And thank you for allowing me this opportunity to express my thoughts about child care and my concerns about the plight of too many women and their children in Pennsylvania and especially in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I sincerely hope that at the conclusion of these hearings the Commission will recommend to the Governor and to the Legislature that the women of Pennsylvania want and need accessible, affordable and high quality childcare to become a priority for all of Pennsylvania's leaders. The issue of accessible, affordable, high quality childcare is, I believe, the preeminent woman's issue.
Most childcare workers are women.
And most childcare providers are women. But, as a society we don't seem to realize the importance of childcare. We don't value it as productive work and we in Pennsylvania don't seem willing to invest in it. I confess that this has always baffled me. We know that a child's potential intelligence is formed in the first three years of life.