Childcare (and Book Bans?!) with Kenz Nicholson

Childcare in New Hampshire: just as expensive as college, but without student loan options...and a potential 18-month wait time!

Liz asks Kenz whether $5,000 is enough to resolve the childcare issue and Kenz asks Liz why people want to ban books.

New episodes every Tuesday. 

Links:

• MomsRising NH
• SB 243: the remaining bill in the NH legislature addressing childcare
• The Fragile Economics of the Child Care Sector (New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
• New Study: Child Care Shortages May Cost New Hampshire Businesses Up To $56 Million Annually (New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
• The Economic Impact of the Granite State’s Child Care Shortage (New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
• The Economic Impact of America’s Child Care Gap (The Bipartisan Policy Center)
• Fewer Providers, Longer Distances: New Hampshire’s Child Care Landscape (UNH Carsey School of Public Policy)

Transcript

Liz  0:00  

It feels like none of these things should be controversial, not banned books. You know, what great points classes. Former English teacher, you know, we shouldn't ban books. I think I have Fahrenheit 450 Oh, my God, I have Fahrenheit 451 within my arms reach

Kenz  0:16  

And I have white fragility, like somewhere over here

Liz  0:20  

Well, the federal government just defunded this entire podcast, which is a real bummer.

[intro music]

Welcome to New Hampshire has issues, a podcast that dares to ask, can I just put the TV on as child care? What do you think? Kenz, what's your tagline? 

Kenz  0:49  

Welcome to New Hampshire has issues. The podcast where we dare to ask, why it costs more than college tuition to send your kid to daycare or childcare.

Liz  1:01  

That's painfully, an excellent one. Kenz very, very good. So I am your host. I am your host. Liz, Canada, and joining me today is Kenz Nicholson, who is the Senior Director of Moms Rising New Hampshire. Welcome Kenz. Thank you for being here. 

Kenz  1:16  

Hey everyone. Thank you so much for having me. I love coming on your podcast. Liz

Liz  1:20  

I love having you here. So wonderful. Talking about childcare, talking about books, 

Kenz

Talking about how moms have power. 

Liz

Moms have significant amount of power. You know, this, I go to a CrossFit gym. First role of CrossFit is you always talk about it. They go to a CrossFit gym. And a lot of the people who work out there are moms, and whenever they talk to me about, you know, they know that I work in sort of policy State House world, and they ask how to get involved. I'm always like, you should call Kenz like, you should call her and be part of Yeah, yeah. I like Liz. I like nudge them in your direction because, like, the thing that unifies them, because they might have differing opinions, is that they are strong moms, physically, emotionally, like, that's who they are. So can you tell me, just like, in a few sentences, tell me a little bit about moms rise in New Hampshire.

Kenz  2:08  

You all do? Yeah, don't we do? Is a better question we take our moms, don't we do? Yeah, we are doing it all with duct tape and granola bars in our purse, but we're a community of moms who do support one another, and maybe in some ways that you don't expect, like we help each other speak out in front of our lawmakers and our decision makers, whether that be through giving testimony or sharing our stories or writing pieces for our papers or social media. But it also means like supporting one another when someone is moving or helping to find services for someone in a certain area. Moms Rising is a community of moms who want to make New Hampshire and the country a better place for moms and our families. And it's anybody who's ever had a mom or loved a mom. We're we're inclusive, yeah, yeah. But really, we are moms who are just trying to lift up what real motherhood looks like, and come up with real and innovative and new policy solutions to sort of bring it back to how it can how it should be, which is that moms and families are supported in every way. So

Liz  3:15  

let's start with a simple question, how easy is it to find childcare in New Hampshire? Easy, if

Kenz  3:25  

you are the richest, most well connected person whose mom owns a childcare center and a baby happens to be leaving that week for the rest of us, however,

Liz  3:35  

okay, so that for what for that person? Simple, okay, yes,

Kenz  3:39  

for the rest of the Granite State, very difficult. I think something like 50% of New Hampshire people now live in a childcare desert, which means they don't have easy access to affordable, quality childcare. That's a huge problem for people who need childcare to work and go to school and do many things. Childcare desert. This is, if this is one you haven't heard before, I

Liz  4:02  

have, I have to be honest, I have not heard that phrase before. It sounds horrible. Honestly,

Kenz  4:07  

kind of is. And when you start thinking about the different types of deserts that exist, right, like these deserts, maternal health deserts, and you start overlapping

Liz  4:14  

the ranking of horrible deserts, yes, maternal health desert, yeah,

Kenz  4:18  

you didn't think coming to New Hampshire, you'd be living in a desert. Maybe not climate wise, it is raining right now, but there aren't enough childcare slots for the amount of children here at all. There's not enough food, there's not enough maternal healthcare. So that kind of describes like what a desert is. You just can't have, you can't get access to it in an affordable, quality way that meets the needs of your family. And so what that means when you don't have access to child care, more often than not, is many families are making really tough choices between leaving the workforce, you know, having one parent stay home from work, or maybe they don't have kids, which I saw some data come out of the Carsey School recently about declining birth rates, how that's kind of slowing down. And so yeah, welcome to New Hampshire, where we charge as much for child care as we do in State College tuition, and if you can find it, you're one of the lucky few

