Many downstate Illinois families are in a bind. They need both parents working to provide a reasonably decent income to raise their families, but they can't both work because they can't find affordable day care for their kids. The joker is, not only is affordable day care scarce in the countryside, but it's often hard to find at any price. It's a rough situation for those who need more income than just one parent can provide.

Danette Paddick was in that situation not long ago, and she's thankful that Tina Cotterell opened her Tender Moments Care day care center near Chauncey. Norris Electric Cooperative, Newton, serves the center.

"I started my business so I could stay home with my kids," Tina says, "and yet I needed some income too. My husband, Neil, worked at the Marathon refinery in Lawrenceville, and he got laid off some time ago. Fortunately, he was able to get a job with the county highway department."

Neil's situation left both he and Tina with two dilemmas. First, they needed more income, and second, if Tina were to take a job, they would need someone to care for their two sons, Collin and Corry.

Since there was no day care for miles around, she decided to get into the child care business. She didn't want Tender Moments to be just a place where people parked their kids while they worked. Instead, she wanted to offer some educational opportunities, socializing skills, and a good hot meal. In short, she planned to provide real day care, not just baby sitting.

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Tina feeds the kids a nutritious lunch. From left are Corry Cotterell, Delaney York, Bradley Drummond and Matthew Paddick.

When she set out to get her business going, Tina decided to do it right. "I'm a licensed provider with a two-year degree in early childhood education from Wabash Valley College," she says, "and I'm an accredited child care provider, licensed to care for eight children.

"I also renovated our two-car garage," she adds, "so I could do day care the way it should be done. I try to take care of the personal needs of each child, as well as their education. I have a good-sized fenced playground in the back yard for the kids to play in when the weather's nice."

Danette, who lives near Landes, is pleased that Tina's set up shop out in the country. She works at a dermatology clinic in Vincennes, which is 40 minutes away. Her husband, Donnie, is a self-employed farmer. His parents live nearby and can help out occasionally, but her parents live in Florida.

"Properly done," she says, "day care and early education are very beneficial to children from a stand point of learning and socializing skills. It's really a mistake to think of day care centers as just places to leave kids, or to think of caregiving as baby sitting."

"It's good to have Tina out here in the country," she says, "so Donnie can pick the kids up when I need him to. If I had to take them to Vincennes, I'd have to do a lot of juggling to make it work."

Even with a lot of effort, the juggling just might not work at all. Danette's kids, Bridgitte, Matthew and Macey, range in age from five years to just one year old, and infants and toddlers are taboo at some day care centers.

"I know that I'd have to go to at least two different places if I took my kids to other centers," Danette says, "and that would be an awful lot of trouble. I've told Tina several times that if she closed her place, I'd just have to quit my job."

Danette likes the fact that she knows Tina, and that her children are playing and learning with children of her friends and neighbors. "This is a close-knit little community," she says, "and I like that. I want my kids to have the best, and I believe they do here. Bridgitte brings home papers from kindergarten, and Matthew often brings home the same kind of papers from Tina's. I know they're getting some education there.

"And it's especially nice that Tina has weekend hours. I can call my mother-in-law sometimes, but once in a while that doesn't pan out, and it's really nice to know that Tina's there to help."

People like Danette are fortunate, but most are not. For many rural residents, good, affordable day care is a fond dream. For many, the term "affordable day care" may well be a contradiction in terms.

Matthew Paddick

Changing demographics probably have a lot to do with the scarcity of day care everywhere, not just in rural areas. Years ago, grandma could often be counted on to take care of the kids, and very few rural women worked outside the home anyway. Now, grandma is more than likely either working herself, or living in a Sunbelt retirement community.

Sheldon Keyser, Illinois rural development coordinator for USDA-Rural Development, says his organization has also noted the changing demographics, and hopes to do something about the problems rural people are having with day care, as well as the many other problems caused by remoteness and a low population density.

"Affordable child care is becoming increasingly recognized as an economic development problem in rural Illinois," Keyser says, "and we believe that there are two main reasons.

