Expanding their Circle of Love

A thank you note to child care workers from a working mom

Earlier this year, I was asked to give a talk at the Wisconsin Child Care Administrators Association and speak from the point of view of a working parent.

I’m including the speech here because, after re-reading it a couple of months later, I believe it highlights something often overlooked in policy discussions: child care isn’t merely a workforce issue or a budgetary line item.

It involves intimate work carried out by people who should be seen as parents’ partners because, at least for me, my daughter wouldn’t be the same without them.

So here it is.

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Good morning! I’m Kristin Brey, a radio host, columnist and social media content creator. So it’s possible you’ve either heard me, read me, or seen me on your phone at some time over the past few years.

And let me start off by making it clear that I am not here this morning to give you any information on your profession. I have never worked in the field of child care; I don’t have a degree in early childhood education, and I certainly can’t state the proper teacher-to-child ratio without checking it. So this part of the program isn't about professional development; it's the celebratory part.

For the next twenty-ish minutes I hope you’ll feel seen. I am certainly hoping you laugh, and I also hope you’re reminded that your work is far more important than the way society currently treats it.

Because at worst, people talk about child care like it’s babysitting. But even at best, we talk about it like it’s “infrastructure”. Which it is, don’t get me wrong.

Now that I’ve seen it up close, to me that messaging flattens child care into something that seems to exist only so the “real work” can happen elsewhere. But the jobs you do are more than just allowing parents like me to go to work.

In my very limited experience, child care is a partnership between parents and teachers during some of the most important years of a kid’s life. It is trust. Communication. Teaching. Comforting. Redirecting. It helps shape little human beings as their brains, personalities, and habits form in real time.

So I was invited to be here not because I know anything about child care, but because I talk about child care. Even before I had a child of my own, I’ve talked about the availability and affordability crisis in Wisconsin and across the country, on my radio show, in my columns, on social media, as a policy issue, a workforce issue, and a political issue.

And now… I’m lucky enough to feel it every single month when almost $2,000 is deducted from our bank account for our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Frankie, to attend pre-school.

Which we happily pay.

I mean… not totally happily.

Not, “Woohoo! There it goes!!!!” happily.

More like a mantra reminding us that: “This is worth every penny. This is worth every penny. This is worth every penny.”

But truly, we do pay it willingly. Because who wants to be cheap when it comes to the people who spend about 40 hours a week with your child?

And I say that knowing that my family is fortunate to be able to afford to pay that much, while so many families can’t. And that is part of what makes this whole conversation so hard: parents’ wallets are stretched, providers are just trying to keep the lights on, and teachers are barely getting a livable wage. And yet the work itself is essential.

So I’m here as someone who has become deeply aware of how much my family depends on child care and how much my daughter is flourishing because of it. I imagine that sometimes you get so busy surviving the work that you don’t always have what the work actually means reflected to you.

So this morning, I want to tell you what your work looks like from a parent's point of view.

The Card

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up Frankie from school. It’s spring, so Frankie was outside playing on the playground. I walked up the front set of stairs to grab her lunchbox from the bin outside her classroom. I checked the nap chart, because that information determines a shocking amount about how the rest of my evening is going to go.

Then I was walking down the back stairs and noticed a brown card sitting in Frankie’s little mailbox. And when I said “mailbox,” I mean a hanging shoe organizer with each kid’s name on a different pocket.

So I saw the card, and because I am impulsive and incapable of waiting, I opened it immediately instead of waiting to open it with my husband. When I read it, it reminded me of what I’ve felt since I first went back to work four months after Frankie was born: I never felt like I was abandoning my child or making some mandatory tradeoff just to be productive or make a living.

What I felt and still feel is gratitude. Because I trust that I am not shrinking her world by not being there 24/7. I am expanding her circle of love.

I am not handing her away. I am handing her into more care. More hands helping her. More adults who know her name, when she’s a little off, what makes her laugh, what helps her calm down, and how to celebrate her when she’s proud of herself.

There is a break in my day when it comes to active parenting. There is no break in her day in being nurtured. Every waking hour, she is still being taught, comforted, challenged, and loved.

Because every day in a young child’s life is development, and every moment is a chance to learn something. It could be a letter or a color, but more often at this age, it’s how to wait, how to share, or how to use kind words. And, importantly, they are learning how to trust adults outside of their immediate family.

That is not babysitting. That is formative human development.

You are the Village

And that’s why I struggle with the phrase that child care is “infrastructure”.