Liz  5:08  

so child care slots. Think about public schools. Public school, you have a neighborhood school. They take every student in their community like it's required right to take every student in their community, the town and the community helps support the schools so that students can go there. Childcare is obviously not the same. Like, there are not unlimited spots for young people. So, like, how do you even find out if there is a spot available? Like, where do you go looking? What is the range of available? Like, how does this work for just a regular person looking for child care for their kid? Think,

Kenz  5:45  

like many different families probably start going to the people in the places that they know in their communities. But I think in New Hampshire, there's not one cohesive way to find child care. Like, I don't think a new a new hampshire mom or parent, for example, is going to the New Hampshire Connections website, which is sort of like a place where you can find some of the licensed child care providers, and maybe you can find all of them there. But that wouldn't be the first website that would pop into my mind. And I even know about it, I think most of the time, folks are probably thinking about where they need to commute to work, what's in their communities, and then really the ultimate decision making factor for them probably comes down to who actually does have a slot for them and whether they can afford it, which, again, both things could be really challenging for families right now. And so frankly, I don't know where they're finding it. And a lot of times I think it comes down to luck and being on wait lists for really long times. I'm

Liz  6:39  

a step parent to the two boys, right? Like my wife, Molly, she's their biological mom, and I met the boys when they were five and four, so I entered their lives kind of after the, you know, quote, unquote, child care issue had really been a part of, you know, my wife's life, I had the rude awakening of how early have to start looking for summer camps. You know, we register them in January, right? Like, that's the thing they have to start planning for. I had no idea. I thought you registered for summer camp near summer. Not the case. And I feel like child care is sort of similar. I hear about my friends who have to, like, hold a spot years in advance.

Kenz  7:16  

I know some of our colleagues, even who are telling their child care providers that they're pregnant before they even tell their families that they're pregnant, because they are so worried about finding a slot. My God, right. I'm really lucky to work in in a field that is flexible and that would allow me to have my baby with me. But imagine if you work in a in a field, and many of many people do where you can't have your baby with you, and you really do need to go back to work and you can't have your baby. Yeah, your child care provider might be the first person you tell when wait lists are sometimes a year and a half to two years long, which isn't unheard of, actually, what? So unfortunately, we go back to econ 101, or that first basic economics class where we talk about supply and demand, and we know that there's a certain level of kids under the age of five who we expect will likely need some sort of childcare, because one or both of their parents are working in New Hampshire. And so we also know that there's only a set number of slots available for child care. And there's a lot of reasons why these two things interact and how they interact, and one of the main kind of causes here kind of comes down to where the money for child care ultimately comes from. And when you think about the money that's going into child care, really, mostly the money that goes into a child care comes from parents. It comes from the tuition that they're paying weekly for their kids to be there. There isn't a lot of other investment that comes in. So

Liz  8:51  

the cost of child care, like the actual tuition cost, so significant it falls on the families themselves.

Kenz  8:59  

There is not enough investment, in my opinion, that comes down from the federal government for child care, it's just not enough, and the funds that come down are limited, and what we can do with them. And when you look across the country at child care policy, New Hampshire, like any other policy areas, even in child care, we're no different. We stand out as being one of the states that invests the least in child care, right? And many other states do invest on the state level, at some in some way, in their in their child care workforce, or if it's on, you know, helping families afford it a little bit better than we do. We just don't invest anything at the state level. And what we get from the feds isn't enough. There might be some state dollars, or some federal dollars, really, all that goes in and then everything that comes out, you've got to pay the teachers on the other side of that, the professionals who are providing the care for kids, and no especially living in a really expensive area of the country, a livable wage actually looks like but then those child care providers and the centers themselves, right? Also have to pay all their bills, keep the lights on, sometimes they provide food. Another issue is like, really expensive insurance, right? And so the math just doesn't math there when the only money coming in is from parents, and the only way to increase your quality or pay your teachers better or open more classrooms, because we know that a lot of child care centers have classrooms that are not open right now because they don't have the child care professionals To open the classroom to more kids. It's just not enough money coming in to make it so that professionals are paid a decent wage, and it doesn't come off the backs of parents paying so much. I

Liz  10:53  

don't know that my parents ever had to put my brother and me in childcare like a pro, because I had the extreme benefit of living with my grandmother and great grandmother, like my mom's mom and grandmother. We all lived in one two family household, so we always had someone there. What a great thing for me as like the grandkid who got to live with my grandmother and great grandmother. But I don't feel like a lot of people can do that now, like that was back in the 1980s 119 beginning, 1900s throwback to the 1900s Whoa. But it feels like, you know, we have the boys. They're older now, but when they were younger, don't know that it was ever possible to even their their grandparents all work right? Like my parents still work full time. Both of them still work full time. So what is it like in New Hampshire for families? People live near their parents still do they have to find private child care like, what is the breakdown in New Hampshire for families, looking for child care supports from

