care of a baby, a toddler, a preschooler. 

What other pressures are parents of young children facing?

Childcare prices have gone up at rates that are higher and faster than overall inflation. Everything has gotten more expensive, but childcare has gotten even more expensive in ways that are not just about what’s been happening across the economy more broadly. And there’s just extreme shortages in a lot of places where there are not enough slots. 鈥� Those waitlists can be really long. And anecdotally, I know people whose kids were entering pre-K when they finally got a call from the daycare center that they’d been on the waitlist for for three or four years.

What are the consequences of this situation?

Nobody wants children to be in an unsafe environment where there aren’t enough teachers, where the ratios are really bad, but that’s the scenario that we’re creating when we continue to erode job quality. Why would somebody want to enter into this field 鈥� even if they are passionate about it, deeply skilled and have a background in education 鈥� if people get burned out and leave because they can’t afford to continue working as early childhood educators? 鈥�

There’s a million different reasons why this is a market failure, but there has to be government intervention, in terms of funding, or we’re never going to be able to solve this problem. 鈥� I am heartened because there are multiple bipartisan bills in Congress right now. This is a bipartisan issue. Folks across the political spectrum understand why it’s a problem, that it requires a lot of money and that we鈥檝e got to figure out where that will come from.

Between 2011 and 2023, the years you analyzed data from, there were a number of factors that shaped your findings, including the pandemic and the rise of remote work. What else do you think comes into play? 

Some of them are what I would argue are more overall positive shifts, [including] heightened labor force participation among women, and among mothers specifically. 鈥� There were also some negative factors that were pushing folks into the labor force, like increased inflation and rising costs, but we had women and moms who, in other times might not have worked 鈥� who might have stayed home 鈥� going into the labor force during that time period. But you also have, at the same time, a lot of issues in terms of accessing childcare. We saw the number of childcare centers decline during the pandemic. A lot of those rebounded. There were a lot of efforts and a lot of money that was pumped into childcare as a result of pandemic spending to try to fix that problem. 

But the funding didn鈥檛 last.

No, it wasn’t sustained. So that’s part of the problem, too. Do folks have access? How uneven is that access? And so much of this depends on where you live, because there’s so much variation state to state in terms of the investments that are made in childcare access.

Which data trends surprised you?

One of the things that shocked me was how high the rate of grandparent care was. I did not expect to see such a large share of children being routinely regularly cared for by their grandparents. 鈥� I think about this in terms of people I know. My parents are not providing day-to-day care for my niece and nephews, but they do end up providing a good amount of childcare. And that’s great for us because my parents are retired. They are healthy and active and able to do that. That is a beneficial choice that my sister and my brother are making for their family when they have grandma and grandpa watching their kids. But for other families, maybe grandma doesn’t want to watch the kids or maybe she’s not in great health or doesn’t have great mobility, but she’s around and she’ll do it for free. And so it may not be the optimal choice that a family would want.

What kinds of research need to happen to build upon the data presented in this report? 

In this research, we’re really focused on the children. The kids are the focus. Where are they? Who’s watching them? The [next step] is looking at the parents and looking at work disruptions as a result of childcare problems. Who’s experiencing a work disruption 鈥� whether that’s having to take a day off, having to cut their hours, or having to leave work entirely because they don’t have access to reliable childcare? There were much higher rates of disruption than I expected to see. It was common in a way that really surprised me, even as someone who’s been studying this for over a decade, it still surprised me how frequent this was. The less surprising piece is that it’s mostly moms who end up experiencing those disruptions far more than fathers do. 

What鈥檚 the one big takeaway from 鈥淲ho鈥檚 Minding the Kids These Days鈥�?

If you care about the economy and the ability of people to work, then you should care about access to childcare and other forms of care as well, because it prevents people from being able to participate fully in the economy.

As authors Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox point out in their blistering, deeply researched book, 鈥�,鈥� the fact that financial insecurity has become a way of life for millions of Americans is none of the above. Neither laziness nor lack of education, nor a matter of morality, our widespread poverty is a result of decades of U.S. policy that has shaped a society in which people can be trapped in poverty by something as simple as a kid鈥檚 bad case of strep throat or a mechanical failure of the family car. Or by the mere fact of not being able to afford to keep a baby in child care so the parents can have a job.