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First, women are entering the work force in record numbers because it's becoming more and more necessary for both parents to work to enjoy a reasonable standard of living for the family. This is partly because wage rates and job income are substantially less in rural areas than in metro areas of the state."

A second factor, he adds, is that welfare reform results in mothers entering the work force in greater numbers than ever before. "This impacts not only the adequacy and affordability of child care facilities, but also on work force development and training issues," he emphasizes.

Keyser remarks that there are several programs designed to help communities with their day care needs, and that his organization is but one of several that are working together to help people throughout the state in their efforts to get involved in quality, affordable day care.

Deann Medlar takes a moment to bond with her daughter, Delaney, before heading off to work.

Keyser is working with Judith Hartley, director of Child Care Resource Center, to put together a road show to spell out services day care people can access in Illinois. Hartley, whose six-county east-central Illinois area is representative of some 17 other, similar, offices in the state, is headquartered at the University of Illinois in Urbana.

Hartley notes that there is a very real scarcity of day care in all of Illinois, and attributes it in large measure to the fact that many people see day care as simply baby sitting, and assign very little importance to it, and give very little respect to the people who do it.

Danette Paddick works with Corry Cotterell.

"Properly done," she says, "day care and early education are very beneficial to children from a standpoint of learning and socializing skills. It's really a mistake to think of day care centers as just places to leave kids, or to think of caregiving as baby sitting."

Part of the problem lies in the different services kids need. Many families have infants, while others have toddlers, both of whom need full care, all day long. Others need a place to wait for the school bus, and to wait for after-school pickup. Those same children need full care in the summer months, when there is no school. And some families have kids in more than one category, adding zest to the whole process.

Naturally, there are differences in pricing, too, largely involving how much care each child gets. Whatever the case, the caregiver needs decent compensation, even if he or she only provides a safe place for kids to wait to be picked up.

In fact, one of the biggest problems facing day care operations today is the fact that caregiving is perceived as an entry-level, menial job, worthy of only very low pay. But good pay scales make for good caregivers, and everyone wants the best for their kids.

Unfortunately, that translates to additional expense for the parents and results in a vicious circle, a problem that Keyser and Hartley want to help people address.

"There are a lot of good, dedicated caregivers who have been in the business for many years, and we should appreciate them more than we do. We need more of them," she says.

While seeing to it that caregivers receive more respect and compensation is going to be a long-term proposition, funding and organizational

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help is something that has to be done immediately. Keyser remarks that rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, he wants to borrow a good idea from a nearby state to help with the day care problem.

"Iowa has a good program," he explains, "which involves teams from different state, federal and county organizations. They go from town to town, essentially spelling out what they have to offer to people who need help solving their day care needs. We don't have one yet, but Judy and I are thinking of putting together a sort of 'traveling road show,' to let people know what's available and from whom."

The truth is that setting up day care operations in communities is a long process, and it takes a lot of work by a lot of people to set up a center. In towns, some fairly large day care centers cater to the needs of several families and their children, but the problem in rural areas might well be solved by places like Tender Moments, perhaps a few miles apart, and owned by individuals or cooperatively owned by those who use the service. Keyser notes that money is available to take care of several different needs, from subsidizing day care costs for working low-income parents, to helping funding a building, to helping train staff, and so on.

Many experts emphasize in the strongest terms that economic development cannot take place in rural areas until the child care problem can be solved, and parents can find jobs that will enable them to pay for both day care and family expenses.

Many also believe that it's going to be necessary, at least in the "short run, to subsidize some of those costs. Keyser notes that Rural Development has some funds for that purpose, as well as funds for buildings and training for caregivers and administrators.

While there is no one simple solution, many other rural residents may be able to help address the problem like Tina has, by opening a real day care center in areas where one is needed.

Another option would be for several parents to get together and start a cooperative day care center. That might just spark a rural revitalization, just like the rural electrification program did 60 years ago. The National Cooperative Business Association has a videotape that shows how, and offers other advice too (see sidebar).

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