Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

In this episode, Messellech “Selley” Abebe chats with Matthew Henderson and Olga Grays about New Mexico’s historic move to make child care free for all families. Henderson is the Executive Director of the OLÉ Education Fund, and Grays is a leader with the organization as well as a veteran child care provider and social worker. Together, they explore the years of advocacy that led to this change in the state’s constitution, the challenges of putting universal child care into practice, and the ways it strengthens children, parents, and early educators alike. The conversation highlights the transformative impact of accessible child care, the dedication of caregivers, and how public policy can shape stronger, healthier communities for the next generation. 

To learn more about Olé New Mexico and their work, you can follow them on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. 

Want to keep digging into the real-life impact policy decisions have on children? Here’s some of what First Focus on Children has published recently:

To join the conversation, follow First Focus on Children on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

Send us comments on thoughts via email: SpeakingOfKids@firstfocus.org

Find us on Twitter/X: @SpeakingOfKids and @First_Focus

Want to be a voice for kids? Become an Ambassador for Children here. To support our work and this podcast, please consider donating to First Focus on Children here.

Transcript

Selley Abebe 0:01  

What if raising kids didn’t cost parents their whole paycheck? Hey, ambassadors, welcome back to speaking of kids. It’s Sally today. We’re talking about something that families across America dream about, child care that doesn’t break the bank. In New Mexico, that dream is now a reality. The state became the first in the country to make childcare free for every family, no matter their income. It’s the kind of headline that sounds too good to be true until you meet the people who made it happen. Our guests today are Matthew Henderson, an organizer with the advocacy group Olay, or organizers in the land of enchantment and Olga grace, a longtime child care provider and social worker. Together, they were leaders in a coalition that turned child care into a constitutional right, and they’re the ones making sure it actually works on the ground. And just side note, there’s no personal, deep story here. I have three children, and understand the pain points of child care more than I want to, and so I am very excited to have this conversation today and share you know how they made this happen. Thank you so much Matthew and Olga for joining us today on speaking of kids, I am very excited for this conversation. Absolutely yes. So when New Mexico became the first state in the country to offer free childcare to all families, no matter what their income, what was that moment like for both of you?

Speaker 2  1:39  

Yeah, well, you know, it was great quickly, sort of followed by, gosh, yeah, how is this all going to work? How can we make sure we all live up to being the model program we’ve been slowly becoming over the last several years? So both excitement and responsibility,

Speaker 3  2:01  

most definitely, also as a provider in like, the, you know, boots on the ground in the middle of everything. I think, of course, excitement was like, oh my god, like my voice was heard. You know, all the hard work that we’ve put into this, and without my employees, all this wouldn’t be done because, you know, I have to. I live in Las Cruces, so I traveled to Albuquerque a lot, for a lot of the meetings and a lot of sharing our stories as a collaboration with a lot of other providers that I talked to on a daily basis. And so, of course, we celebrated. I think I got even teary eyed. I was like, Oh my God. Like, this is wonderful for New Mexico. You know, I’m a social worker, so I love helping the community and and it was an exciting news, but as it kind of settled, you know, it was like, okay, so how is this and that we started getting calls, like, almost immediately after the big announcement. And you know, everybody was like, how does it work? How do I sign up? And we were like, letting everybody know, hey, this is the web page. This is where you sign up. But then it wasn’t up and running yet, so then, like, Okay, now you have to wait until, like, November 1, and it was just happening super fast. We were getting emails left and right and and calls from parents, providers, and so it quickly became super confusing but excited at the same time,

Speaker 1  3:21  

yes, for a lot of people that don’t necessarily work in policy or trying to move policy, that’s kind of just like one piece of the pie, right? It’s like the legislation, kind of getting things moved on the policy and but then there’s also the execution and kind of the rolling out and the implementation of everything. So it’s exciting news, but at the same time it means kind of more work, you know, or at least kind of more things to figure out. But on that note, you know, I know, for me, I have three children, and when my oldest was born, she is now nine, she’s gonna be 10 in about six months. She reminds me all the time. When she was born, we lived in DC that offered universal pre K, and that was a huge, huge benefit for families, again, no matter what your income level is, having access to free, affordable child care. In the case of DC, was starting at three, and they were rolled kind of right into the K through 12 traditional service across the city. But for parents listening who are wondering, What does universal child care actually mean for my family? You know, how would you explain that?

