Going to market: Area parents seek child care options outside of the home

By Sarah Bloom

Photo Courtesy of Shinofield Family

On the day he was born, Luke Shinofield had been on the waiting list for local day care facilities for months.

The Shinofield family faces a number of complex challenges in obtaining quality, affordable care for their five-month-old son, Luke. Both employees at Washington and Lee University, Joel and Aubrey must continuously juggle their work related responsibilities with Luke’s child care needs.

But the Shinofields are not alone. Millions of families across the nation are facing similar child care hurdles, says recent research performed by Dr. Leslie Cintron, professor of sociology at Washington and Lee University.

According to work and family expert Dr. Jennifer Gootman, more and more mothers have chosen to enter the workforce, rapidly increasing the number of American families with dual-earner households.

With both parents at work, however, society has experienced a near exponential growth in the demand for child care outside of the home. Gootman has coined this phenomenon, “going to market” as parents essentially ‘shop’ local child care providers to ‘purchase’ care for their children.

Having done their research ahead of time, the Shinofields understood that Lexington faced a unique shortage of facilities and started shopping early to ensure that Luke’s child care needs would be met upon his arrival.

“I mean the minute I found out I was pregnant we started to call the options around here,” said mother Aubrey, “I knew it was hard to get on the waiting lists, and so I was trying to make sure that we got on the waiting lists pretty early.”

Despite getting placed on waitlists at both Montessori Center for Children and the Yellow Brick Road Early Learning Center, the Shinofields did not receive confirmation that they had secured a spot for Luke until after he was born.

While investigating the local child care options, the Shinofields also wanted to make sure that they found a safe and comfortable place for Luke to spend his time away from home.

“We were looking for kind of a low teacher to infant ratio,” offered father, Joel, of his search. “and one where he’d be close to work where could go see him during the day.”

Once a slot became available in Montessori's new infant care program, the Shinofields immediately chose to enroll Luke for care.  The low caregiver to infant ratio at Montessori and its proximity to the W&L campus were both added perks to the program.

Even after extensive research about availability of options and styles of care, the family continues to face its share of child care issues. The delicate balance of picking Luke up from care and dropping him off doesn’t always go as smoothly as planned.

“In the beginning, it was really hard because we were so new at this…when we were trying to juggle it and have the both of us do it a little bit, it was pretty tense,” said Aubrey. “But now we’ve just decided he can’t do it. So I do it.”

“It’s a challenge,” agreed Joel. “It’s a pretty limited window for drop off…and then for pick up…I mean we can pick him up earlier, but it’d be hard to get a full work day in then.”

Montessori offers care for its infant program during standard working hours, 8:20 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.  But with employers in the Rockbridge area like Wal-mart and several fast food chains focused on 24-hour-service, one has to question what options are available to children who have parents working non-standard hours.

According to Dr. Cintron’s Rockbridge Area Child Care report, the answer is ‘not many’. The study suggests that, while a number of home-based providers offer care, this care is not necessarily held to the same standard of quality that center-based providers must meet. Even if the home-based provider has obtained a state license, burdensome regulations often force the provider to charge a high price for care, a price most likely unaffordable to a minimum-wage worker.

The Shinofields realize all too well the high cost of quality care. “In an ideal world, one of us would stay home,” said Joel.

“It’s hard to know that he [Luke] spends more time with them than he actually does with us during the week,” agreed Aubrey. For now, the Shinofields feel somewhat comfortable with their decision to place him in full time care, knowing that Luke, “is really happy there and having a good time during the day.”

“But, if we have more kids, I don’t think we’ll stay with day care because of the cost,” said Aubrey.

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Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.

Lead supervisor:      Prof. Claudette Artwick

Reporting supervisor: Prof. Doug Cumming

Editing supervisor:  Prof. Pamela Luecke

Technical supervisor:  Michael Todd