Since launching as a newsletter in 2012, millennial-focused media company theSkimm has expanded its content offerings to support readers during different life stages.
In addition to a daily newsletter, theSkimm now publishes content on money, wellness, and parenting. It dipped its toe into advocacy in 2021 with a #ShowUsYourLeave campaign, placing public pressure on companies to be transparent about their paid family leave offerings. More recently, theSkimm launched #ShowUsYourChildcare, calling on the private sector to invest more in childcare benefits.
“This is definitely an extension of knowing that our audience is growing up and going through different life stages. And a lot of them are parents now, and unfortunately not getting the support that they need from either the government or the private sector,” Niven McCall-Mazza, editor-in-chief of theSkimm, told HR Brew.
Childcare = infrastructure. TheSkimm launched the #ShowUsYourChildCare campaign in June with Moms First, a nonprofit advocating for structural childcare support.
“We wanted to ignite this conversation about the importance of childcare and why it needs to be seen as a key infrastructure issue,” McCall-Mazza said. “We also wanted to call on the private sector to step up and take action for their employees.”
Since then, some 80 companies have signed on, including Pinterest, Mastercard, and Chobani. On October 4, #ShowUsYourChildCare rolled out a new phase of the campaign, including a database detailing policies of employers that have joined the movement, as well as resources for employees seeking to make the case for childcare support to company leadership.
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In a worksheet developed by theSkimm, Moms First, and Vivvi, an early education provider, the organizations suggest employees lean on research in discussions with their companies about childcare benefits. They note that breakdowns in childcare can cause employees to miss work, for example, and that on-site childcare has the potential to boost RTO rates, as was the case for Patagonia, which “saw 100% of working moms return to work after maternity leave.”
The organizations also suggest employees gather internal statistics on the number of parents at their companies—as well as departments and teams likely to be affected when these workers are absent—before having a conversation with decision-makers.
Zoom out. Even as more employers are investing in childcare, private-sector support may be seen as a temporary Band-Aid for a much larger crisis. Some $24 billion in federal funding that was allocated to childcare providers during the pandemic expired on September 30, and may cause 70,000 programs to shutter, according to a Century Foundation estimate. This, in turn, threatens to curtail labor force participation gains made by US women over the past three years.
Part of the decision to focus on the private sector in this campaign, McCall-Mazza said, was to recognize, “we are not waiting around for the government to snap their fingers and solve this problem.”