It may take a village to raise a child, but the raising of that child also benefits the village.
– Elliot Haspel in Raising a Nation

Lena Bilik, in an online article quotes Elliot Haspel, author of the book, Raising a Nation: 10 Reasons Every American Has a Stake in Childcare for All:

“My biggest takeaway is that we need to talk about childcare as an American value. This is the thesis of the book—that as much as we have accurate arguments about childcare’s impact on things like the labor force, ultimately, given the type of system we’re trying to build and the amount of permanent public money that’s going to be required to build it, it’s going to require making a deeper case that redefines what childcare is and the role that it plays in society.

“As I was writing this book, it really drove home for me the fact that, no matter where one comes from, whether or not one has kids, whether or not one is particularly comfortable with the idea of young children being cared for outside the home, there is a way into this idea that childcare undergirds everything we care about as Americans. And unless we start explaining that, and making that case on that emotional, values-laden level, I think we’re going to be stuck on a very slow, choppy path toward the system that we need.”

In a recent RoundTable session hosted by Gather Round, Elliot Haspel talked about these ideas and others. Here’s a link to that session, along with the Passcode you’ll need to watch the recording:

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/abnyEPqfRjjOXWZugJzvs-JlWvcLk_jaSJfSXkW9G4PRk64wgI3l-4nCYi594enX.br0h57jNF5XGOsAI

Passcode: y.Kt%S47

To learn more about Gather Round, feel free to contact them at [email protected].