Speaker 3  4:28  

Well, for me, I think I got to see like two sides of it, you know, because I feel like with New Mexico being eligible for child care at a 400% above poverty level, there were still a lot of families who qualified, you know, but I think that it wasn’t really announced the way universal child care was. So when universal child care was announced, I believe, like a lot of people who would have still qualified, were now on board with, hey, you know, there’s like, free child care now. And I. Had a waiting list to begin with, even before universal child care. And I know a lot of my colleagues as well have have waiting lists in their centers. And so we started getting calls from parents who would have already qualified but wasn’t aware of the program, and then a whole different demographics of people calling who don’t qualify, who are now aware that there’s free childcare. So we had those two different types of parents calling in and saying, Well, how does this work? Do I need to be working? How do I apply? And so just, I guess the major thing to know is that you do need to be working. You need to have a work schedule or a school schedule in order to qualify it, but yeah, I think it came at two different angles, because I don’t think people knew about it. Yeah.

Speaker 2  5:45  

I mean the difference is, like Olga says people didn’t really think of this as something they might be eligible for, but now that it’s sort of available to everyone, it just changes how people think about it as a public benefit that everyone has, if you’re working or going to school, it just removes any stigma, if people had any stigma about needing to get state supported child care, and that makes it something that we all enjoy, like the highways or a lot of things. And that’s what is really important because, you know, this is what really makes it clear to people that, yes, child care is part of the education system. It is not just about keeping children safe. It is about making sure every new Mexican has access to a system that’s really designed to help their child grow and develop at a rate that really sets them up for success in school and in life. Yeah.

Speaker 1  6:48  

I mean, child care costs can take up a huge part of a family’s budget. And you know, again, having moved from DC, a city that offered universal pre K, to a state now Maryland that doesn’t offer anything, my youngest is now just turned three, right? So for two years now, I’m paying for private care. So it’s not nothing. This is a huge shift for families that I think sometimes, again, especially with the work that we do at first focus in tracking federal share of spending on kids. A lot of people don’t necessarily know that only 8% of federal dollars goes to children and families. So when families are thinking about, even families from New Mexico are thinking about, okay, you know, every week or two weeks, I’m getting money taken out from my paycheck for public benefits and for government services. To your point, Matthew, now this just becomes easier. It’s just a public benefit, it becomes more seamless. And so what kind of changes are you seeing? Are you anticipating with the everyday lives for parents and caregivers, with this now new move,

Speaker 2  7:53  

well, you know, there’s just so much stress around first getting childcare, being able to relax about your kids support while you focus on your work, career, your education. So, yeah, it’s sort of a big release and stress for parents and kind of an increase in stress for providers. I mean, that’s one of the things that we’ll be talking about more, is that it’s an exciting change for our state, and, yeah, the pressure is now on on to deliver.

Speaker 1  8:25  

That is true. And you know, on that note, Ole and partners really spent more than a decade. That’s another thing around you know, policy change and advocacy is it moves so slow until it doesn’t right. It moves slow and then it moves fast. Very, very fast. You all spent more than a decade organizing to secure a constitutional right to child care and a permanent funding source, which is huge for people that may have not been following your journey. Can you walk us through some of the milestones over the last 1012, years that really culminated in this effort right now being passed?

Speaker 2  9:03  

Well, sure. I mean, when I sort of hinted at the lack of respect for child care, and that was very much on display in that first decade of our fight is really demanding respect from senators who didn’t want our constitutional amendment to go to voters, and they would say things like, Well, we know it would pass. That’s why we’re not letting it go to the voters. So eventually, childcare, parents and early educators had to really organize and unseat five senators in the 2020, primaries to then allow the constitutional amendment to go through, and they were right when it got to the voters in 2022 it passed with 70% support. So now we have $650 million dedicated to early childhood education coming from the state every year. So for a state of 2 million. People. That’s about $325 per New Mexican dedicated to this. And so that was sort of the context for how we were then able to start instituting the reforms, expanding eligibility, increasing child care worker pay. But that six 50 million we’re learning is still not all the money we need to run a truly model universal system.

