Building a Better Future Through Child Care—Vermont Leads the Way

For this project, I produced an original article that appeared on New America’s The Thread exploring how investment in child care infrastructure helps entire communities thrive, using Vermont as a leading example of success.

I also published an original Substack article, “It Doesn’t Have to Be That Hard”, which included the themes from the article plus data from another state, New Mexico, which has also made investments in care infrastructure. In both, I interviewed people whose lives have been changed for the better when robust investment in child care is made at the state and local level.

On both Substack and LinkedIn I invited people to reflect and comment about how their own views on child care have evolved, including addressing some long-held beliefs and notions about who truly benefits from an investment in such policies.

Takeaways

• Our country has long treated child care as an individual responsibility. By using real-world examples, I was able to illustrate that together, everyone thrives when such investment is made – even those without young children.
• Reader comments showed strong agreement and also raised challenges—for example, increasing funding for childcare means competing against other priorities like public safety (in our current system).