Our Collective Power Campaign kicked off at the beginning of November, and we are over halfway to our $30,000 end of year goal! Thanks to a generous supporter, all donations will be matched up to $10,000.
Today, we share a message from Pathwaves Board Member, David Mendez.
What brings me to this work?
My connection to the early childhood system started at birth. When I was born, my mom left her job as a bank teller and opened a home child care. As a working-class mom of two, she couldn’t afford child care and wanted to be home with her kids. Her decision was shaped by the same realities families face today: access and affordability.
It wasn’t until I became a father that I understood just how deeply early childhood systems influence our daily lives. These systems are infrastructure—essential for healthy child development and for family stability. We simply can’t function without them, especially now, when raising children on a single income has become nearly impossible.
Parents feel the strain of these systems every day. And the challenges we see now didn’t appear overnight—they’re rooted in the history of early childhood policy in this country.
History of early childhood systems
To understand where we are today, we have to look at how we got here. One of the earliest federal child care policies in the U.S. was the Lanham Act, created during World War II when women filled factory, hospital, and shipyard jobs. With so many mothers in the workforce, the Lanham Act funded child care for families—regardless of income—marking the first and only national child care program in our history. While countries like Japan and France went on to build permanent early childhood systems, the U.S. let this progress fade once the war ended.
Many people know Head Start, launched under President Johnson, which reinforced what research shows: the first five years are critical for child development. This momentum led to the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971, a bipartisan plan for universal, publicly funded child care. It passed Congress but was vetoed by President Nixon under political pressure, halting what could have been the country’s first long-term early childhood system.
The COVID-19 pandemic once again exposed how fragile our child care infrastructure is. In response, federal relief packages—including the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)—provided historic, short-term investments that helped programs stay open and offered a glimpse of what a well-funded system could look like. Providers like my mom, and my children’s childcare provider, used these funds to improve facilities and stabilize their programs.
Now, as our country faces a declining birthrate, falling kindergarten readiness, a growing mental health crisis, and a strained workforce, history shows us something important: we’ve had moments when we recognized the value of early childhood—and moments when that momentum slipped away. Families and providers have carried the consequences each time. We’re once again at a crossroads, and moving forward will require leadership from all sides. Building the early childhood system our country needs isn’t a partisan effort—it demands a bipartisan commitment to children, families, and the future we share. Where we go from here depends on who steps up to take that responsibility.
Call to action
Early childhood isn’t a “parent issue,” a “women’s issue,” or a “child care issue.” It’s a family issue. It’s a community issue. Every baby born in this country carries a piece of our shared future, and each one deserves stability, care, and opportunity. We are responsible for them—all of us.
Our children’s earliest years shape everything that follows. If we want strong schools, strong communities, and a strong nation, we must start where life begins in early childhood. This is our shared responsibility. This is our collective future.
Pathwaves invests in building the collective power of leaders of color to transform early childhood systems. Join us by making a donation today.