Speaker 1  10:25  

And so what are you doing to fill those gaps? Or how are you thinking about that in terms of either like looking at other funding to braid or looking at public private partnerships? What does that look like?

Speaker 2  10:36  

Yeah, there hasn’t been any discussion about a third dedicated stream. Right now, we have two trust funds dedicated to it. There hasn’t been talk of a third stream yet any extra money is coming out of the general fund, and that is particularly troublesome or challenging at this point in time, because our legislature and our governor are doing the right thing to make sure that there’s money for for SNAP benefits first this past fall, in the coming session, they’re going to be pouring tons of money into Medicaid to make up for the Trump cuts. So we’re at a point in time when there are a lot of demands on the state budget, and universal child care is going to be demanding more as well.

Speaker 1  11:19  

You know, that’s something that we’re seeing at first focus as a trend in a lot of different states we work on the cross of issues impacting kids. So SNAP and Medicaid are two huge programs that benefit children, and the cost share in terms of the burden for states is only increasing. And so I can imagine and appreciate the demands that are going to be on state budgets, moving forward for a lot of different things, children, issues and beyond, but, you know, kind of switching back to the importance and you know what you said, Matthew around painting, not even painting, but almost, you know, like demanding respect for this. And I think a lot of elected officials know, you know, we’ve done polling for years. You know, first focus has been around now, going on 20 years and continuously from day one, all of our polling has shown that kids issues really are not a partisan issue. People across the board value all different things, from child safety to access to nutritious foods to early childhood access to, you know, health care. These are human rights right, and research shows that high quality early care can really improve outcomes for all sorts of things. What do you hope that this investment does for the children of New Mexico long term?

Speaker 3  12:33  

Well, for me, as a daycare provider, an owner and a social worker, you know, I deal a lot with kids who are in foster care, kids who are get kicked out of other daycares. And with the amount of drug substance abuse here in New Mexico, we are making a big, big difference, you know, and I can see it because we don’t only take care of them, like you said, you know, we are also the first ones to notice if there’s something off. And then there we can get some of the community advocates, therapists coming in, helping them, not only the kid, but the family in itself, you know. So we are making a big difference in a lot of new Mexican families, you know. But just helping them get housing, helping them get employment, ESL classes, early education for them. I mean, it’s a lot more than what people see. You know, I have a home daycare, but when my families come in, I have an extra room just for daycare. So it’s a center, you know, I’m become a counselor sometimes to the parents, because then they tell me, you know, I have a coffee station. And this is something that I share in some of the presentations that I do is just like making the parents feel a little bit comfortable when they’re coming in, easing their day a little bit just by offering coffee tea, if I have extra money, I’ll, you know, buy danishes or, you know, muffins or something, and it’s that little moment that they come in, get a cup of coffee, and then they start, ah, last night, this happened, and it can be anything from domestic violence to not having enough food, not not being able to feed their kids. And it just opens that small window where they can share. And then we are the first ones. They will help them get help. And because of that, I believe that our families are thriving, and I have many, many, many stories, just like many other providers have stories of them helping, not only the kids, but the family as a whole.

Speaker 1  14:33  

You know, Ole has said time and time again that, you know, to your point, child care is education, and early child educators do so much, right? You know, at first focus, even though we are we prioritize kids. We can’t go without noticing the impact that the economy, the broader economy of individuals that service kids are part of it, right? And so to that, when we talk about early childhood educators. Wages are a huge thing, a huge factor. What are some of the ways that low pay has shaped the lives of teachers and early childhood educators, especially over the last 10 years, with this growing movement and them being so pivotal to the movement?