Kenz  11:59  

the people that I know and our colleagues and our friends who are utilizing childcare, and even when my kids are 11 and eight, they haven't needed childcare for quite some time. But we were also a sort of sandwich generation family where I relied on my parents to help do sort of, you know, fragmented care because I could only afford to bring my both kids times they were in childcare two to three Max days a week, because it was so expensive. And so what I would do is I would sort of come up with an arrangement with my boss, and I've worked in child and family advocacy my entire career, and so I've worked with some really amazing, flexible people, and so I recognize the privilege that is like having that flexibility. This isn't possible for everybody. But I would, you know, maybe go into the office on Monday through Thursday, and have my mom help on Monday and Wednesday, right? And then my kiddo would go to daycare on Tuesday, Thursday, and then I would work from home on Friday. And I think many parents are sort of cobbling together many different types of care. I've also seen moms just like at their wits end, being like, I have to hire a nanny. Do you want to do a nanny share with me? I even recently worked with some local moms whose childcare was being pulled out from underneath them with almost no notice. They got a 50% increase in their tuition because the owner of the business was just he wasn't a child care professional, and he was really struggling, and so he essentially, with two weeks notice, said, either pay increased tuition or we're going to close down. And what these moms did, which, again, you shouldn't have to do this, and this is not a solution I recommend, but they banded together, and with the help of some really well connected people in our community, they actually took over this childcare and started their own business, and now, oh, wow. Like so it sounds like families are cobbling together care or buying their own daycares, which do not recommend or because that's not

Liz  13:52  

available for everybody, not everyone can buy like a business to be able to put it

Kenz  13:57  

together. Listen. Liz, I love babies like more than the next person, but I know that I'm not the right person to be a child care teacher or a child care professional or to be with kiddos, like for long periods of time, even my own kids.

Liz  14:14  

I was a high school you know? I have a background in secondary education, English, so I do really well with like, teaching high schoolers, working with high schoolers, and they used to make fun of me. They're like, you would never hack it with a little kids. You I'm like, No, I would not. I could not handle tiny people in a professional way like that, right? Like for the boys, yeah, of course there's, there's something different. But, like, it's, it's so it's so different to have so to be in charge of of little ones in that way to help them grow up and learn things, and I wouldn't know what I'm doing. Let's imagine

Kenz  14:45  

you're, I mean, imagine you're an infant child care professional, and you, I think the ratio is like one to four or one to five are enough spots for you to hold. What are you gonna do? Yeah, I don't know. And so I think what ends up happening, right, is more often than not, women and moms are leaving the workforce to take care of their kids. And I don't say always, but often it's moms. And what I'm thinking about is what that does to mom. I don't just mean like, Oh, she can't go to work now, that's really hard, but also for her career trajectory and lifetime earnings. And I know that not all of us desire to work, but there are some people who do want to work right, and who want to go and who need to be there for the financial security of their families. And stepping out of the workforce isn't always feasible. And what does that do to our state when those folks aren't working?

Liz  15:44  

Right? Because stepping out of the workforce is, yes, watching your child, and we all love our children, and that's so important. But it's also, you know, wages, of course, which is the balance with child care. Yep. And then when you re enter the workforce, at some point, you explain, Well, I was out of the workforce for a while, here's why. And I think there probably is, for some people, a bias too, of like, oh well, if she wasn't working for a while, like, is she going to be able to I think there must be some sort of stigma still, for people about people who have left the workforce to care for their children. Are they going to have another child, I don't know. I feel like that's so complicated, and it does. It lands mostly often on the moms, on the women. And

Kenz  16:28  

why is it because the jobs that the moms take on are more flexible or make less money, or that they are just the ones who say, I can do this. I'm not really sure what you know. Of course, I can't. I'm not in their homes, but that's a really tough decision to have to make, and to one that is avoidable by treating child care like the public good. It is just like the way that we treat roads, the things that let people work pay for as a public good, like roads, right? Like schools, like traffic lights. I'm having really bad time thinking of examples right now, like firefighters, right like all the things

Liz  17:04  

that let you just live your day to day life that makes life easier for you, yes, not even easier makes life livable for you. You exactly right. Child Care gives the families you know they're it's a single mom or a single dad, or whether it's a two adult household. It gives them the ability to make the decision, not out of maybe panic or fear of, you know, financial loss or ramifications down the road, or feeling trapped in the situation, but lets them make the choice for themselves. If there's child care choices that are out there, theoretically,

Kenz  17:40  

right? But I think it's so unaffordable for families. I know we we talked about this before, but New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute has done a ton of work and data collection around child care and what that looks like in New Hampshire. And if we were to assume that child care should be a max 7% of what you're spending for the month, then a family should be earning about $400,000 a month. Excuse me, could you imagine holding

Liz  18:05  

let's go back. Try it again. Rewind the shape. Rewind.

Kenz  18:13  

So if a family were going to be spending 7% of their income on childcare, they'd have to be making about $400,000 a year to be for that to be considered affordable under the federal guidelines. Kenz,

Liz  18:23  

you have told me this before, because we did talk. We had, you know, like a we had a little chit chat, a pre check here before a pre check. Yeah, and you said that, and it's not that I didn't believe you, it's that I I want to fact check things and go and check and I couldn't find the report, so I reached out, literally, to Phil from the New Hampshire fiscal policy is due. It's like, Phil, quick question. Send him an email. Quick question. I heard this thing and Kenz, I am not joking. I will show you the timestamps within four minutes. He responded with the report, with it highlighted. He's like, Yeah, $400,000 a year if you're assuming 7% of their income to be able to based on childcare, yeah, based on the cost, right? That is, first of all shout out New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. But also bonkers expensive. That is absolutely wild. How much money

Kenz  19:15  

raise your hand if you're making $400,000 a year, friends? Oh, I'll wait. We'll

Liz  19:19  

just sit here and wait for everybody. I'm sure there are people. Of course there are definitely. It's not me, it's not our household, it's not your household.

