#WeAreMomsRising uses personal stories to showcase what it means to be a mom, a woman, a family member in America. 

Today's #WeAreMomsRising story is an excerpt from We have an historic opportunity to transform child care, a powerful opinion piece written by North Carolina MomsRising member Kate Rosenbaum and published by The Charlotte Observer. 

About a year ago, my husband and I welcomed our first child, Z, into our family. Becoming Z’s mom has been the most meaningful experience of my life. At the same time, it has opened my eyes to how broken our nation’s child care system is — and how urgently we need to invest in this sector to support parents, providers and our economy.

The $1.75 trillion social spending bill currently moving through Congress offers a rare opportunity to do all that and change child care forever in North Carolina and across the U.S.

For the first year of my son’s life, we tried to work from home while also caring for him, but that wasn’t sustainable. We needed to find child care.

We got lucky when it came to finding an open spot. There’s a high-quality program near our home, and they worked with us to enroll our son. The pandemic certainly made things more complicated; I wasn’t able to tour the facility and still haven’t been inside.

It was a relief to enroll him, though, because I’ve heard horror stories about families stuck on waiting lists for years. Across the country, there’s a painful shortage of child care programs. Especially during the pandemic, so many parents — especially moms — have been forced to leave jobs because they could not find affordable child care.

The cost of my son’s program was shocking.

Read the rest of Kate's story here. 

Personal experiences are powerful and can make a HUGE difference in helping our communities and elected leaders understand how public policies impact families. Share YOUR story here.