Speaker 3  15:15  

Well, you know, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and when I first started, I was making $1.65 an hour, and that’s how much I was making taking care of two kids. And I have five kids of my own, and I was a single mom, and so it was really, really hard to even make ends meet at the end of the day. I think what really helped when it comes to that, is that I was getting paid reimbursement for the food at the end of the month, and then different parents paid me at different times, and they always got there at the time that I most needed to pay a bill or something like that. And I think that’s what kept me afloat. But as time went by, and as you know, I became a licensed home, and I started making a little bit more money, I realized the importance of the work that I do, and I started getting more parents, you know, I got licensed for 12 and then I became a member of Oleg, and I started, for the first time, seeing, first of all, that there’s a budget, and that, if our voice is strong enough, we can let people know how much value we have as professionals. And when that started happening, that just things started moving really fast, and I feel, you know, that especially when universal child care was passed, there was this weight on our shoulders that was put on there with such force because we were happy and that we were able to help New Mexico families and children were getting the quality care that they deserve. But we weren’t getting paid the amount that we should be paying paid. So we worked on, and I was part of the task force to work on the career and wage lattice, which would mean that we would be getting paid like educators, like teachers, like public school teachers. I have a bachelor’s degree, I have friends who have even a master’s degree, and we had never gotten paid like somebody with a bachelor’s degree in 20 years. I got very, very little pay. And when universal child care hit, it was like, okay, universal child care, you know, free daycare for everybody, and your employees are going to get an increase of $18 an hour, which was the minimum base, you know, to start as a daycare provider, but you know, they didn’t really go into depth of what it was going to look like when it got implemented. So as an owner, I’m a two star daycare because I just joined focus program, and that’s probably another podcast, a whole different subject. But because I feel like my clients, my children, benefit more from me being in the daycare, hands on, than behind a desk doing paperwork, you know, and that is the only reason why I’m not a five star. I believe I provide excellent quality service for my for my families and my children. But based on my two star my employees only got $16 an hour. But down the street a block, maybe a block or two away from where I live, there’s a five star center, those teachers got $19 an hour. Okay, so the thing is that it’s not based on what the teacher is doing itself, and if she’s educated years of experience or anything like that, it was just like everybody’s getting paid based on the star level of the center that they’re working for. So can you imagine what it creates among providers? Yeah, because I believe that everybody’s everybody’s work is valued. And there’s teachers who have been working. For example, I have a teacher who has worked for me for 15 years. Another one for 10 years, and one that just started, and I had to look at them in the eye and tell them, You know what? Universal child care in past, and we’re excited about it. The minimum wage for educators went up, but everybody’s going to get paid $16 an hour. So how do you explain that? So what I ended up having is having to give my experienced educators a little bit more, but that was coming out of my pocket, because the increase that they gave us per kid in order to meet the $16 an hour wasn’t enough. Yeah, you know. And can you imagine those centers that have 20 plus employees. Yeah, they had to give everybody a $3 and then the way that the state works is that we get a reimbursement, which means we take care of the kids for 30 days, and then they pay us. So for those of us who had private pay at the beginning of the year, those private paid parents usually pay ahead of time, so they pay us at the beginning of the month, and then we take care of their kids. So when universal child care hit, we had to wait for reimbursement, which mean we were out of pocket, you know, all that money that we were getting at the beginning. Now we had to wait till the fifth of December, and then we had to come up with an increased wages for. Employees, and I understand it was a big, big block on the road, and it’s something that we were going to have to work on, and legislators are working with us. I was very happy this past committee meeting that we had. I was happy to see a lot of the things that we have communicated back and forth up on the screens, on the presentation that they were doing. So I feel like they are hearing us, and they’re working closely with us, but it was being there, doing everything that wasn’t quite ironed out the way it was gonna work out. So yeah, it was very confusing. It was very challenging and and we still have work to do.

Selley Looby  20:39  

It’s one thing to work in the trenches for over a decade and finally pass universal child care. It’s another thing to live it day after day in places that open before dawn and close long after dark, after the break, we’ll hear how this movement is changing lives for immigrant educators, single moms and the next generation of New Mexicans, and why sustaining it might be the hardest part yet.

Speaker 1  21:09  

Welcome back, ambassadors. Before the break, we heard how New Mexico made history, turning child care from a personal expense into a public right. But as Olga said, that’s just the beginning. So I wanted to know how something that remarkable got done in the first place and in the second place. What does it say about the power of being committed and unified for a singular goal? New Mexico used to be ranked near the bottom of child well being, and now it’s leading. I mean, when I saw the headlines, I was like, wow, New Mexico. Like, this is awesome. What does that shift say about what’s possible when people come together, when they stay committed, when they organize around children and families?