Kenz  19:27  

It's not and I know there are people out there who aren't making as much money as we are. So how are they able to do it? How are they able to pull it off? We know that the cost for infant care is like $15,000 a year, which is more than in state tuition for college. I don't even know where you come up with that kind of money when you Yeah, I don't know well,

Liz  19:45  

and I hear friends who have kids in child care now who are like, so looking forward to their kids starting in public school, because it's like, oh my god, do you know how much money I'm not going to have to spend? Yes, so that I can keep working my job, they can keep learning things like it's, it's almost like a countdown. Not that they don't love their childcare placement, like they love where they send their kiddo, yeah, but it's just so much money that they have shout

Kenz  20:13  

out to all the moms whoever did the math when they like, when their baby was in childcare, and they're like, Wait, when is my kid going to go into kindergarten, because I was one of the moms who was like, shoot, I didn't plan this pregnancy. I didn't time it right. Because if I had just gotten pregnant, like three months earlier, my kid would be cut off a year sooner, and then I'd have a year less of childcare. Shout out to the moms who have done that math, because that September cut off can really mess you up, and it could cost another $15,000 and you're like, what if my baby had just been born a day earlier?

Liz  20:44  

It is like the word problem in math where you can't even compute it. It's just like your brain just short circuits of yeah, you have to figure out your future life to be able to pay for the child care for the extra year. Oh, my God, that's a lot. Kenz, that's a lot.

Kenz  21:02  

Yeah. I mean, no wonder it's not working, right? Yeah.

Liz  21:09  

So put it mildly, crisis levels here. So I've heard this phrase quite a bit. We're in a childcare crisis. You said we're in a childcare desert. These were all big, scary words, small scary words, but scary words. What is it? What does it mean to be in a child care crisis? Well,

not to be dramatic, but I think it means, like, be

Unknown Speaker  21:30  

dramatic. I love theater,

Kenz  21:32  

all right. Well, 50% of us, when 50% of the people who need child care can't find it like, think about if you were to go to the grocery store and half the people in there needed eggs. This has definitely never happened in New England before, or milk the night or a snowstorm, and there wasn't any. 50% of the people there would be, like, really struggling to figure out how they were going to survive a New Hampshire snowstorm. But for New Hampshire families who are trying to figure out how to get to work, and they can't find childcare, and they can't go to work. They can't go to work because they can't find childcare, and they can't get childcare because they're not in work, working because to afford the really expensive childcare. And then there's, like, all these other questions, right about, like, kind of quality childcare Do you want? If you had the childcare of your dreams, what would it look like? This is like, bar none, any of that any of the things that you want, we simply do not have the amount of childcare providers and centers to have kids, kids that are here in New Hampshire. And New Hampshire is an aging state. People are not coming to New Hampshire, moving to New Hampshire. Young folks aren't moving to New Hampshire anymore. And when we ask why? I have to wonder, is it because New Hampshire families and young people can't find childcare? And to me, that screams crisis when people are leaving the state or not coming here because of the crappy childcare situation that they monitored myself, that's very good. That's good. Yeah, yep, I see social media all the time of moms like talking about the lack of AX camera and saying we're going to have to move, or I'm going to take a different job, or, you know, the plans are going to change. And if it were a couple of families experiencing that, I could see it just being like a challenge. But to me, the levels that we're at the crisis, you could be waiting 18 months for a slot for a childcare center that you really love and never get on it, and

Liz  23:25  

then what do you do? You're like, okay, job. I want to work for you, but I won't know for 18 months, so if you can just hold that spot for me. Yeah,

Kenz  23:33  

and this has to do, right? It has implications on all of our communities. And

Liz  23:38  

I guess one of the questions I was going to ask you, I've been thinking about this all week, is there like a magical childcare place in the state that has plenty of spaces, and is like, is there like a secret place in the state, or is this like an issue across the entire state? I

Kenz  23:53  

would love to know if there's a unicorn out there. You know where to find me. But no, unfortunately, I think this problem is not unique to centers near us. We hear from folks up in the North Country. Frankly, we've lost a lot of childcare providers too, and so the system is only becoming more and more strained. I've heard of police, for example, moving to a rural community in New Hampshire and trying to get jobs as police in those communities to help bring a workforce back to rural communities. But when they get there, they find out that there's no childcare for their kids. We want police officers. We want firefighters. We need people to do essential jobs. We also have to have places for their kids to go. Affects them too.

Liz  24:36  

It affects everyone. Yeah. I mean, it affects all of us. Yeah. It affects everybody. How does the state of New Hampshire help when it comes to child care? Can, can the state of New Hampshire do anything about this?

