For over 20 years, Sylvia Crews has worked in the field of early childhood education and has spent the last decade running her own home-based center. After purchasing a home in Washington, D.C., in 2015, she launched the LTH Infants and Toddlers Center — short for “loving and tender home” — shortly thereafter. She is authorized to care for up to nine children aged 6 weeks to 3 1/2 years, under the supervision of four staff.
Crews said she wants to work “as long as the Lord allows me,” but she worries about the likelihood of younger workers entering the industry.
“At some point, I know I’ll have to stop,” Crews, 67, said. But as for the next generation, “How can we engage them? We need to engage them,” she said.
More than half of licensed or registered home child care providers are over 50, according to data from a federal survey of child care workerswhile only 4 percent are 29 or younger. In contrast, at larger daycares, about a third of employees are 29 or younger. The numbers are more balanced in home-based establishments that are neither registered nor licensed. About 30 percent of these so-called “unlisted” claimants are over 50, and about the same percentage are 29 or younger.
“The aging part of the story, in and of itself, is not the problem,” said Katharine Sadowski, an assistant professor of education at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. “But when you combine that with all the other pieces, about the makeup of the workforce, about who we’ve relied on, it creates some confusion.”
Child care centers, which include preschool, Head Start, and kindergarten, are the most frequently used option for non-parental care. Federal surveys found that about 66 percent of children were in non-parental custody attend such programs. That compares to about 17 percent of children in child care who were cared for at home.
But for many parents, home care is a vital alternative. Service providers tend to offer more flexible hours than larger centers: Only 8 percent of larger child care centers offer care during nontraditional work hours, according to federal data, compared with more than a third of licensed family child care providers.
Small home centers can also meet a family’s needs in other ways, such as providing care in the families’ native language or offering a specific program like one focused on outdoor play, advocates said.
“We know that families are choosing providers who eat vegan food, speak the language they love or observe the religion they love,” said Natalie Renew, executive director of Home Grown, a nonprofit focused on supporting in-home child care. “The strength of family child care is very responsive service delivery. When you have a model that reinforces homogeneity, it’s not good for parents.”
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks issues.
A federal report found that more than 97,000 small home-based providers – defined as a single person as the sole caregiver – closed their doors between 2005 and 2017.
Hayley Village has spent the last 45 years in early childhood education and the last 20 years directing It Takes a Village Children and Family Services in San Mateo, California. She makes a point of asking each family about the cultural holidays they celebrate or the food they eat, then incorporates Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo and Diwali into the schedule.
Village, originally from England, also asked her students to celebrate the Queen of England’s 60th reign by writing emails to the royal family and receiving correspondence.
“It’s about relating what you would do with your own children,” she said. “You accept who they are. And when you make that connection, they feel heard and validated.”
Because home-based programs are also significantly smaller than center-based ones, they often allow for more personalized care, providers say.
“There are a lot of changes. My curriculum is largely completely written by me, and once you get to know the kids, you know who likes dinosaurs, who likes to cook, or who likes to eat dirt, even if you don’t want to,” Village said.
Although she has no immediate plans to stop working, she has spent the last three years thinking about her future retirement.
“I thought as I approached 60, it was time to step away and mentor the younger generation,” she said. “I can’t do some things I did 30 years ago.”
As the aging population approaches retirement, experts worry that children will be left with fewer options for care.
“When you see one type of business go bankrupt, that doesn’t mean families don’t want it,” said Anna Powell, associate director of research and policy at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. “It’s more of a wake-up call; it’s an aging group and when the centers close, they don’t come back.”
Related: Family child care services struggle to survive
Affording retirement is top concern for aging home care workers, study finds report of the National Association for Family Child Care. Home centers generally do not offer retirement benefits. And child care, despite rising costs for families, is one of the least profitable fields in the country.
“When you’re competing with In-N-Out Burger and Amazon driver wages, at $22 or $23 an hour, you have to invest in early childhood education to keep people in the field,” Village said. “Why don’t we consider that children are the future of tomorrow? We are brain developers.”
Those who wish to own a center often face obstacles. Many states require the home provider to own their home – a increasing scarcity among young people. Village rents out its three-bedroom, two-bathroom home. The house is valued at nearly $2 million, a price she says she could never afford.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve given up on it, but to live here I would need a lot of financial help,” she says.
Experts point out that even in states like California that allow tenants to run home centers, ownership requirements are often specific and costly, such as hardwired sprinkler systems and multiple outlets from a basement. Even if a homeowner would allow such modifications, these systems are also expensive to maintain and can harm the resale value of the home. And Renew said facility requirements often don’t come with options for state or federal financial aid.
“I think health and safety is important, but I think we’ve attached it to a set of requirements with providers who can only own their homes,” she said. “We are asking providers to make commercial improvements to residential homes.”
Some states have offered support to bolster home care providers. Nebraska provides up to $5,000 to start or expand family childcare operations. Connecticut launched a program in 2024 give potential providers space to launch their child care centers, as many cannot operate from their own homes. Louisiana used American Rescue Plan funding offer subsidies to help stabilize family daycares to weather the pandemic storm, although this program has ended.
But Crews said the efforts don’t go far enough. “Child care is expensive across the country; make them affordable for everyone,” she said.
Given all the challenges facing in-home child care providers, Village said she recently decided to spend the next phase of her career away from daily care at her center and into an advocacy role.
“When lawmakers make these decisions, it’s never been a truly collaborative effort,” she said. “We were never at the table.”
Contact editor Christina A. Samuels at 212-678-3635 or samuels@hechingereport.org
This story about daycare workers was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Subscribe to the Hechinger newsletter.
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