The authors鈥� bona fides in the field are unimpeachable and the solutions they offer are borne of deep, direct experience. Goldblum has spent her career working with and advocating for families in poverty, first as a social worker and then as the founder and CEO of the and the founder of the , both of which address the hygiene needs of low-income people. Shaddox is a print and radio journalist whose credits include contributions to the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio and America magazine, among others. She has worked with nonprofits on projects devoted to getting children out of adult prison, ending juvenile sentences of life without parole and limiting the shackling of defendants in juvenile courts.

If we want to address poverty, the authors posit, we must first see it. Economic, social and racial segregation underpin the mechanism that keeps poverty invisible, the authors write. They then set out in the book鈥檚 first section, 鈥淏asic Needs,鈥� to provide a clear-eyed, devastating view of how that balkanization of the economic classes came into being, what it really means to be poor in this country, who impoverished Americans are and what their lives look like, on the ground, in reality.

A large study by the finds that a full 38% of people in the U.S. have trouble consistently meeting their basic needs; the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 11.8 million residents were living in poverty in 2018, according to the federal poverty threshold. The gap in those statistics occurs because the federal poverty guidelines are irrationally low, based on a methodology from the early 1960s when fewer women worked outside the home. The cost of child care, transportation, and clothing and hygiene expenses don鈥檛 figure into the government鈥檚 definition of basic necessities. In their section on 鈥淏asic Needs,鈥� Shaddox and Goldblum expand the definition to include water, food, housing, power (utilities), transportation, hygiene and health, including health care. This broader view of need provides a searing portrait of poverty that puts the broken in 鈥渂roke.鈥�

In the second section, 鈥淔orms of Oppression,鈥� the authors present a comprehensive look at the policies and prejudices that have made home ownership and generational wealth a pipe dream for racial and ethnic minorities whose high rates of housing foreclosure and inability to finance homebuying are, you guessed it, not due to 鈥渂ad choices鈥� but to bad policies. They break down why 鈥渨omen鈥檚 work鈥� in the U.S. is a recipe for poverty: The concentration of women in low-wage jobs may benefit the employers and owners of the nursing homes, hospitals and fast-food restaurants that hire them but does little to provide some of our society鈥檚 hardest workers with access to a decent standard of living.

In their section on political power, Goldblum and Shaddox present a powerful case that the United States鈥� vaunted government 鈥渙f the people, by the people and for the people鈥� comes with a silent modifier: 鈥渆xcept the poor people.鈥� The government that low-income people encounter is far more likely to take rights away rather than protect them, from the intake worker who decides they don鈥檛 quite qualify for aid or the child welfare worker who questions how good their parenting can be if they鈥檙e working two jobs and still can鈥檛 afford diapers. Poor people in the U.S. generally do not find themselves spending quality time in the halls of Congress where the average wealth of members is more than $500,000; the Center for Responsive Politics reports that about 48% are millionaires. Electoral politics are a sport for the wealthy, Shaddox and Goldblum say, and officeholders are often oblivious to working-class and low-income concerns.

The real pleasure of 鈥淏roke in America鈥� is that it is not only descriptive but prescriptive, providing concrete strategies answers to the question, 鈥淵es, but what can I do?鈥� A lot, as it turns out. As the authors write, poverty is not gravity. It isn鈥檛 something that has to be accepted with a shrug as 鈥渏ust the way it is.鈥� It has causes and it has solutions. At the end of each chapter, Goldblum and Shaddox have included a section titled 鈥淲hat Can I Do?鈥� offering practical suggestions that can make a difference, and conversations to be had with legislators and political leaders that can alter the policies that glue poverty in place. It鈥檚 important to remember that it鈥檚 glue, not granite, that keeps poverty in place, and the book is chockful of suggestions to dislodge it.

The last section, 鈥淪olutions,鈥� presents the possibility that the poor do not always have to be with us. People are poor because they don鈥檛 have sufficient money to pay for the things they need 鈥� a straightforward problem requiring a range of approaches to solve. The past year has served to hold the economic and social fissures plaguing our country in high relief. More and more people have slipped from 鈥渕aking it鈥� to 鈥渂arely hanging on,鈥� and those who were barely hanging on before the pandemic now find their economic circumstances frighteningly diminished. The poisonous effects of racism and the glaring inequalities baked into our political, economic and social structures have never been more visible. If ever there were a time for Americans to reevaluate and regroup, this would be it. 鈥淏roke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty鈥� is both a primer and a roadmap for how to go forward.

