During our “Adapting Roles” panel Thursday, which was focused on gender and family issues amid the pandemic, an audience member asked panelists if there were any programs they knew of offering help with child care for essential workers who could not stay home. There was a pause. “The crickets are pretty telling,” Tiffany O’Donnell, CEO of Women Lead Change, said. This morning I stumbled upon a Seattle Times editorial about the very topic. “Ensuring the survival of this vital service will require a much bigger assist than already-stressed household budgets and state coffers will be able to handle,” the editorial board wrote. “The Child Care is Essential Act would provide grants to licensed and regulated child-care providers, including those that have temporarily closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. … It would provide critical support to an essential industry that operated on thin margins even before this spring’s pandemic, prioritizing funding for providers who care for underserved populations.”