Speaker 2  21:56  

Yeah, it says that the organizing works, that when organizations get together, because this work wasn’t done just by LA, this was done by a whole host of organizations that have memberships of parents and early educators, policy organizations as well, all of us getting together and fighting for this for 15 years, and our members doing the same in a lot of cases. That’s what it takes to make real game changing reform, and we’re not even there yet. You know, as Olga is talking about, this isn’t just about raising the base wage to really have the system we want. We need a transparent wage and career ladder so people who are thinking about going into child care aren’t just thinking about whether $16 is enough, but they can actually see, oh, if I follow this ladder, if I do X, Y and Z, I’ll get 40,000 in five years, 60,000 in 10 years, whatever. That’s the kind of change that needs to be implemented now in order to build the kind of capacity that New Mexico now needs to meet the demand for universal child care. But the state is sort of slow walking implementation of the wage and career ladder, so we’re having to continue to organize, take our case to the legislature, who will be meeting in January to figure out how to fund universal child care. And one of the questions we’re really pushing them on is, if the governor is not willing to ask for the funding we need for the wage and career ladder, we want the legislature to do so so that we’re really building a model universal child care system, not one that continues to be funded by the low wages of child care workers.

Speaker 3  23:50  

And I think in that same note, I’m the national representative for the state of New Mexico, so once a month, I get on meetings, and I meet with other state representatives from all over the United States. And you know, they have a lot of questions they’re asking me, how did you guys get there? Where’s the money coming from? Like all these questions that they’re asking. And my concern is, yes, everybody is so happy for us leading the way, which I am myself. Am happy because New Mexico always falls short when it comes to education, and I was so happy, but I want to make sure that it’s a state so when I talk to other state representatives, I think that’s one of the key points, because I know New York Vermont, like there’s other governors who are also mentioning that they’re wanting to go to universal child care. But I want them to know that as well as you know, legislators knowing that here in New Mexico that in order to sustain it, you have to have a career in wage lattice, because, as an educator, you don’t want people coming who are not interested in the career just because of the pay, right? Because now we’re competing with fast foods and, you know, because we. Went up to 16 to $19 an hour. But, I mean, that’s what fast food is paying. That’s what other you know, companies are paying. So like, we want people coming in who want to make a career out of this, who love because obviously, we’ve been doing this for years, and it’s not because of the money. Like, in order to work with small kids, zero to three, zero to five years old. I mean, it’s a passion that you have have to love. It’s the love for the children. Yes, it’s not for the money, but in order to bring in new educators, we gotta, like Matthew said, We gotta create a lattice to where they can see, okay, I’m gonna work for my Associates, and then after that, I’m gonna work for my bachelor’s. You know, we have women and men who have been in this for 20 years, but maybe don’t have a GED. Guess what? Now they’re wanting to go get their GED. I mean, this is this is making a difference in so many different ways. There’s so many angles that you can look at it, but I want to make sure that it’s sustained. So we can say we are leading in early education. We are one of the first ones not only to come up with universal childcare, but also to be able to sustain it and take care of our educators, who are the ones who really without us, the world doesn’t work because who’s going to take care of all the kids for people to go to work?

Speaker 1  26:12  

I think if, if covid showed us nothing, it was that childcare is essential. Oh yeah, you know. And many of the women organizing with Olay are immigrants and caregivers themselves. And so what kind of barriers do they face when it comes to child care? And how has this movement helped them kind of step into power and recognize the power that they have?

Speaker 2  26:38  

Yeah, I mean, in a major way when we, you know, go to meetings, when we do actions, protests, whatever it’s our immigrant organizers leading, helping to lead immigrant early educators and parents that are the tip of the spear in this fight, and always have been there, of course, all kinds of people in childcare. But you know, it’s really our immigrant members that have led the way, and for them to be doing so and to fight for and win a universal system that is free for everyone, regardless of immigration status, in this day and age, that is really something to celebrate.

Speaker 3  27:22  

Of course, there are my heroes. Really hearing their stories brings tears to me because, because I know, first of all, being a woman of color, English being my second language, how hard it is. I can’t imagine coming into the country and being scared, especially with everything that’s happening now, and still having that voice, still leading a lot of us into what we have now, and a lot of providers. They live in communities where they’re taking care of, you know, farm workers, children, they’re waking up at four in the morning, five in the morning, and a lot of the times for very little pay, you know, because that’s what parents can afford, and they deserve a lot more than that.

