Conclusion

Employer-sponsored child care benefits carry an inherent tension. They do help—sometimes tremendously—the small circle of recipients. Many employers are unimpeachably sincere in their intentions to support employees. Yet there is a real tradeoff against the philosophical and practical efforts being made to build an inclusive, fair, high-quality, publicly funded system that works for all involved. It is arguably like taking painkillers for cancer. They can ease the pain for a while, but the body gets sicker, and the temptation to overly rely on painkillers only grows.

The rush to embrace employers as a key pillar of child care provision therefore should not be done lightly nor uncritically. The issue of child care generally has received far less scrutiny and philosophical engagement than one like K–12 education: There are entire books, courses, and degree programs dedicated to the philosophy of education that have few child care equivalents.

This is a moment to defy that relative lack of analytical depth and civic debate. Defaulting to the path of least resistance will have serious consequences. Today’s stopgap measures can easily become tomorrow’s status quo. What’s more, the next 10 years may well represent a final opportunity for America to determine how it wants to position child care and support its families. Declining birth rates, an aging society, plus rising costs of pensions, health care, and social safety net programs—all set within a context of increasing climate disruptions—are likely to divert attention as well as resources.

Employers might have a role in an idealized child care system. It is my contention that whatever direct role they play must be subordinate to their active support of a publicly funded system. Employers are not a sustainable core solution for the problem of child care. This is not their fault; on philosophical and practical grounds, employers are misaligned with the child care needs of American families, child care educators, and children. Public or social goods are simply not delivered through the employer-employee relationship. Rights are not conferred via fringe benefits. Any current or future efforts to promote employer-sponsored child care must reckon with these tensions if we are to have any hope of achieving a nation with a healthy, prosperous economy and healthy, prosperous families.