Behind the Scenes in Childcare

Beth Bragg: Child-care Manager Strives for Perfection in Imperfect World
BETH BRAGGCOMMENT
Published: June 3rd, 2005

From the Anchorage Daily News


Dr. Laura probably wouldn't approve of Martha Anderson's chosen profession. Anderson just retired as the city's manager of child-care licensing, a job that wouldn't exist in many versions of a perfect world, including Dr. Laura's.

Dr. Laura, for the few who don't know, is the conservative radio host who dispenses advice on morality and family values. Her perfect world is a place where all families have two parents and enough wealth, luck or frugality to survive on a single income. It's a place where people who need or want child care are evil and where the places they put their children are warehouses.

Martha Anderson, for the many who don't know, is a woman whose real world is a place where divorce, death and destructive choices leave many families with a single parent. It's a place where salaries are too paltry, or the cost of living too high, for even some two-parent families to survive on a single salary.

Over the years she's seen facilities that deserve the warehouse label, but instead of scolding parents for taking their kids there, she made it her job to help turn the warehouses into safe, nurturing places for children.

For more than 30 years, Anderson has worked in the child-care business for the city. She started in 1972 as an inspector back in the borough days when the staff consisted of three people who oversaw 50 licensed child-care centers. She retired as the manager of an 18-person staff that oversees 235 homes and 100 centers that provide licensed child care.

Along the way, she pushed for tougher codes to govern the providers -- or, as she see its, tougher codes to protect and benefit children. She pushed for child-development education at the college level for caregivers. She pushed for criminal background checks for caregivers. She pushed for a system in which toddlers at centers are put into smaller groups with an assigned, specific caregiver.

She's watched corporal punishment all but disappear from child-care facilities licensed by the city. She's offered workshops and training for caregivers. She's helped develop a staff that not only inspects homes and centers but can help those homes and centers negotiate the maze of bureaucracy -- fire codes, zoning laws, health codes -- when they are making changes or expanding.

Sure, Anderson has seen and heard her share of horror stories. She's heard about kids being given cough syrup so they'll be sleepy and Pepto-Bismol so they won't dirty their diapers. She's inspected places where a single toy box was expected to entertain a couple of dozen children.

Many of the horror stories are from 20 or 30 years ago. "There are fewer now, but they are just as alarming," she said.

Anderson never had children of her own, although she has two stepchildren as well as grandchildren and a great-grandchild. She said she wouldn't hesitate to put one of those children in child care. "There are some wonderful places," she said.

Those are fighting words for people who consider day care a threat to the American way. To them, nothing beats full-time care administered by a parent, and in a perfect world, that's true. In a perfect world, all parents are good parents. All families have two parents and can survive on a single salary. And all women are content to abandon their ambitions and interests to stay at home, or they are married to man willing to do that.

Anderson, however, knows the world is less than perfect. Welfare reforms require recipients to return to work, meaning more people -- more single mothers -- need child care. Societal changes make it a necessity too. "Generations ago, kids were out working in fields or playing at grandma's. They weren't in these small condos like they are now," Anderson said. "Society and community are so different."
Anderson also knows child care in Anchorage isn't perfect, even though she's spent three decades trying to get it there. Over coffee on her first day as a retiree, Anderson spoke about organizing a group to lobby for more funding for child care.

"I can't imagine walking away from child care," she said. "I'll always be fighting for children."

Beth Bragg's opinion column appears Friday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is bbragg@adn.com.