It isn鈥檛 for the faint of heart: the facts it presents are unsettling, indeed, heartbreaking. But for anyone who wants to see things change, the facts are the place to start.

Unfortunately, this seemingly positive result comes at a high cost. Family separation is devastating. after finds high levels of developmental and psychological problems in the lives of children who have been taken from their parents鈥攁nd the trauma is both more severe and more common with Black children.

The human cost is great, and so is the financial toll. While states and cities generally administer family services, it鈥檚 telling that the federal government spends on foster care and adoption than reuniting families.

The story we tell ourselves leaves out a lot, and placement with a foster family doesn鈥檛 always result in a happy ending.

A new project launched by the (CSSP) in conjunction with the , called , seeks to highlight the racial inequities in the existing system and to bring about structural change. Kristen Weber and Alan Dettlaff from upEND share about the initiative, especially as it concerns babies and toddlers. (According to , almost 200,000 children, or more than a quarter of those in the system, are three years old or younger.)

鈥淎ll of our systems suffer under a racist society,鈥� says Weber, CSSP鈥檚 director of Equity, Inclusion and Justice. 鈥淲e formed upEND to dismantle the current child welfare system that is entrenched with racist history, policies and practices. And we have committed to working with parents, advocates and others to reimagine new ways to keep children safe and support families without relying on interventions that are coercive and can result in family separation.鈥�

Weber, an attorney with years of experience representing children in the child welfare, juvenile justice and educational systems, says upEND鈥檚 design work involves not just listening to the voices of those affected but partnering with them on reimagining systems.

The 鈥渇oundational intervention鈥� of the current system, University of Houston鈥檚 Dettlaff explains, is taking kids away from their families. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a myth that the system is helpful, and the media perpetuates the myth by highlighting only the extreme cases.鈥� He acknowledges that instances of brutality and deprivation exist but maintains that the majority of cases represent neglect that is better addressed by means other than separation, which should be considered a last resort.

鈥淲e know that neglect largely stems from poverty,鈥� he says, 鈥渟o direct payments to parents could be more efficient and beneficial than stipends paid to foster parents.鈥�

UpEND is asking existential questions: Why does state intervention come first? Why not partner with families and communities?

鈥淐hildren belong with their parents,鈥� says Dettlaff. As currently configured, the system 鈥渃auses harm to children every day.鈥� He notes that Children and Family Services 鈥渁cts as an arm of the police鈥濃�攁 circumstance that, for many observers, links it with larger systems plagued by racism.

Weber and Dettlaff are two of six authors of a recent paper in the Journal of Public Child Welfare with the blunt title It presents damning evidence of a chain of consequences jeopardizing the well-being and long-term prospects for Black children.

• Black children are more likely to be reported for suspected maltreatment than white children.
• Allegations involving Black children are more likely to proceed to investigation and significantly more likely to be substantiated than those involving white children.
• Black children are more likely to be removed from their homes and placed into foster care than white children.

Too often, what we desperately want to believe as the 鈥渆nd of the story鈥� is a mirage. found that young children involved in the welfare system, those most in need of developmentally appropriate education and care, often are denied these supports.

In the alternative orientation promoted by upEND, communities are 鈥渇irst responders鈥� for families in crisis. This approach is patterned after Black and Native American communities that historically have shown resilience and resourcefulness in addressing maltreatment, often when government agencies have turned a blind eye. By shifting the government鈥檚 involvement upstream to providing the benefits and work supports proven to reduce maltreatment, upEND鈥檚 policy recommendations could be both more humane and more cost-effective.

UpEND was already in the works before the current wave of Black Lives Matter protests and calls to defund or abolish the police in the wake of George Floyd鈥檚 death, but the climate gives new momentum to a mission that goes back to Brenda Scott鈥檚 1994 book Out of Control: Who’s Watching Our Child Protection Agencies, which called for scrapping the system. Dorothy Roberts鈥檚 Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (2001) equipped activists and advocates to understand the racial dimensions of the crisis.

鈥淭he word abolition can be scary,鈥� Dettlaff acknowledges. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not just about tearing down. It鈥檚 about creating new systems, new structure, a new society.鈥