Master Parents
Beth Bruno © 2001
Married couple Joan and Dwayne are attorneys. Joan works for a major
corporation and Dwayne is a prosecutor in the district attorney's office.
Between the two of them they probably have enough brainpower to run
most cities, school districts or corporations. Last year they had their
first child. Each of them took three months off, consecutively, to cover
the first six months of parenting, while they interviewed potential
childcare providers to take over during working hours from there. They
sought expert, affordable caregivers whom they could trust to love and
educate their baby. Their standards were high. They tried to find a
person or group of people with the same level of knowledge and expertise
about child development and parenting as each of them has about the
law.
What they found was a mishmash of possibilities, from in-house nannies
to home care to daycare centers, none of which came close to meeting
their standards. With their son's care now their highest priority, they
eventually decided to reduce their professional commitments while maintaining
enough income to meet their financial obligations. Joan resigned and
is staying home with their son, while Dwayne seeks a different position
that pays higher wages than he can earn as an assistant district attorney
(to at least partially offset the loss of Joan's income). Long term,
each of them wants to find part-time positions that will enable them
to maintain their careers and raise their children actively and together,
with minimal reliance on outside help.
There are many dual-career couples who, when they start their families,
encounter the same dilemma that Joan and Dwayne did. Taking a substantial
pay cut may not be an acceptable option for many of these couples. After
devoting time, energy and money to developing a career, do young adults
need to interrupt their careers, possibly jeopardizing them, in order
to raise a family? If so, which adult quits? How do single parents handle
this dilemma? Do men and women, who have worked hard to gain an excellent
education and more equality in the workplace, have to give up these
gains because our society has not kept pace by providing outstanding
childcare environments staffed with top-notch childcare professionals?
If raising children were considered as valuable as developing the next
"hot" consumer product, people who are fabulous homemakers
and substitute parents would be able to earn salaries of $50,000 or
more, and why not? They are contributing their talents to developing
the most valuable resource of all - our nation's children!
I have thought of an approach for addressing this dilemma. Please
consider the following scenario:
The growing demand for stellar child care from highly educated, competent
and compassionate caregivers prompts a university couple (with small
children) to propose a new graduate degree program at their university,
a program leading to a master's degree in parenting. Their proposal
maps out a two-year course of study from a selection of courses such
as: child development (social, physical, emotional and intellectual),
infant/toddler assessment, sibling relationships, fathering/mothering,
play, CPR and first-aid, anatomy/physiology, language development, natural
teaching techniques, creativity, music/art/dance, parenting styles in
other cultures, fundraising, indoor and outdoor learning environments,
small business management and community partnerships.
In addition to classwork, each semester would include field placement
under the supervision of a master teacher/master parent - identified
by criteria established by the university. Field placements would change
each year to provide experience in different settings and work with
different supervisors. Participants would be encouraged to maintain
field placements throughout the intervening summer to provide continuity
of learning and care to the children.
Graduates would be required to receive the equivalent of one year
of post-graduate supervision to receive certification (to be established
at the state level). Certification would be renewable every five years
based on specific criteria. I think it would be important to establish
alternate routes to certification, too, because many people become "master
parents" on their own. They could demonstrate the requisite skills
in a variety of ways.
This proposed graduate program would accept half male and half female
candidates for the degree, so that there would be as many male as female
graduates, thus infusing the early childhood scene with equal numbers
of male and female role models in teaching and nurturing positions.
High demand for graduates would keep starting salaries high, generally
in the same range that graduates of other professional schools like
business, engineering, speech/occupational/physical therapy, master
teachers and school psychologists can command. Master parents would
be qualified to start or run small daycare facilities, provide role
models for parents, train other caregivers, maintain partnerships with
universities that initially provide funding and supervisory support
for models of care and early childhood education. Model childcare centers,
created at universities that offer the degree, would offer scholarships
to at least half of the families whose children attend, based on need.
I envision Master Parents partnering with corporations and public
school districts to restore rambling homes in downtown centers, creating
home settings for early childhood care…partnering with downtown
businesses for supplies, activities, music lessons, mentoring and other
forms of community support. Universities around the country would develop
similar programs in response to high demand and recognized needs in
their states.
I envision neighborhoods where Master Parents live and stay home (as
professionals) to nurture their own children as well as several other
children in the neighborhood, thus contributing to the development of
neighborhoods - quite a different picture than the emptying of neighborhoods
in our communities today).
By creating career parents, we would elevate the status of parenting
to a professional level (good parenting certainly requires a huge range
of knowledge and skills), thereby making it possible for people to stay
home and earn a living as homemakers, rather than arranging for child
care outside the home in order to leave home and make a living.
What do you think of these ideas? How can we create a system that
assures every child access to the highest possible care, teaching and
nurturing in early childhood in environments that celebrate parenting
and the full development of each child's potential?
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