Kenz  24:48  

Absolutely. You know, we were talking about this at the top of that hour, where, my opinion that child care is a public good in just the same way that we treat other public goods like roads and schools, we could be managing childcare the same way, right? We know that childcare is a tool to help people get to work, and so similarly, if we can invest and support childcare, we can help those folks get to work and boost our economy. And so one of the ways that we can do that is through our state's childcare scholarship program. It helps folks on the lower income spectrum access Child Care scholarships, and that matters, right? Because as your many families start families young, right? And you're starting out in your career, you're not necessarily making $400,000 a year. Who knew, right? But I know you get there, no, yeah, but you know, so they're starting out, and there's one too many zeros in that one, for real, tell me about it. And the childcare scholarship helps pay. It's a scholarship, but it's not like a true scholarship, like the one that you would get at for going to college, for example, where you get a scholarship based on your enrollment, this one is kind of based on attendance, and it pays for the kiddo to go to child care. But the thing about our child care scholarship program is it actually doesn't pay the cost, like the full cost, to provide that care to the child care provider. So that's issue number one. There's like a nexus between the amount the state gives for the child care scholarship program, what it costs to have that slot and what the family can afford, right? Because sometimes there's like, if the provider charges more than what the state pays, then they charge the parent that difference. And parents, they're using the child care scholarship because they sit on a lower income. And so that cost share isn't always affordable for families. Remember, we're supposed to be keeping it to 7% of family income. When we reach this place where the child care scholarship isn't paying the true cost of what it costs to provide that care in a quality way, we start to see like the degradation of that care. Child care providers stop accepting the scholarship, which means fewer and fewer child care centers, because

Liz  26:59  

they can choose to, not to, not exactly and, and there's red

Kenz  27:03  

tape that goes with the child care scholarship program, right? There was actually a bill this year. It was Senate Bill 243, it's still alive, but it is the House Health Human House Health Affairs and elderly. What is the name of that committee?

Liz  27:19  

It is House Health Human Services and elderly affairs, guys, house HHS,

Kenz  27:25  

HHS. EA got you. But maybe we could, just like, slice it down a little bit

Liz  27:30  

a House committee that focuses on House Health and Human Services.

Kenz  27:34  

They had this bill in front of their committee, and they hadn't seen this bill before. The bill had hardly any opposition, very low cost. Had a lot of administrative fixes to red tape and barriers around the child care scholarship system, including making it so that providers didn't have to jump through hoops to submit paperwork or get paid. And the house HHS Committee voted to kill it completely on party lines just last week, and again, it had had no opposition. This

Liz  28:05  

is a bill that passed the Senate completely, unanimously. Was it unanimously? Okay? So the Senate, animusly the Senate, which is, you know, 16 Republicans, eight Democrats, they passed this bill unanimously, sent it over to the house, and then the house in the committee, you're saying that there is a recommendation on party lines to stop this bill, to defeat it. And which I ask, Which party goes which way on this bill, for whatever

Kenz  28:36  

reason, the Republicans decided that they wanted to kill this bill, and some of the rhetoric I heard in that committee hearing was really probably, and I'm paraphrasing here, but why should New Hampshire be trying to fix child care when we've got this mess going on with our schools? And it's

Liz  28:57  

like, okay, so, so just to reiterate, because I don't want someone to listen to this and be like this podcast is anti Hold on. The Senate passed it unanimously. All 24 of them passed it, and it got sort of mucked up in the house, yeah, in this interesting debate, yes, but it's not over yet. We're recording this in early May, so it might have a vote before this episode goes live. There's a recommendation for the full house to say that they want to stop this bill, but it's a good bill and would be helpful for the child care process.

Kenz  29:33  

Actually, there were only two bills around child care this year, and this is the only one still standing. This is the only bill focused on addressing dues with our child care crisis. This year, and the House Health Human Services and elderly affairs committee recommended to kill this bill, and that is really problematic when we are talking about the situation that we're in, talk about out of touch, I know that we're talking a lot about money issues in New Hampshire.

Kenz   

Right now, and we talk about a lot of the things that you and I care about, have a significant return on investment. And Child Care is a perfect example of when you invest those dollars early, what they bring back to you is seven fold. We know that to be true for moms and families and so for this bill that had a very low cost of, I think, $300,000 a year, pennies the state of New Hampshire, when they are so desperate to find cuts and again, I'm just assuming. I don't know. I'm just trying to put myself in their heads. I don't think that killing a bill that costs $300,000 a year makes a ton of sense when every mom and every family I know is asking for child care solutions,

Liz  

just to, just to be really clear that $300,000 a year for the state of New Hampshire, which is less than the $400,000 a year a household would have to make to make child care affordable 

Kenz

This, Liz! $300,000 is unaffordable for New Hampshire to invest in long term investment in childcare. But if you make $400,000 a year, you can afford childcare. What

Liz   

I mean, I agree that if you make $400,000 a year, you probably could afford childcare

Kenz  

and New Hampshire. Oh, boy. Okay, wow, wow, wow.

That's to say that that was one meaningful bill that the legislature has its hands on this session. And there have been many bills in the past, in past years, that have worked to address, you know, challenges with our child care scholarship system. But like, more broadly, it doesn't just have to be support for our child care scholarship system. We could actually invest in the workforce itself, because we know that. You know the difference between a child care provider and a kindergarten teacher sometimes is literally no experience,

Liz   

no change in experience, like they have the same background. Yes,

Kenz  

yeah, any child care providers have bachelor's and master's degrees in early childhood education less ages.

