Mental health awareness and care policy updates
Abortion bans and caregiving, the federal child care funding cliff, and caregiving humor
Hi, dear readers. October is depression and mental health awareness month. And yesterday, October 5, was national depression screening day. Caregivers have documented higher levels of depression - not surprising given the stress, loneliness, and grief we may be experiencing. Let this be your reminder to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others - I know I will always need the reminder!
On that note, the caregiver stress has felt extra heavy for me this week, which I find sometimes happens even when the physical burden hasn’t necessarily changed, or it may even be somewhat less, but the emotional toll runs deep. So I’ve been trying to give myself grace, which includes keeping this week’s newsletter short with some care-related news and policy updates. But first, some mental health related tools that may be helpful to some of you out there:
☑️ An online depression screening tool
🫶 Caregiver support groups
😂 Some laughs
The downstream negative impacts on care of anti-abortion laws
It is well documented that criminalizing women’s healthcare negatively impacts women and children’s health outcomes, quality of life, their families and the economy in many ways. And those most impacted by abortion bans are those who already lacked access to health care, birth control, and the means to travel to access those services. Not surprisingly, the negative impacts of abortion bans include child care, and some states are already seeing the impacts in the form of depleted state and federal public child care support budgets for low income households. From the Seattle Times:
“Mississippi has seen a consistent rise in the number of families accepting public assistance for child care since lawmakers banned abortion in almost all circumstances, the state human services director said Friday.
Speaking at a legislative hearing on funding requests for the upcoming budget cycle, Bob Anderson, who leads the Mississippi Department of Human Services, said the upward trend in voucher enrollment means the agency might ‘hit a wall with state and federal money,’ forcing parents to undergo a waiting period for child care assistance.”
States like Mississippi that have always been the most hostile towards women’s health and the first to ban abortion, have also always been those that provide the least support to mothers and children. I will never understand how anti-choice activists have convinced people that their approach is really about advocating for children.
Child care cliff update
Well, it happened - at the same time the US government narrowly averted a shut down, we were not spared from the child care funding cliff that I wrote about a month ago. The results won’t necessarily be immediate, but according to experts, they will be many. Simply put, the true cost of child care is not affordable for families, and care workers can’t afford to earn any less - and as it is, they are in short supply. Key stats about the child care cliff:
$24 Billion in funds for child care centers in place since the pandemic expired last Saturday
The funding loss will impact 220,000 providers representing 80% of child care centers nationally
30% of the childcare centers who received funds said they would fold without the support
The childcare crisis already costs families $78 billion per year, and employers $23 billion per year
In 41 states, the cost of two children in childcare exceeds the annual mortgage payment
These stats predict less available childcare, at a higher price, and a subsequent exit from the workforce by parents - mostly women. What options are on the table to fix it? Proposed government actions include: a democratic plan to allocate $16 billion a year to child care centers, which is unlikely to pass with no republican support; a tax credit/incentive program for both employers and parents - though it wouldn’t help those who can’t pay for childcare up front; Biden had proposed universal child care until age 5 under “Build Back Better,” but the provision was cut.
Some states have addressed the child care funding crisis in anticipation of the federal funding cliff. New York allocated $24 million of the 2024 budget to retain child care workers. We’ll see if the federal government will come through with funding, if it will be left up to states and/or how companies will respond to workers who will be forced to leave to care for children.
For those of you with children in care centers, have you heard anything from your providers about how they will handle losing funding? Are they talking about it? Are your rates going up?
What about the elder care crisis?
Meanwhile, if we continue to ignore changing demographics, the elder care crisis will likely be much worse than the child care crisis. One of my recommended reads this week offers no practical solutions (we’ll get into that in future newsletters), but I think has a good suggestion for cultural shifts and caregiver coping.
“A robust new wave of humor about the ongoing encounter between middle-aged people and their parents would reaffirm all of our humanity and maybe take some of the pointless shame out of being old in the first place.”
What if we laughed about being old and caregiving for elders the way we do about parenting? I tried asking Chat GPT for some good elder caregiver jokes, just for fun. They were terrible! But I will give GPT credit for gently reminding me to be sensitive with this type of joke. It helps to remember that it didn’t used to be ok to laugh about our beloved children being a total PITA but now I literally have socks that say “I love my asshole children.”
I think we could all use a little more levity and camaraderie when it comes to getting old, and the slog that it takes to deal with declining physical and cognitive functioning - because it’s life. Bring on the eldercare influencers! The reel below isn’t about caregiving, but it’s helping us Xennials imagine being old ourselves, and poking a little fun at it. Maybe that’s where we need to start.
📚 Reads
Raising kids is ‘the best job in the world.’ Why is caring for the elderly the worst?
Pandemic relief for child care is ending: What now?
Mississippi sees spike in child care enrollment after abortion ban and child support policy change
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xo Anna