Walking into Maria Benavidez’s home, it’s clear that her work as a child care provider consumes her life. Her home resembles a well-organized classroom. Shelves filled with toys, games, stacks of children’s books and bins of diapers line her living room, in the middle of the floor is a soft playmat. The space in her home is overwhelmingly devoted to her vocation. Her family photos – her daughters in quinceañera dresses, her son in his navy uniform and a portrait of her father – watch over from the walls.
Benavidez, 70, has been operating a daycare out of her home in Pacoima for the last 20 years.
She is one of many Latinas that make a living by offering child care out of their home. It’s a way for many women who may not have had the benefit of formal education but have had a lot of experience raising children during their lives to earn a living.
Oftentimes, Benavidez works around the clock to provide the child care that many working families depend on, with most of her clientele being families that need government programs or subsidies to pay for care.
“Without our care, how can they work?” said Benavidez, mentioning a single mother who works odd hours at the airport. Without relatives or a support system living nearby, Benavidez has been the mother’s only source of child care for the last 12 years.
Increasingly, families are finding it harder to cover the cost of child care, while daycare providers like Benavidez say they are inadequately compensated for their tireless work.
“The money doesn’t increase, just the work,” said Benavidez.
An Arleta Home Daycare
One of Ana Valentino’s daughters nicknamed her el pulpo, the “octopus” because she has to have eight hands to accomplish everything that she gets done in a day.
She runs a daycare out of her house in Arleta, where she cares for 14 kids, ranging from less than 1 month old to 13 years old, sporadically throughout the day.
Valentino does everything – soothing teething babies, reading with toddlers, cooking, cleaning, shopping for groceries, picking kids up from school and even attending recitals, dance performances and graduations.
“The only thing I don’t do is sleep,” joked Valentino.
Morning until night, her doors are open to accommodate parents with varying schedules – the first kids arrive as early as 3 a.m., some stay with her during school hours, others join after school and some are with her late into the evening. Care fluctuates throughout the day, at times she will watch one child during the daytime and upwards of eight kids in the afternoon.
Valentino began the business when her husband received a kidney transplant and she needed to figure out how to support them and their three young children.
She has been running the daycare for the last 24 years, and because of her love for the work, she says she will continue to do it “as long as my body lets me.”
The First Educators
“We are the children’s first educators,” said Valentino. “When they enter school, they already know the basics – words, the colors, how to write their name.”
She spoke proudly about the children she’s cared for, as though they were her own – this one is in college now and that one is a police officer.
Benavidez gets called grandma by the children, and Valentino said one family even became her son’s godparents.
To become a licensed daycare, providers must meet specific health, nutrition, maintenance and safety requirements.
“Your house becomes public,” said Valentino, since at any time they can receive a call from someone who comes to do an inspection.
If anything is out of order, providers receive a fine or a mark on their record.
Providers are also required to complete a 15-hour training course that includes pediatric CPR and first aid, safety and health education.
Daycares provide care during some of the most formative developmental years for children, Valentino points out. They can be the first to recognize signs of autism or developmental disabilities, often advising parents to seek testing and get the proper help for their children.
“We don’t have psychology degrees, but we have the experience,” said Valentino.
Both Valentino and Benavidez are currently caring for children with special needs, including autism.
The Cost of Providing Care
“I have to work 24 hours in order to survive,” said Benavidez, whose husband now helps with the business.
“We want to be paid a little more so that we can have a group of kids during the day, and then rest in the evening,” she said.
Benavidez gets $175 per child per week. At this rate, she earns around $4 an hour per child, often averaging a salary of about $7 to $10 per hour, below the minimum wage.
Reimbursement rates for providers working in the state’s child care assistance program are set by the state, thus tethering their baseline salaries to the state-mandated pricing.
Both women have a license to care for up to 14 children and said that they typically need to be operating at full capacity in order to meet operational costs.
“Everything we buy is from our paycheck, from our pocket,” said Valentino.
This includes ingredients for healthy meals, educational books, toys, cleaning supplies and transportation costs for school drop-off and pickup.
Valentino added that it’s been more difficult to cover costs with inflation. The price of her groceries has nearly doubled over the years.
“That’s why we are asking the governor to augment the salary,” said Valentino. “They are not providing us fair wages.”
Turning to SEIU
Both women have been part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for the last five or six years.
Benavidez said it’s an extra cost to pay the union dues, but that they help a lot with understanding and navigating the system. For instance, the union helped her get fire insurance, reducing the nearly $400 fee she used to pay for an annual safety check from the fire department.
“With the union and our fight, we were able to survive the pandemic,” said Valentino.
The union helped get care providers essential PPE during the pandemic, the cost of which Valentino said would have been detrimental to her business.
Despite these advances, daycare providers continue to struggle to stay afloat.
As part of the nationwide A Day Without Child Care campaign, Valentino and Benavidez joined other child care providers, working moms and advocates, in a rally outside Dignity Health, Northridge Medical Center in Reseda the day after Mother’s Day.
The goal was to bring attention to the low wages of providers and the challenges working moms face, including what the union called “child care deserts.”
“We must do more to retain and recruit child care providers,” said Max Aria, a chairperson for Childcare Providers United and executive director of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99.
“If our state really values working women, then the budget must expand access to care. They must recognize the critical work of providers by ensuring they can earn a fair pay.”
The rally was directed at Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose revised budget proposal contains cuts to programs and necessary child care services, including a cut to CalWORKs, which could result in eligible families not receiving needed child care subsidies.
“We want a fair wage so that we can lighten our load,” said Benavidez.
I had a licensed family daycare for 25 yrs. I just gave up my license a year August. I loved my job. It was a labor of love. 3 yrs after covid was DHS rewrote daycare regulations and made a big mess out if it. So I decided their control was not worth my time. So I sadly quit. It’s ashame the 3 letter agencies want to control everything.