In the United States, daycare is a booming business.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the daycare industry to be among the country's fastest growing through 2020, according to Forbes. Roughly 11 million kids under the age of five in the U.S. spend every work week in some kind of childcare setting. Parents put their faith in childcare centers—and the governmental departments that regulate them—under the assumption that their children will be safe and cared for until they return. But a slew of media investigations into childcare institutions across the nation has revealed that the childcare industry is not as well regulated as parents might hope. Many states have, in turn, responded with new legislation aimed at tightening regulations and better protecting the millions of children who attend daycare every day.
The daycare industry has grown rapidly in recent years, in part because the work week is longer and more unpredictable than it used to be, as Alissa Quart reported for Pacific Standard in 2014: "Nearly 40 percent of Americans have non-standard work lives. (The average American adult also now works one and a quarter jobs.) Working people who live below the poverty line are particularly afraid to say no to these unusual schedules."
The current work climate has left parents more dependent than ever on childcare centers. Some extreme daycare facilities that cater to parents living outside the nine-to-five work schedule operate 24 hours a day. Quart spent time in one of these facilities in Rochelle, New York, that was run by Doloris and Patrick Hogan. "Most [of the children] see Patrick and Deloris, whom the kids call Nunu, more than they see their parents," Quart wrote. Quart found these extreme daycare settings to be a safe—if not enriching—environment that left children "wise beyond their years."
[For more of this story, written by Kate Wheeling, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...are-industry-exposed]
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