Liz  2:13  

Cannot emphasize enough how hard it is to educate young people, period, let alone the youngest of little people, yes,

Kenz  2:22  

full stop. And the cost to attain that education, right? 

Liz  

to prepare people to become child care professionals,

Kenz 

not only are they not getting like, the support that they need now, but we're also not paying them

Liz  

about $16 an hour, is what a child care professional on average.

Kenz  

I don't know about you, Liz, but I've seen places like McDonald's with the signs out front that says, now hiring $16 an hour, some places are offering competitive or better wages than childcare, and so if you could go at Target for the same or more money, you can imagine why it's a hard choice to stay in child care when, literally, some of your peers who are kindergarten teachers, are making 1000s and 1000s of dollars more a year than you love our kids. Being a child care provider has got to be one of the hardest jobs out there. Absolutely,

Liz  

and yes, there are businesses that are offering more money for jobs that are difficult, right? Like working in a fast food restaurant is taxing on the body, like there is a lot to that. I remember talking with some folks and hearing them talk about how difficult it was to get substitutes in the schools because how much substitutes are paid on a day to day basis, and how hard it was for them to hire paraprofessionals in their classrooms because of the pay as well, and that they were losing people to places like Dunkin Donuts, like Walmart, like these other companies that can pay more, and the job on a day to day basis is, I would say, differently, exhausting, right? Like it's exhausting in a different way. And Child Care Professionals being paid an average of $16 an hour, compared to being a kindergarten teacher, where you might make, I can't math it in my head, but me, they're probably, you know, 40 to $50,000 probably a year, which is different than $16 an

Kenz   

hour. And for folks who you know are working in schools, they likely have access to things like, you know, health insurance and retirement, exactly right. A lot of times, childcare providers and childcare centers are running on such thin margins that they can't offer things like that. And so again, it's like, who are the most likely population to be holding those jobs, and more often than not, it's women and moms. When I say crisis, I mean crisis for women and moms and our families and our economy and for it all.

Liz  

Now, let me ask you heard the Trump administration is potentially going to offer $5,000 have a baby when she does that. You the confetti guns, $5,000 coming your way. Now, $5,000 is money. That is an amount of money. How good is that offer? Would you say when you think about like the child care crisis and affordability in New Hampshire? Is that a solution to this issue that we face in New Hampshire, can I swear you can't. I'll BLEEP you out. So you go, you You swear as much as you want to bleep you out

Kenz  

No. Liz, no, it is not affordable. $5,000 doesn't even care cover four months of infant care. It doesn't cover the birth of you leaving the hospital. No, no, $5,000 isn't enough for me to consider getting pregnant just based off of what I know my body has gone through physically to carry two pregnancies, I wouldn't take $5,000 to go through that again. It's sheer lunacy to think that a one time. Maybe bonus is going to fix this challenge that we're facing. 

Liz   

So what I'm hearing you say is no. 

Kenz

It's going to be no for me, 

Liz

It's going to be it's going to be a no on that one. Okay, so it's a no. Is there anything else the state of New Hampshire can do right now? You know, may 2025 anything that New Hampshire can do,

Kenz  

really not sure what New Hampshire or the federal government can do or is going to do right now, frankly, we need to look at the way that we have revenue in our state and where we prioritize where that revenue goes, because I don't think that many of the cuts that we've made over the past few years have benefited us in the way that I think that a lot of folks thought they were going to, and what we're seeing now is a humongous cut that we're needing to make out of our state budget based off of the lack of revenue, and that is coming from the loss of wealth taxes on wealthy corporations and people. So I think we need to be doing as people is we need to not up talking about all of the ways that these budgets are affecting us, whether that's about child care or anything else. We need to stand up for it and be talking about it so that we can point and say we've been telling you, and we've been saying for years and years that this is a problem that we want you to address. You

Liz  7:39  

talk about, like, standing up and letting folks know about what's going on. That's something you did. Recently. You were at the State House speaking out in, I think, opposition, but also deep concern about what is not in the state budget. So I'm going to just roll the tape, not that there's tape anymore. In 2025 I'm going to roll the tape. Be kind. Rewind to the state 1900s class 1900 talk that we have here, of I'm truly trying to speak of the people here for the people here. So let me just roll the roll the clip of you at the state budget hearing

Kenz  

moms, parents and caregivers across New Hampshire are watching this budget process closely. I know because we're bringing it to them, we're making it more accessible, answering their questions, their concerns, hearing them. You may find me repetitive, but this is the people's house, and then the moms that I'm talking to, they don't feel heard, because hearings like these happen during the middle of the work day with only five days notice that doesn't just shut families out of the process, it shuts out the very people that these decisions impact the most, and those decisions matter. They determine whether young families can afford to stay move here and build a future in New Hampshire. It's not just about those families. It's about the future of our workforce, in our economy, in our communities, we urge you prioritize funding for child care, protect family resource centers, keep Medicaid strong, ensure public dollars stay in public schools. Moms are watching. Thank you. I was sitting there listening to the testimony go on from colleagues, our neighbors, our friends talk about the many ways that this budget is going to impact them. And I hadn't planned on testifying, but I was sitting there thinking like, No, we getting tired of saying anything right because I think that folks are going to, quote, unquote, do the right thing, or just do and you

Liz   

mean lawmakers, that the lawmakers are gonna there were a lot of people in that room trying to do the right thing that day. Yeah,

Kenz   

practice of getting up and sharing your story is not new to me, and we can be personal for a moment, if you want 

Liz

go for it, be personal. 

