Sign up for our acclaimed free newsletter Editorially Black with the top Racial Equity stories of the day to your inbox!For 29 years, McMillian has run a daycare out of her home in Compton, California, but when her last two child charges move away next year, McMillian won’t add more clients. It’s finally become too much: The barely livable wages, the long hours, the lack of respect, the administrative headaches. Small home-based daycares like McMillian’s are disappearing across the country.
Low-income families, parents with infants and toddlers and Hispanic or African American families are more likely toParents with jobs in public safety, healthcare, factories and other industries where their shifts begin while everyone else is sleeping are also more likely to place their kids in home-based childcare. Without flexible and reliable childcare, those parents are under enormous strain and at risk of losing their jobs.
McMillian would dress Aria for the day, brush her teeth and make her breakfast — without charging Beechum extra.