Speaker 1  28:05  

Yeah, you know, I had an opportunity a few months ago to go to Columbia to visit how they’ve kind of transformed their care models. And similarly, you know, that was due to a sequence of a lot of different things. But again, at the center of what you saw were caregivers, women of color, predominantly, that were leading that fight, mothers that you know really were consistently and almost didn’t even understand. Like there were a lot of takeaways, but the biggest thing talking to the organizers was just the education around empowering the caregivers and other mothers and parents to kind of step up, because they didn’t even value the care that they were providing. And to your point, Olga, a lot of them, literally, some of the child care centers that I visited, they were almost open around the clock because, you know, due to Venezuelan migrants and others in the Colombian community that are farmers that you know have to be up and at work at four or five in the morning, and then, you know, may not come back until eight, 910, these caregivers are like caregiver is not even the appropriate term for some of the women and people that I met, and so it’s an incredible amount of resilience and admiration that I have for You know, folks that can also fight knowing that what they’re fighting for they may not benefit from or realize, right? Like, it’s a long game.

Speaker 3  29:28  

And I think for me, like I had mentioned, I’m a social worker, so I deal with foster care kids. And there’s times that I have been asked, like, you know what? We don’t have room like, there’s no foster care parents that we, you know, this little girl stayed in our office last night, and I’ve become an emergency foster care license for some of these kids for months, not, you know, overnight, and not a couple of weeks, but four months or more. And I think that’s also important to notice, is that when we have a home daycare, you become so involved in. What you do, and you do so much more for these kids. You know, I have parents who are police officers, nurses, parents who work at McDonald’s. McDonald’s opens at five in the morning, so I’m up at 430 in the morning receiving the kids. I have a police mother who brings her kid in at 515 in the morning, wow. And then I have 17 or she just turned 18 last week with two kids, she’s trying to get her GED, and she has to work because she’s a single mom now, you know. And so I encouraged her to stay in school. I went to her 504 plan and made sure they gave her the proper support for her to finish, because she had dropped out of eighth grade. She’s back in school, but she has to work. She’s a single mom. She has to work after school, so she’s like, can you take care of my kids? I have no outside support. So sometimes the kids stay here from 730 in the morning till eight o’clock, nine o’clock, depending on and those are all things that we take on because we’re passionate about what we do, because we like to help the community. But let me tell you, I should show you a check stub for how much we get paid for after hours. It’s like $75 a month if you take care of them after hours, like it’s not it’s not even like if we go out to eat with them, it’ll cover their meal. You know it’s ridiculous.

Speaker 1  31:21  

You know, what’s not lost on me too, is you also have a life, you know, you also have children, and so, you know, balancing all of that, it really is an extension and a blending of, you know, your life is just all one. There’s no this is my work. This is my you know, I’m clocking out, or I’m leaving like, this is, you’re living this every day,

Speaker 3  31:40  

like you mentioned, I have my own kids. I have two boys who play football for Mayfield, and every Thursday they come. There’s about eight of them that come, and I feed them. But in that same token, sometimes they see me struggling with somebody or whatever, and they’ll come in and they’ll start peeling potatoes, they’ll start washing somebody’s teeth. And you know, it’s like because we’re a family, this is the way that we live, you know, and so you’re very right. I don’t think we ever clock out.

Speaker 1  32:09  

Yeah, it’s a lot, you know, when you picture New Mexico’s kids 10 years from now, 20 years from now, what do you hope will be different because of all of the work that both of you and I know countless others have done to fight for universal child care.

