Child Care Kills Our Geniuses

The MacArthur Genius Awards are beyond exceptional. Hats off to this funder.

That more of the uber-wealthy with their criminally insane excess profits don’t do this kind of investing boggles my mind, but such is the reality of boundless selfishness, if I might hitch a ride on someone’s papal dress tails.

But here is not the place ponder this shortcoming at the moment. It is, instead, necessary to draw attention to a single quote in an article posted today in the New York Times by Robin Pogrebin about the award dollars to be given to Ben Lerner by the MacArthur bunch. In case you don’t know of it, each of 24 winners receives $625,000 that they can spend without restrictions (none) over a period of five years. It is food designed to feed their gifts.

So, naturally, as expected, honesty comes pouring forth from the mouths of babes; the poignancy self-evident as can be seen in this paragraph from the Times:

Ben Lerner, a Brooklyn novelist, poet and critic, said the fellowship might enable him to spend less time teaching and more time writing (partly because it could help cover the cost of child care for his 2-½-year-old and 3-month-old). “It takes away all your excuses to not be doing the most ambitious work,” he said. “It means you don’t have to take on more things. You use the money to make space for the work.”

Your kids and those horrific costs of child care -- those little bratty excuses.

Seems we, as a supposedly sophisticated society, have fewer creative geniuses and all-in innovators than we may be entitled to because … well … we can't have those and educationally ready children too. Wow … what a cultural commentary.

This likely hit me harder than most people because I’ve had the pleasure of working in the field of family care services in the past, even developing a model, enterprise-based child care initiative for an outer Bay Area county. Not to mention that I happen to be spending some time (likely pro bono) trying to find a potential funder (or Impact Investor?) with the foresight and genius of his/her own who would consider underwriting the expenses to build a better preschool system -- one that works without sucking all the life out of family or smart parents.

The philanthropic sector is sitting on tons of dollars, much of which does nothing except help the rich school their egos and legacies. I for one would rather see more of that money made available for kids to free up and ready their minds and the creativity of their parents. Child care is clearly killing too many geniuses, and as a maturing nation, we ought to be able to stop this from happening, right MacArthurs?