Kenz

I got into this work because I was a really young mom. I had my son when I was just 23 years old. Just months after I graduated from college, I was starting out in my career, my partner and I were just we were renting an apartment, figuring life out, and we couldn't afford childcare. I didn't have paid leave. I had a C section, and had to go back to work three and four weeks after having those C sections. So when you ask about whether $5,000 is enough, it's not. But I was chatting with a friend of mine recently about she she brought back a colleague of ours, brought back a memory to me of when I had my son when he was really little. He's 11 now, but bringing him to work because I had to, not because he was a prop or anything like that, but because I literally did not have a choice. And I almost like started sobbing in front of her because I didn't remember that and it was so hard, so incredibly hard and isolating to be a young mom and to have it feel like every single obstacle is again, like everything is against you, everything is a fight. Nothing makes sense. As the Senior Director of Moms Rising in New Hampshire, I feel incredibly proud, and I feel like I could throw up every time I get up at that pulpit and share stories, because that's what I needed, right? I needed someone who was going to share my story and tell them how hard it is to be a mom and how the decisions that they make in those two rooms up in Concord, New Hampshire seriously affect, like, my very core, my health as a person, as a mom, yeah, and I want to bring this sort of feeling of like our voices have collective power to the families, because I've actually seen it have an impact. And I know that our episode has been a little bit like, on the, you know, tough side, because we're talking about some things that are really challenging. And that's the podcast New Hampshire has issues, but they cannot ignore us. When we come together, I leave that room feeling like helping families a real, meaningful way, and they may never know that's okay. You're like, up

Liz   

there for the other moms in New Hampshire, for the families in New Hampshire, and also for younger you, like you're up there for 23 year old you, 

Kenz

I'm not gonna cry, Liz

Liz

but that's true, like you're representing her from when she had a little one and was bringing the kiddo to work day to day,

Kenz  

my role at Mom's rising and What I do, I want to, above all else, keep it real and say the things that people are saying. Because if I just go up there with the talking points and I say, you know, New Hampshire families are can't afford $15,000 a year for infant care. It's kind of like we know. But if I say, hey, the moms are watching. Do your job.

Liz  

The moms are watching. Also, moms are always watching.123, eyes on mom.

Kenz  

So I said that obviously, in that little you did, in that little speech I gave, that's right, and I'm making some signs that say moms are watching. And I asked my kids, because I'm like, Well, who better than the experts themselves. So I asked them they liked all of them, except the one that said the moms are watching. And when I asked them why, they're like, it's so creepy moms, like, moms are always looking so you're telling me, even when I sleep, you know what I'm doing, and I'm just like, yes, yes. Moms always know. 

Liz  

My mom once told me, because she found out something that happened at school. I don't even remember what it was, but she just said it. And I was like, How did you know that happened? She's like, I'm in the trees everywhere. And I was like, Oh, are you because you know I was little, so I was like,

Kenz  

Yeah, my mom can climb trees, like up those eyes in the back of our head. Man,

Liz  

I know that you've probably brought lots of moms with you to the State House, and it's not required that they get up and talk so, but I also think it's helpful for them to see what that looks like. And yeah,

Kenz   

yeah, there's energy in that room, especially when the chair of the committee kept kind of saying over and over again to have folks stop saying things that had been said before. And one of the main points for us to be there is to be on the record. So I really believe in repeating what we say. As a mom, I love to repeat myself. I have to tell my kids to go and pick up their socks 82 times a day,

Liz  

I am once again, asking you take your shoes off and move it to the other side of the doorway so we don't have to walk through the shoes to get in the house. 

Kenz  

Here’s mine. Pack your backpack, unpack your lunch box, bring

Liz

Chromebook out what is for homework? Yes

Kenz

Ever day, every day. Love repeating myself, so I will do it at the legislature, because it seems like they're not getting it. Liz, so let's just keep repeating ourselves. Okay,

Liz  

I don't want to pivot too far away, but in the last episode, Kayla and I talked about, we made some jokes about book banning. Not jokes. They're not jokes. Yeah, but it sounds like we might be seeing some book bans here in New Hampshire, and I think your organization has been following those a bit more closely. What's going on with the book bans in New Hampshire? Yeah,

Kenz  

a couple bills this session, at least two that I know about, they say they're not book bans, right?