Because infrastructure is too cold a word for what you do.

Yes, I understand why framing child care as infrastructure helps people understand why we need to fund it. But when people say, “It takes a village,” I want to say: you are the village.

And let’s call a spade a spade: your relationship with kids is not simply educational. It is intimate. You are helping them when they’re overwhelmed, tired, and messy.

You’re also there when they need to go potty. When they refuse to go potty, when they absolutely did go potty and are now in full denial about it, and then you help clean it up. Like I said, intimate.

And while that is touching, it’s also terrifying, because other people are getting an up-close look at all the weird little habits my kid clearly inherited from me. Though when she drops that first f-bomb at school, I might have plausible deniability to blame her dad too.

I May Know My Kid Best. You Know Kids Best.

Parents are always told, “You know your child best.” And that’s true. I know Frankie best in the way a parent knows their child. I know the look on her face right before she is about to lose it completely. I know that Woody, Buzz, and Jessie are currently the chosen ones and baby dolls are now an afterthought. I know that she now wants Moana 2 NOT Moana 1 played in the car. I know she is ok when I sing along, but Dad is NOT allowed to. I know how she says certain words. Like “im maked” or “I do it by myself.”

So yes, I know my child. But you all know children. You know developmental stages: what is normal, what is a phase, what needs patience, what needs intervention, what needs a conversation, and what needs a snack. And it would serve more parents if they embraced that.

Because love and expertise are not the same thing. Love is essential and irreplaceable, but it does not automatically make you an expert. I’ve had one child. Many of you have worked with hundreds—some of you, probably thousands.

You have advanced knowledge in early childhood education, as well as negotiation, emotional regulation, and sanitation. And you do it in rooms full of people with absolutely no impulse control and very strong feelings about cup color.

What She Learns at School

There are many days I pick my daughter up and realize she learned something new without me. Usually a new song or a new skill, like putting her own coat on using the upside-down trick.

Of course, I want to teach my child things. But I also want her to be learning from a community, not just from her dad and me. This year alone, at two years old, she has had units on shapes, colors, numbers, weather, food, feelings, letters, and self-help skills.

Her teachers even helped the kids, in a very developmentally appropriate way, understand death when the classroom hamster, Bug, died. Not only that, but they walked us, the parents, through how they handled it via email, which I saved for reference because we have a 16-year-old chihuahua.

Bug the Hamster… RIP.

So much is happening in those classrooms. She is learning how to exist around other humans, that the world is bigger than our house and still safe, and that there are adults outside her family who can be trusted and loved. And that is one of the greatest gifts child care gives children: confidence in the world beyond their parents.

My kid is better off in this school.

She is more socialized, more adaptable, more curious, more confident, and learning things I would not think to teach in the same way or at the same pace. And that can be hard for some parents to say out loud. Because there is so much pressure on parents, especially mothers, to perform this idea that if we were just with our children enough, and present enough, and intentional enough, and organized enough, then we could be everything they need.

I do not subscribe to that. Children benefit from more than one kind of love, more than one set of hands, and more than one adult who believes in them. And that is the partnership.

Potty Training: We Are in This Together

The most current example of this in my life is… potty training. Nothing will humble you faster than potty training. But then again, I don’t have to tell you. You already know no version of this feels elegant. It is all timing, extra clothes, and tiny washable underwear.

And I’ll be honest with you: I did not research anything about potty-training. I didn’t read three books, compare philosophies, and develop a strategic framework.

I took the work-smarter-not-harder approach.

I just asked her teachers, “How should we potty train?” Because why wouldn’t I ask the people who have helped potty-train hundreds of kids?

So we followed the two pages her teachers gave us. And it’s… going ok! Pretty good at #2. Sometimes she’s having too much fun to remember she has to go #1.

But the point is, this is going to be successful, and successful pretty quickly, because her teachers and her dad and I are aligned. That’s partnership.

And that’s true with behavior, routines, sleep, food, transitions, and big feelings. The best outcomes happen when the adults in a child’s life are pulling in the same direction.

What I Would Be Like if She Were With Me All Day

And part of celebrating child care is being honest about this: not every parent is equipped to be with their child all day, every day. At least I’m not.

Because if Frankie were home with me all day, every day, and I was trying to manage her and the house, here is what I think would happen:

I would wake up with the best intentions. I would think, “Okay. Today we are going to have a nice rhythm. We’re going to do a healthy breakfast, get dressed, maybe do a little craft, maybe get outside, maybe I’ll finally try that enriching sensory activity I saw on TikTok.”