Speaker 2  32:27  

Well, I mean, I think all Olga’s been doing is just detailing the way that we’re building healthy communities through child care in ways that have nothing to do with education, and that, of course, do have to do with education really building healthy, happy children and families. And there’s just an infinite of ways we imagine the state being 20 years from now with that kind of benefit readily available to people, just a lot more ability to really thrive in New Mexico and not be suffering the financial stress and pressures that are pretty commonplace in the state,

Speaker 3  33:08  

I think for me is, you know, I had an experience about two years ago. Is that my son, who’s now 25 years old, he graduated from college, he had opened up his business, and two years into it, it didn’t he had to leave it. They bought him out that he had to leave the business. So he worked for me for about eight months. He loved the kids. I mean, this is how he grew up, you know. So he knew a lot about taking care of kids, and unfortunately, I could not pay him what he was worth. And I also saw the connection that the kids made with a male adult and how important that is for early education. And it made me so sad when he came to me and said, Mom, you know, I just found another job more using his degree, which is multimedia, and he had to leave. And it crushed my heart. It crushed me that I could not pay him what he was worth. And I feel like if we were able to get that career in wage lattice and that people can see what you can make, I think we would have a lot more male educators, which are desperately needed as part of that bonding that kids do. You know, we have a lot of women doing this, but we need a lot of men too, and I think that it’s so unfair that they cannot feed their families doing early education, you know. And I was in a book study my daycare was and they were doing like the culturally sustaining and early educating zero to three years old. And the difference that it makes having a male role model speaking people’s languages, you know, children’s languages, making them comfortable with who they are. In this whole journey, I was also able to go to a conference in Colorado just recently where it was a Council of Teachers of English, and I got to see the dynamic. Of our English educators, mostly were white. You know, there was clusters of black people, and then white people, and then clusters of black people and white people. I hardly ever saw somebody in my color, somebody who spoke Spanish, and so I was listening and hearing them talk and how, you know, people are not comfortable with writing. People are not comfortable with reading books. Well, what is exactly that we’re teaching them, and if by not speaking their language, even at an early age of zero to three years old, where they’re comfortable speaking their language, when they get to elementary school, they’re already ashamed. So how is it that they can express themselves freely about who they are, and want them to write stuff about who they are if they’re not comfortable with it. So I think one of the biggest jobs as an early educator is just that that first step is getting children and families comfortable with who they are and meeting them where they are, making sure that we have labels and traditional foods that really kind of makes them proud to be who they are, culturally.

Speaker 1  36:07  

Olga, we really could have a whole other podcast on cultural competency, and then probably another one on male engagement in early childhood. So you will absolutely have to come back. Both of you will have to come back. That was actually one of the biggest takeaways, but then also something that in the case of Colombia, they’re really actively working on to change the narrative. The concept of men, though engaging in care and just having that be their role, is something that they’re proactively working with, both for young men and adults, but then also very much for children like young boys, having them grow up in an environment where it’s, I don’t want to say expected, because that feels like a strong word, but it is a shared responsibility. Care is not something that is exclusively for women to carry on their own. And so yes, my hope is that all of these things can shift and change over the next 20 years and so on that note, we actually end the podcast with asking all of our guests. We have a running speaking of kids playlist that people can go to for a number of different reasons, but mostly we ask our guests for a song or an album that really just keeps you going when life feels heavy.

Speaker 3  37:23  

Okay, so for me, let me I’m looking it up. It’s called alegria by Sonia de los Santos. That’s definitely one of the songs that I always start the morning with in my daycare and, you know, but I always share I’m an educated Chola. So for me personally, it’s a little bit different, but you guys have to listen to alegria.

Speaker 2  37:47  

Okay? For me, I’d have to say Bath County by Wednesday, really, anything by Wednesday. It’s a great way to get out your frustrations. I’ll put it that way.

Speaker 1  38:01  

I love it. And on that note, thank you both for taking the time to be with us today. Your insights were invaluable.

Unknown Speaker  38:08  

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Selley Looby  38:10  

You know, what stays with me after this conversation isn’t the policy or even the numbers, it’s the picture of Olga’s kitchen at dawn, a mom handing off her child before work, a pot of coffee, a house full of noise and care, that’s what this story is about, a warm place that meets everyone’s needs, kids, parents and caregivers. So maybe the takeaway this week is simple. The best way to take care of kids is to take care of the people who care for them. If this conversation gave you something to think about or to hope for, share this episode with a friend. It helps us grow, and it helps this movement for kids grow too. Speaking of kids, is a podcast by first focus on children. It’s produced by wind Haven productions and blue jay Atlantic, Elizabeth Windom is the supervising producer. Julia Windom is the editor and Jay Woodward is the Senior Producer. For more about this episode, visit first focus.org.