Child care is often framed as just a women’s or family issue. 

But advocates want people to know: It’s an economic issue. It’s a workforce issue. It’s a community development issue. 

“Even if you don’t have children, you rely on people who do. Nurses, farmers, teachers, manufacturing workers. Child care affects everyone,” said Kristy Turner, founder of Mindful Solutions and Mediation LLC and former executive director at Postville Childcare Services Inc. 

In our recent episode of the Fearless podcast, we explored the issues surrounding child care in Iowa from both a systemic level and a personal level. We welcomed Turner and Claudia Schabel, interim CEO of the Iowa Women’s Foundation, to discuss community-based solutions to address child care accessibility. We then spoke with Anna Squier, associate principal and architect with MA Architecture, and Natalie Mahoney, a full-time stay-at-home mom with over a decade of PR experience, about how they’ve navigated child care decisions for their families. 

Child care affects many families in Iowa. The Iowa Women’s Foundation reports that three quarters of Iowa children under the age of 6 have all parents working outside of the home. Here are three takeaways from our conversation. 

Child care bolsters local economies 

Last year, the Iowa Women’s Foundation piloted a program that pooled community funds with private donations to build funds that could support the community’s child care workforce. In 2024, the program raised $2.4 million and created 275 child care slots. 

Turner’s Postville Childcare Services participated in the fund, which helped the center retain its workers by raising their wages. It also in turn drew the support of an important employer in Postville. 

“We partnered with a local manufacturing plant that helps our economy,” Turner said. “They invested in a pretty significant way in the fund because they had an open position for an engineer that they just couldn’t fill, because people needed to look at the community they were moving into in order to accept that position.” 

Child care needs both public and private investment

IWF helped facilitate these funds in 10 communities across Iowa — Allamakee County, Cerro Gordo County, the city of Dubuque, Hamilton County, Howard County, Johnson County, the city of Knoxville, the city of Lisbon, the city of Mount Vernon and Mitchell County.

The promise of state funding made investing in these funds more appealing to community members.

“It came down to understanding that in order for us to solve the child care problems that our communities in Iowa experience, we need a public and private partnership, which is really that we need funding from our government,” Schabel said. “We need our friends in our communities to chip in. We saw a huge success with that process and we saw that many communities in Iowa engaged in those approaches.” 

The burden of child care is financial, emotional and mental for women

Women overwhelmingly play the part of the primary caregiver when it comes to their children. Sixty-three percent of parents say that child care costs influence their career choices. Women are often the ones making career and financial sacrifices, or experiencing guilt for whichever choice they make. 

“There’s also all the factors outside of finances – wanting to be a present parent, wanting to be able to take care of your child in certain capacities or be there when they need you,” Squier said. “Wanting to do those things also kind of inversely have a financial impact. For myself, taking a step back and reducing my hours has a direct financial impact on me. It’s slowing or reducing my personal income and growth and wealth, but on the flip side, it’s providing more benefits to me and my kids and our house.” 

For Mahoney, choosing to stay home full time with her son meant she had to adjust to a new identity. She hopes to one day go back to work, but wonders what that gap will mean for her career.

“Going back into the workforce, there’s just so many things to learn. I would love to jump back in when the time is right, but how?” Mahoney said. “That was my work identity for so long and then not to have that anymore has been a huge shock to the system. But being a stay-at-home mom, there’s other things you can continue to explore. You can invest in different interests to keep that fresh and then start to add my regular career back in when the time is right.”