child care

April 24 is designated as Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.

Designed to be more than a career day, the Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work® program goes beyond the average “shadow” an adult. Exposing girls and boys to what a parent or mentor in their lives do during the work day is important, but showing them the value of their education, helping them discover the power and possibilities associated with a balanced work and family life, providing them an opportunity to share how they envision the future and begin steps toward their end goals in a hands-on and interactive environment is key to their achieving success. Each year, development of new interactive activities and partnerships will assist us in taking girls and boys to the future they dream of.

If handled properly, this can be a rewarding experience for parents and children, and I highly encourage you to participate if you can.

But that's not really the point of this diary. What if you had to take your daughter and son to work, because your child care provider went on strike?

How? Where? Who? How Many? Why?

Those are questions that advocates for any cause must be prepared to answer. Now in these Golden Google Days and Wonderful Wikipedia Nights, it's easy to find almost any statistic that you'd like to find. Sure it's easy, it's sexy (h/t to bullydoc), but is it credible? Are you sure? Really?

The best way to know that the information you're using is credible is to go to a reliable source. My mission today is to let you in on one of North Carolina's best kept secrets.

It's no secret that I spend most of my work life focused on children and the people who get paid to take care of them when their parents are at work. So when I saw the following OP-ED in the New York Times, None Dare Call It Child Care, it caught my eye. Author Gail Collins skewers moderator Chris Matthews for asking Republican candidates at the last debate

whether this country would ever get back to the days when a young guy could come out of high school, get an industrial job “and provide for a family with a middle-class income and his spouse wouldn’t have to work.”

Collins points out that since 2/3 of American moms have been in the workforce since the 1980's, the question was as pointless as asking when we'd get back to using manual typewriters or rotary dial phones.

I started writing this in a comment to Momo's blog about visiting Pinehurst, and realized it was taking on a life of its own. Not wishing to steal Momo's thunder, I post it here.

Pinehurst is a beautiful place. When you walk down the quaint streets of "the village", you feel like you're on vacation. There is good shopping (though the fashions are very conservative and not my taste), the people are generally friendly (though they are generally very conservative and not my taste), and you can have a great time at Dugan's Pub (any NC Blue-er who visits this area is hereby invited for a pint on me.)

When a major golf tournament, like the US Open or the Jimmy V classic comes to the area, we residents are told by the Chamber of Commerce, various government officials, and editorials in the Pilot (our local newspaper) what a boon this will be to our economy. The roads are re-paved, beautiful landscaping is done on every exit off of every major road. In 2005, when the US Open was coming, the contractor was promised a million dollar bonus to finish before the Open on an already $47 million dollar project to widen and redirect the path of US HWY Route 1 North of Pinehurst. This project redirected Route 1 outside of the business district of Vass, and has threatened the existence local businesses. It was stated that the reason for this DOT project was to alleviate traffic and make it easier to commute to Raleigh for "jobs", there are very few Moore Co. residents who make that commute. By and large, we live all live and work here. It is the belief of many locals that this project was done for one reason, and one reason only - Golf.