American Babies

Tibor, the Hungarian teacher with whom I am exchanging positions and homes, has visited the several schools in Barcs and is helping us enroll our daughters. We have wanted to do the same for him, but this has become a mortifying experience: how do I explain the narrow limits of our social services that first, through liability and regulations, swell the costs of delivering child care and then kick all but the poorest working parents to the curb if they cannot keep up? Why, when so many American families are forced to survive off two incomes, and why, when studies show the long effects of early care, does our government leave its parents to patch it together until public schooling begins at kindergarten or first grade?

In the tiny town of Barcs, which has 12,000 residents, there are multiple public schools, including a school for the arts. Children can join public nurseries and pre-schools at the age of three. So when Tibor has described the kind of situation he wants for his youngest daughter, he is describing something that is part of the accepted landscape and that makes absolute sense and of course Lilien should have that experience.

But I’ve been looking. And Stephanie’s been looking. We’ve been looking for the kind of common-sense thing a big city like Seattle must certainly have, which is a decent, affordable pre-school with available seats. We’ve found decent care, and also universal waitlists, and tuition more than double the cost Tibor originally said he could make work “until Lilien turns five and we can place her in kindergarten.”

From a practical perspective, such care is the economical thing for a country to provide its families, an investment with more powerful returns than anything else I can think of.  From a moral perspective, what is wrong with us?


David