The morning after Edythe Smith gave birth to her daughter, she got some bad news. State funding for a government program that helps low- and moderate-income families pay for child care had just been frozen in Syracuse, New York, where she lives.
Smith is a single parent who works full time from home as an auto claims insurance adjuster. When her maternity leave ended last fall, she had no choice but to return to work while continuing to care full time for an increasingly mobile — sometimes perilously curious — baby.
“It’s super disruptive to my job,” she said. And it became even more disruptive as the months wore on and the child wasn’t content anymore to spend much of the day confined to a playpen by her mother’s desk. At moments, Smith had to juggle intense work phone calls with keeping her daughter out of serious mischief…