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THE GETTING GAZETTE
February 11, 1993

               Child Care in the Post-Nannygate Era

                        A MODEST PROPOSAL

                        by Lynn Phillips

In the wake of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood's Nannygate de-nominations for
Attorney General, there's been much discussion about how working women's
pressing need for affordable, quality childcare forces us outside the law.
But at the heart of the anti-Baird-and-Wood backlash is not the problem
of what child care costs, it's what it pays.

Our whole society still treats anything to do with mothering like something
that some free with every female, like bundled software.

Think about it: When anyone is obliged to actually pay hard cash for child 
care, elder care or household help, the pay is stingy. Whether the
employer is a jolly patriarch or a barricade feminist, whether the nanny
or caregiver is adored or ignored, taking care of families is still
priced as if the job were something instinctual. Although every nanny's
or daycare worker's would-be employer seeks a sainted genius, nannies are
paid as if the job required little judgment, knowledge or interpersonal
skill.

We're talking minimum wage -- $170/week, $8,840/year -- and even less for
some illegals (Economists refer to this cultural vestige of chattel-hood as
"market forces.")

For every Zoe Baird or Kimba Wood whi hit the glass ceiling of stalled 
promotion, scores of poor women hit the class ceiling of undervalued
work.

Guess what: The undervaluation of "women's work" has a price. Not only has 
it cheated children by encouraging a high rate of turnover and incompetence
in what ought to be a stable, creative job; not only has it crippled millions 
of women economically; it has impoverished all of us socially. When "full time" 
mothers see what a pittance professionals pay nannies, many feel insulted and
resentful. When young men see that caring for children is a dead-end career, 
those clever devils run for the door. Everyone gets the message: Guns may pay, 
corporate flacking may pay, but nursing, teaching, nurturing -- the deepest
of family values -- don't rate.

And who can affford to pay the nanny what we ought? Too often women, 
especially single women, can't pay appropriately to replace ourselves
at home because we're underpaid in traditional women's occupations in the
job market, and because the tax laws don't fully recognize the legitimacy of 
job-related child-care costs. Most employed men would be pressed as well,
should the financial burden fall on them without the help of a second
income from a wife's job.

Maybe someday our nationa will realize that raising the next generation
properly is of public as well as private benefit, and alter the social
assumptions that underlie the economic system. Then child care work will
achieve decent pay.

In the meantime, what's a professional-who-is-a-female-person to do? The
answer, obviously, is to fight patriarchy with patriarchy: Shed your husband 
and marry your nanny.

Marry your nanny and you won't have to file her quarterly return with the
IRS. If she's an illegal alian, she'll get papers automatically, and you 
won't be embarassed when you're up for a cabinet post. Your company's
health plan will cover her, but since she's your spouse, minimum wage laws
won't.

And no matter how little you actually pay, her social status will reflect
yours, so there will be suitable dignity in her role. Her children will go to
school with yours, and she can either move in with your kids when they
have children (providing your extended family with continuity) or
she can care for you in you old age. You ex-husbands and lovers can stay
on, as long as they pick up their own socks and contribute half their
incomes. Abuse or abandon your nanny and she gets the house, plus
her rightful third of your family's assets.

Oh, and for those of us too conservative for same-sex marriage, there's
always adoption.

                   Maybe We Need a Nanny Lobby

The Getting It Gazette asked economict Barbara R. Bergmann how the
Nannygate problem might be solved. Dr. Bergmann, Distinguished Professor
of Economics at The American University and author of The Economic
Emergence of Women is currently working on a book about public
policy concerning children in France and the United States.

The Getting It Gazette: What action ought women to take to solve the
problems that caused Nannygate?

Dr. Barbara Bergmann: The first objective, for both rich and poor,
is that our country needs more and better child-care centers; licensed,
government-subsidized, with well-trained personnel. By avoiding social 
security and income taxes, employees who demand to be paid off the books
and employers who agree to it lower the market price of child care by roughly
25%. Legal child-care centers then have difficulty competing with black 
market rates.

GIG: The Gazette sees low pay for caregivers as an issue too.

BB: Yes. It's no excuse for a Zoe Baird and her husband to say they
can't get anybody [legal] for their children; if you don't want to put your
child in a child-care center, you should offer higher wages.

In France child-care workers get low-level civil servants' pay by law.
It's not a lot, but because they get many benefits --social security, health,
housing and more -- it's high enough to attract people to the job and to
keep them there.

Also, very frankly, if we're going to preserve this country as a high-wage
country we nee better immigration control. Poor enforcement of
immigration laws throws temptation in parent's way.

Lastly, child-care wages, like those in many women's jobs, are set too low.
To correct this bias, we need pay equity reorganization in this country. 
As a first step, Robert Reich, Clinton's Secretary of Labor, could issue 
guidelines about what appropriate salaries are for different occupations.
You base these estimates on sex-blind evaluations of the human capital
required for each job -- the talent, trianing, responsibility and risk.
We could start with guidelines and see what happens.

GIG: "Dear Hillary, Dear Bill, Dear Robert Reich...."
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