I’m 26 years old doing a trial babysitting shift with a newborn in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As I sterilize bottles in the kitchen, the mom asks The Question.
“How do you have 13 years of experience?” She laughs, dressing her daughter in a Coach onesie.
I laugh back, giving my usual response—“Isn’t it so crazy they let a 13-year-old babysit a newborn?” and “Oh, I just love kids.” And then I don’t know what comes over me, but I add, “It’s also been a needed source of income for me since I was a teenager.”
Three hours later, she Venmos me $90 and texts to say they’ve chosen another candidate. I kick myself for not sticking to my script.
My journey as a caregiver began at a summer camp where I was put in charge of a two-month-old baby. From there, I never stopped. As a first-generation college student, I quickly realized that if I was going to fit in, I needed more money—fast. So I made flyers saying that I could do any odd job and rode my Walmart bike around Allentown, Pa., stuffing them into every mailbox I could find. The first semester of my freshman year, I woke up at 6 a.m. every Friday and biked up what felt like the highest hill I’d ever seen to babysit for eight hours. One week, I overslept—and lost the gig. It’s the only time I’ve ever missed a job.
My role as a childcare provider became even more personal when the pandemic hit in 2020. I was a college senior, months from graduation, when my brother lost childcare for his five-month-old son, Ezra. At the same time, my university shut down indefinitely, leaving me without a place to stay. So I moved into the attic of my brother’s house, finishing my degree while caring for my nephew full-time. At 22, I remember bottle-feeding him with one hand while completing my Spanish final on Zoom with the other. With days blurring together, the only way I marked time was by watching him grow. It remains one of the most challenging and deeply meaningful periods of my life.
On my Instagram, I call these days“duality days”—the kind of days that make me feel like I’m living two separate lives at once. As a teenager, I was giving TED Talks and leading social justice workshops for students and educators around the world—then rushing home to make it in time for a Saturday night shift at my neighbor’s house.
In college, I stood on stage in New York City, accepting the L’Oréal Paris Woman of Worth Award and speaking in front of celebrities about my youth empowerment work. The next morning, a luxury car provided by L’Oréal dropped me off at my college house. By noon, I was chaperoning a toddler to his classmate’s birthday party.
At 26, most days feel like duality days. Last week, the night before I taught my first college course on children’s rights as Brooklyn College’s newest professor, I was washing dishes, cleaning, and prepping toddler meals with a view of the Statue of Liberty.
I know the weight of a child’s body as they fall asleep on my chest just as intimately as I know the weight of my computer bag as I walk through City Hall to present my research to the Deputy Mayor.
As a Ph.D. candidate in Children’s Rights, I rely on childcare gigs to make ends meet—an experience that constantly reminds me of the vast spectrum of conditions providers navigate.
On one end, I’ve worked with parents like Pete and Kate, who held onto my flyer for a year until their second child was born. For three years, I cared for their two silly, kind boys. Pete and Kate became like older siblings to me, showing me what it meant to work with a family that valued me as more than just “the help.”
On the other hand, I’ve walked into situations that made it clear how little some families — particularly wealthy families — respect their caregivers. One family greeted me at the door with the father in a mask and the mother coughing without one—only admitting when I asked that they were “pretty sure” they didn’t have COVID. Another time, 20 minutes into a job, the father casually apologized for the mess upstairs. I hadn’t noticed. “We have bed bugs, so all the clothes are in bags,” he laughed. I left — but not before I weighed if it was worth the risk to earn $145. Recently, I saw a Care.com listing for a date-night gig where the mother justified paying below minimum wage by saying, of her three-month-old, “She’s small, so she doesn’t need much.” I know parents are facing impossible odds navigating our childcare crisis, but that shouldn’t mean providers don’t get the support they need.
Being a childcare provider has shaped every part of me. It has taught me patience, resilience, and, most importantly, to see children not as incomplete people but as full human beings with agency and insight. It has also taught me how to advocate—for them, for myself, and for a world where families don’t have to choose between quality care and their careers, where providers earn not just a living wage but a thriving one, and where the people helping raise our next generation are treated with the respect they deserve.
I’m excited to be Changewire’s 2025 Childcare Storyteller — amplifying the issues that children, families, and childcare providers face in the United States.