In 2000, Sara Martinez — who immigrated from El Salvador to Los Angeles and was then a stay-at-home mother of three — was asked for a favor. Her neighbor, a home-based child care provider, needed support caring for the seven children she served because her husband had suddenly fallen ill. Martinez, 29 years old at the time, agreed to help. She initially volunteered for an hour each week, then two, then three. She assisted for a few days a week until she moved to another neighborhood in 2005.
Martinez never asked to be compensated. In her eyes, after all, it was just a favor. Yet, this “favor” spurred two decades of child care that Martinez provided for families in her community in South Central Los Angeles.
Martinez is one of the estimated millions of child care providers known as family, friend and neighbor (FFN) caregivers, which represents the most common type of non-parental child care in the United States. In these popular arrangements — which can range from a few hours a day to full-time — a relative, friend or neighbor provides informal child care in the home of the child or the caregiver.
While FFNs are the largest group of caregivers in the country, it is a job that many in the field refer to as “invisible” in the already historically overlooked child care workforce. That’s reflected by the minimal resources allocated to FFNs throughout the country.
There are so many stories like Martinez’s. In fact, when my own mother immigrated to Los Angeles from Mexico at 17 years old, one of her first jobs was in child care. As a child, I often heard her share tales from her time caring for children. I was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood with many low-income families. These informal child care arrangements surrounded me.
The stories of family, friend and neighbor providers — women like Martinez and my mother — need to be heard. They have the power to shift public narrative and to inspire action.
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