Fifty years ago, Sandy Faiman-Silva was a young, single mother with a teaching job who couldn’t afford to pay all her bills, including her rent and child care costs. She ended up quitting her job and going on public assistance.
Today, Faiman-Silva is a professor emerita of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University – and she’s an activist pointing out that too many women still face the same challenges she did all those decades ago.
Faiman-Silva shares this story on a video posted by the Cape and Islands chapter of the Common Start Coalition, which is advocating for a bill in the Massachusetts State House – nicknamed the Common Start Legislation — that would set up a system of affordable, high-quality, universal child care. This bill is particularly crucial now, as Massachusetts and the world navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Representative Susan Moran (D-Falmouth) also appears in the video. A mother of three and a lawyer who has represented a child care center, Moran says:
“I lived the daily trials parents suffer to find the consistent, dependable child care and early education they need — and their children deserve — to allow them to focus on work so they can advance their careers. You all know what I’m talking about.”
“I know the myriad of issues providers face to just stay in business and continue to employ staff,” Moran adds.
If the Common Start Legislation becomes law, Moran says, it will be the most important economic engine to “support families and lift women” since Massachusetts passed its universal health care law.
The video also features a family child care owner, a preschool teacher, parents telling their employment and child care stories, and a member of the business community.
Please check out the video – and consider making one in your community!
Braiding the child care stories from your area can help policymakers and the public better understand how essential high-quality early education and care is for Massachusetts.
And be sure to join the Common Start Coalition!
Eye on Early Education is a blog of Strategies for Children, an organization that works to ensure that Massachusetts invests the resources needed for all children, from birth to age five, to access high-quality early education programs that prepare them for success in school and life. The blogger, 
eyeonearlyeducation.org 
[…] “On the policy side, we’re very interested in exploring how to expand childcare to more kids. We’ve been having conversations, as the AG mentioned, with the business community and with the Common Start Coalition.” […]