I'm so naive. I always think if large companies could just provide quality, subsidized, on-site childcare, workers would have no reason to "opt out" or ever even really complain about work. 

Then I read about the woes of Google -- yes, "voted top company to work for" Google -- and how they have totally botched the whole on-site childcare thing, once again leaving mid- to low-level employees with figuring out how the hell to reconcile work with raising young kids and pissing off many employees in the meantime.

The NYTimes has a nice little tell-all piece. In a nutshell, the saga goes something like this:

As Google really takes off, they set up an on-site daycare which focuses on children learning through play. It costs $1,475 monthly for infant care, less as the kid gets older. Everybody who isn't on a waiting list is more than satisfied.

The woman who initially set up this first daycare after she returned from maternity leave -- the sister-in-law of one of the founders and high-level Google employee with, the story implies, a probably not terribly crucial job to the mega-search engine company -- learns about Reggio Emilia, THE preschool philosophy of the moment (and if you're a good parent you've tried hard to get your kid into some kind of Reggio program). She sets up second childcare center on the Google campus that is Reggio. 

Problem: Reggio is fucking expensive -- salaries, equipment, imported all-natural toys, incessant documentation of junior's achievements via high-quality photography. Moreover, Google decided to raise the salaries of the workers at the other center to match those at the Reggio center.

Then! Google stock drops. Google realizes it is subsidizing each child enrolled in its daycare centers about $37,000 annually. Google decides to pass costs along to employees. Subsidies decrease.

Now, tuition for babies is $2,500 per month, slightly less for toddlers and preschoolers -- even for people who didn't opt for the Reggio program.

Employees cry.

Then Google decides to change the original center into Reggio one.

Interestingly, the waiting list gets smaller, something the company wanted since it doesn't look so great to have a long waiting list for one of your touted benefits.

In a show of dedication and seriousness as an employee and a parent, the sister-in-law/Google employee/founder of these daycare centers (Wojcicki) tells a group of disgruntled employees that, despite the high cost, she intends to keep her kids at the facility. Sidenote: she's a multimillionaire.

Employees really cry.

This is where I really get pissy with not just Google's childcare follies, but childcare/preschools in general in the U.S. They're just so segregated. Kids of the wealthy go to preschool with kids of the wealthy. Poor kids attend school with poor kids. Middle-class, same thing. There's never any economic diversity and of course this carries over to grade school, etc. Am I the only one who thinks it would be nice to mix it up a little?

I mean, many Google employees can no doubt afford this school and good for them. But the kids of those families look and live just like the other kids at that school. But what about the secretary? The single-mom/dad? The janitor's kids? Or just the mid-level Project Manager whose salary is good -- no, excellent! -- but can't quite stretch it to cover the $2,500 in monthly childcare AND housing AND transporation costs in Silicon Valley. Lord knows what families with twins or more than one young kid do. The article mentions a sliding scale, but in my experience, such schemes are never really to scale and never really slide. Is it fair that Wojcicki the multi-millionaire gets any subsidy at all?

Doesn't Wojcicki feel there's a great value to education in making on-site daycare available to commoners -- even more than "project-based learning" and organic teething biscuits and one sensory table for every three kids?

 Photo: webisland.com