And for about… 34 minutes? I think I would absolutely crush it. I’d be like, “Look at us. We are thriving. We are doing a puzzle. I am equally nurturing and structured. This is beautiful.”

And then she would want a snack. But not that snack. Then she would want the first snack, but in a different bowl. Then she would want to help me unload the dishwasher and get distracted because I’m pretty sure I gave her my ADHD. Then I’d think, okay, let’s do something educational. We’d get out those word flashcards my mom gave her. For one brief, shining moment, I would think, this kid is advanced for her age. She’s a genius. And then suddenly there would be marker on the table, stickers on the floor, one crayon broken in half, and Frankie would be emotionally devastated because I peeled her banana when she wanted to do it “by myself!”

If it were my job to manage the house and be with my kid every day, I’d also be thinking about laundry, the kitchen, dinner, calling the doctor back, fixing that cabinet that keeps falling off, and maybe, in some aspirational version of motherhood, teaching my child about counting to ten.

Our kids aren’t always better off staying home with a parent. Some? Sure. Our household? No. Because being with children all day is relentless. Physical. Repetitive and mentally exhausting. It is having your day dictated by a person with no sense of urgency yet an incredible sense of entitlement.

I know I would start every day wanting to be present enough to stay off my phone. But that wouldn’t last long. By midafternoon, I’d be negotiating with a tiny person over whether she can have her fifth pouch and probably already ignored my self-imposed Instagram time limits fifteen times.

I love spending time with my daughter. But loving your child and being the best possible full-time teacher are not always the same skill set. Because if Frankie were with me every day, it would not just be harder. It would be smaller. Smaller in terms of stimulation, routine, learning from other adults, being around other kids, and having experiences designed around her development instead of whatever I can pull together between unloading groceries and wiping yogurt off a chair.

So when I think about what reliable child care does, I do not just think of it as something that frees parents up to work. I think of it as something that expands our family’s life: what we’re able to do as parents and what our child is exposed to.

You Teach Parents Too

And here’s the other thing I don’t think gets said enough: you do not just teach our children. You teach us, too.

Watching Frankie’s teachers has made me a better parent. Because I am observing people who are incredibly skilled at staying calm, setting boundaries, and not taking toddler behavior personally. I have learned that routines prevent revolutions. That transitions go better when children know what is coming next. And yes, I have learned sometimes the issue is not philosophical. Sometimes, everybody just needs a cracker.

Because no one leaves the hospital with a manual, you leave with a baby, a car seat, and the confidence of a teen mom… who just happens to be in her late-30s.

Why Your Work Matters

And here is what I want you to hear really clearly from a parent: what you do matters more than you are ever told.

Because when I drop my child off with you, I am dropping off the person I love most and saying, “I believe you will care for her.

And that you will do that while also teaching lessons, communicating with parents, cleaning up messes, navigating emotions, and somehow still remembering which kid will absolutely lose it if someone sings the cleanup song too early.

It is skilled, exhausting, meaningful work, and work that is still routinely underestimated and undervalued.

That is why I preach about child care on the platforms I have. We need policymakers, communities, business leaders, and frankly, the culture at large to understand what child care actually is. It is not a niche issue or a private family dilemma. It is foundational.

And if we say children matter, then the people caring for children have to matter too. In policy, funding, public understanding, compensation, and respect.

Because one of the easiest ways to devalue a profession is to act as if anyone could do it, and not everyone can do this: not well, not every day, not for years, and not with excellence.

This work takes intelligence. Observation. Stamina. Humor. Communication. Emotional regulation. Flexibility. And heart. It takes a whole set of skills that people often only notice when they aren’t there.

This profession deserves more than gratitude. It deserves investment.

Gratitude

But I will, in fact, finish with gratitude.

So from me, and from every parent who may not say it enough, or may be too rushed at pickup, or too distracted in the morning frenzy, or too tired at the end of the day to fully express what they are feeling: thank you.

Thank you for your patience, humor, and resilience.

Thank you for doing work that is intimate, undervalued, and essential.

Thank you for being the people we trust with the most important parts of our lives.

I hope you leave feeling proud. Proud of what you do, how many families are functioning because of your care, and how many children are smarter, kinder, and more confident because of your work.

You aren’t merely a line item in a family’s budget. You are not just what lets parents work late.

You are the village. You are our partners.

Thank you.