Across the U.S., around 50% of people lack adequate access to childcare. This number rises to an average of 60% for families in rural areas, with some communities facing even larger shortages. In a recent article, rural news outlet The Daily Yonder dives into the issue by talking to parents who live in rural Missouri, where 70% of people have inadequate access to childcare.
Take a look:
For Angela, a mother of two in southern Missouri, great lengths were necessary to secure child care for her kids.
“I actually told my day care I was pregnant with my second before any of my family to secure a spot for him as a child under two,” she says. “It is wild to me that I lined up both my day cares a year prior to needing them.”
Despite those efforts, Angela describes also having to ask friends and family to watch her kids so she could return to work, due to gaps between maternity leave and the soonest available child care opening. She is far from alone in these challenges.
Read More: In Race for Child Care, Rural Families — and Rural Economies — Face an Especially Steep Climb