Liz  

PR, to call it a book ban, you're trying to ban the books. You don't want to call it a book ban. I think it looks

Kenz  

bad, right? So they say it's like, they're like, making sure that parents have procedures in place to disagree with school districts when there's material that they believe to be inappropriate. But what we really know right is that these bills aim to censor educators, criminalize those educators, and keep information from our students and our kids. We have a proud history of defeating these bills, but for the first time ever this year, both of the bills that we have right now for book bans have made it into their second body now, which has never happened before, and we're getting closer than ever. There are two bills. They are not the same, but the more extreme of the two would actually criminalize school teachers, school librarians and school board members if they are found to be guilty of a criminal charge. Folks, this bill opens the Criminal Code and teachers and school librarians could be could face charges, could face fines. What we know is that the couple of instances that some really extreme parents are pointing to is that most school districts already have these reconsideration policies. There should be a process to talk about what our kids are seeing at schools, but it shouldn't come from someone who doesn't even live in the community, and it shouldn't be one person who's able, because both of those bills do that, by the way, you could be living anywhere in New Hampshire and go to a different school and say, I disagree with you having this book and do this, right? That's a problem. You don't even have a kid in that school,

Liz   

right? That's just somebody driving around the state being like, I don't like this group of people, and so I do not want books about this group of people being shown to any person in the school district, even though I'm not from here. She doesn't even go here, like very mean girls,

Kenz  

she doesn't even go here. I find it challenging, because I've heard so many stories of people talking about experiences that they had when they were younger where a book helped them get through a really challenging event or time in their life. The books that are in those schools and placed in those sections are for kids of those ages, right? And I really do trust our library professionals and picking quality materials that help our kids learn and see different perspectives, because that's so important, right for kids, learning is seeing things they're not used to.

Liz  

So those those bills, are still in play. They're still out there, still happening. It's weird that in the live, Free or Die estate, we would think about banning books at all. All the books that I taught would have probably been banned.

Kenz   

Yeah, and so what do you think it is about, like Utah, older kids? Do you think is really the crux of the issue here for families, for parents who are saying that these books need to be banned they do

Liz   

not want their young person to know about or talk about people who are different than their family in some way, and it could be about LGBTQ issues, the family could be worried that if my child knows about transgender people, XYZ might happen, and it's like so that's not how any of this works, and reading other people's stories helps build empathy, helps build trying to understand other folks, which is an impossible task to do, right? Like I can't ever know a full experience of someone of a different race than I am. I will never understand what it's like to be them because I do. I cannot understand it. Reading stories can help approach understanding like you can't ever fully understand it, but you can approach it in that way. I get so worried when people want to ban books because it feels too scary for them, and I'm like, What are you afraid of? Why is it that you do not want your not even yours, but you want someone else's kid to not be able to read books about being a or being a transgender young person, like, what are what exactly are you afraid of? That worries me significantly. Said

Kenz  

it so eloquently, I knew I could count on you for a really good explanation of what your thoughts were. I think you're so right. Like approaching understanding is such an amazing way to think about it is like we can't ever be there, but a book is a less scary way to be in someone else's shoes and to try to develop empathy around the situation that they find themselves in. That's important, that selflessness. It

Liz  

was a professor in my undergraduate college. I was in an American literature class, and she was the one who said it. There was a male student in class who was talking about one of the books that we read, I think it was the awakening. Speaking of moms, is about a woman who didn't want to have kids and have children, and is sort of like grappling with being a woman and a mom and that era. And so anyway, he said in class, he's like, this really helps me understand what it was like to be a woman then. And that professor was like, No, it did not, because you can never understand what someone else is going through if you do not share that identity. And that is okay. It's about getting a glimpse, getting a little bit of an insight, then approach your own world differently in a more nuanced way than you would have without knowing that person's experience. Well, Said, I'm so glad I'm not a teacher anymore. That's what I'm saying,

Kenz  

honestly. But I'm like, can you just can you just come and write my testimony against the spell for me, I'm like, Liz said it better than I ever could, folks, it

Liz  

seems so opposite of what we stand for as Granite Staters.

Kenz  

We know book bans and censorship are connected. 

Liz  

What is the one thing you would tell whether it's a CrossFit mom or otherwise, what's the one thing someone can do right now, as we approach summer, in dealing with the child care crisis or issues affecting moms in New Hampshire today, sharing

Kenz   

your stories about what it is like to be a mom in New Hampshire right now. And I don't mean like, the fluffy stuff, I mean the like, this is really what my life is like right now. I'm thinking about how I'm gonna cook pork chops instead of red meat, like those kinds of things, because those real stories have power, and we continue to share the real experiences and the real things that are going on. I think that it will be a good thing to point to if folks end up not listening to our stories. Moms can't keep holding everything together with duct tape and granola bars we desperate and little packs of tissues in the pockets ready to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always have a tide to go pen because, 

Liz

oh so smart, 

Kenz

because we know that moms can't show up Concord every day to make an impact. You know, they can't be speaking at all the hearings that are happening during the work day, but really being real about what it's like to be a mom here in New Hampshire with the folks that you talk to a lot, and trying to get some conversation started about sharing those stories. I think the more we talk about it, the better.

Liz  

Kenz, thank you so much for being here, for boggling my mind with how much child care costs, and also that we haven't fixed it yet as a state. Thank you so so much for being here. Where can people find you? If they want to keep in touch and get involved, I would

Kenz 

love that please come and find us. You can find Moms Rising all over the internet, and we have a Facebook group mom's rising New Hampshire has a private Facebook group that you can come into or at your local state house where I'll be screaming, the moms are watching till the day I die.

Liz  

That's right, The moms are Watching.