For eight months, mother Amanda Pierce has been on child care waiting lists. She’s called 12 different day cares near her home in Lompoc and reached out to facilities in neighboring Vandenberg Village, but none have space.
“I’m never frustrated with them; I’m frustrated with the situation. It was one of those things where I thought it wasn’t going to be hard finding child care. Once I started looking, I realized it is stressful,” Pierce said.
The veterinary assistant at the Lompoc Vet Clinic reduced her hours to three days a week so she could care for her 9-month-old daughter, while her partner—an orthodontist’s assistant—still works full time.
Pierce made the decision to stay home due to child care challenges, and she said her employer has been very understanding, even though as one of two veterinary assistants on staff, her reduced hours strain the clinic.
“I feel guilty not being there, which is silly because it’s a job, and they’ve been very considerate,” Pierce continued.
Pierce and her family are not alone. In four out of five Santa Barbara County households, at least one adult has taken on additional child care duties since the start of the pandemic, according to the Santa Barbara County COVID-19 Impact Report.
“Perhaps most damaging is that these changes have been lasting. More than half (56 percent) of those who faced work disruptions due to child care needs are still dealing with these disruptions,” the report stated.
The Columbia Children’s Center in Santa Maria has waiting lists that are a little longer than normal, but owner Lisa Chenoweth said that her biggest challenges are increasing fees and finding qualified employees.
“I’ve been in this business for 30 years, and these have been the hardest two years [I’ve experienced],” Chenoweth said.
Chenoweth estimates that her costs have increased $3,000 to $5,000 per month for cleaning supplies and extra staffing.
“The fact that our costs have gone up due to PPE [personal protective equipment] and additional staffing, those costs have to be passed on to our parents,” Chenoweth said. “Before, I would only have two teachers open the center and close the center. Now I have to have four teachers open and close because we have to keep the children separate.”
Following CDC guidelines, the center requires children to stay home if they have runny noses, coughs, or any COVID-19 symptoms.
“We are asking parents to test or keep their child home until symptoms stop. That’s frustrating for parents because they want to go to work, and they want their child in child care,” she said.
Children are allowed to come back with a doctor’s note, when symptoms stop, or with a negative COVID-19 test, according to Columbia’s COVID-19 guidelines. If a child tests positive on-site, the facility shuts down for 10 days, but parents are required to keep paying even if children are out of the program.
Chenoweth’s program costs about $250 per week (about $1,000 per month).
“Child care is expensive—parents have to do the math,” she said.
About 75 percent of parents experiencing work disruption are women, according to the impact report, and the main reasons include affordability and a lack of child care options. This leads to tough decisions regarding child care, said Catherine Taylor, an associate professor of sociology at UCSB.
“In the United States, there’s a policy climate and a way that employment is structured that pushes families toward being inclined to have women take on the burden of child care when those choices have to be made,” Taylor said.
“On average, women’s jobs pay less than men’s jobs. That’s an empirical fact,” she continued.
In California, women earn about 88 cents for every dollar men earn, 12 percent less on average than men. Men also tend to have jobs with better health care benefits, pushing family decision-making further, Taylor said.
“If a family is looking at that, it makes sense for women to come out of the workforce if child care is inaccessible,” she said.
In September, 865,000 women left the U.S. workforce, at rates four times higher than men, according to a Center for American Progress report. It stated that interruptions caused by child care loss will make mothers reduce their work hours four to five times more than any adjustments made by fathers.
That reduction in work hours because of child care can also cause large economic impacts, the report continued.
“Only 1 percent of full-time working mothers shifting from full-time to part-time work would mean an estimated $5 billion less in wages per year, which doesn’t take into account the value of lost benefits such as paid leave and health insurance,” the Center for American Progress report stated.
The pandemic pushed women’s workforce progress backward and emphasized gender inequalities, UCSB professor Taylor said.
“It’s a new configuration that reflects long-standing traditions of gender inequality, those traditions are like the fact that women make less than men,” Taylor said. “Most families would have both people working—especially with the increase in inflation—but it’s crisis management where they are being pragmatic. It’s a whole new way of reinventing gender inequality.”
Since the 1960s, there has been a greater preference for increasing both parents’ involvement in child care, but current events are pushing against that movement, she continued.
“There isn’t a preference for women to stay out of the workforce, it’s more so there isn’t any [other] option. No matter how [badly] you are struggling financially, you need to take care of your child,” she said. “Another issue is that the U.S. doesn’t have a good child care safety net, or no high quality, affordable child care in general … . Since there isn’t a backup plan in our country, women will take care of the child. In the heterosexual family where they [women] are paid less and have less benefits, it’s a pretty simple calculation.”
Pierce and her family in Lompoc weighed their options and made their calculations.
She and her partner now follow a strict budget in order to pay bills and make rent, they cut out junk food, stick to strict meal plans, reduce traveling and going out to eat, and don’t buy items for themselves anymore. Pierce said she uses her credit card more for groceries, and makes sure the funds in her bank account are paying for utilities and rent.
“It just adds to the stress of everything else. I’m very mindful as I pick something up from the store; it’s not hard to do, it’s just another thing in the back of my head that I’m thinking about among everything else,” she said.
“When I’m at work, I’m thinking about my baby; but when I’m with her, I’m thinking about work and getting the hours I need so I can pay the bills. … I’m thinking about getting bills paid on time; and if I’m not at work, then I’m not going to be able to pay my bills on time,” Pierce continued. “It’s a never-ending cycle.”
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 21-28, 2021.
