Parents with no childcare problems have one thing in common.

I spoke to thousands of families. Parents without childcare problems have one thing in common.

The shortage of free, quality childcare in this country is a debilitating problem in this country.

It has devastating consequences on the economy, social and economic mobility, gender equaltiy in the workforce, children’s learning and development, mental health of families — and more.

Early childhood education has been getting a lot more attention recently.

Research shows that the most important years of a child’s development, when their brain is doing the most learning happens in the first five years of life, yet no enriching educational environments or experiences are guaranteed for children in this age group.

700,000 parents with young children left the workforce in 2020.

But long before theCovid-19, we had a childcare criss.

Several years ago, I was working on a project to help families share childcare within their neighborhood. It seemed intuitive that it takes a village to raise a child — and I’d head stories observed how meaningful and effective projects like the Capitol Hill Babysititng Co-op had been, (despite some pretty substantial problems with creating alternative currencies). Not only by solving the childcare problem but in building true community in an age of isolation.

The project attracted tens of thousands of parents around the country and I had the opportunity to talk have personal conversations with many of them to learn better about their needs. We had a lot of fun and many families made great friends and childcare buddies, but we weren’t really able to work out the logistics to keep it going long-term.

Whenever you are starting something new, you always get a certain type of person who said, “this is so cool! But, I myself do not need it.”

What was most interesting to me in the conversations I had around this project, was not talking to the families who need this, but the parents who absolutely did not need us.

Who are these parents who have no childcare problem?