My wife is on the phone in the other room. I can’t hear exactly what she’s saying, but even without the wall between us, I might only have a 10% chance of comprehending, given how fast she’s talking and the many ‘shhh’ sounds of her Swabian accented German. Her tone is light, she laughs, the person on the other side of the call is clearly of some importance as they are getting both barrels of my wife’s patented charm offensive. I stop working and try hard to hear what she’s saying. All I can really make out is one word, repeated several times, Kita (day care centre). We’ve been on the hunt for a place at one of our cities state funded daycare centres for well over two years and as it turns out, the call my wife is on will end with another rejection.

Although our search has taken over two years, the issue of day care in Germany has been rumbling on for the entirety of the ten years I’ve lived here. Although positive steps have been taken by the German government, with an increase and expansion of day care centres around the country, demand far outstrips supply. Many parents missing out on a place have to resort to employing a Tagesmutter (somewhere between nanny and day care) which doesn’t sound so bad, except that the qualifications required for such positions are much lower than for the more robust day care centres dotted around the city. Reasonably, most parents feel this is not an acceptable option. For us, finding a reliable Tagesmutter has been as hard as finding a Kita place. Having found one, we’re generally happy with this option, at least until we can find something more permanent.

Way back in 2020 when we began the search, it was estimated that as many as 900 children wouldn’t get a place in any of our city’s Kitas. As it turned out, that number was far higher. By the middle of 2021, it was revealed that almost 2000 children did not get a place. As bad as that might sound, our home state of Bavaria is one of the better places for parents and children. In North Rhine-Westphalia, there is a shortage of almost 100,000 places.

As the example of North Rhine-Westphalia suggests, the problem ranges from state to state and city to city. In most cases the cities themselves are responsible for funding day care, which often means that the availability of services for childcare can vary as much as the different dialects of German. Travel an hour down the autobahn, and I’ll find that not only is everyone speaking differently, but they might have a better system in place. Moreover, the differences in childcare follow the well worn divide between East and West. The east has more options for childcare, with half of all children under 3 currently finding a place, but they often suffer from a lack of trained childcare professionals. In the West the opposite is true: there are fewer places, but there is on average four children per caregiver, while it’s six per caregiver in the east. 

While the west may be able to find more trained carers, the problem is still a national one. Most studies and investigations point to the same problem, the average wage of a Kita employee. Their wages don’t correspond with the importance of their work. Strikes by Kita staff are a fairly regular occurrence and it’s rare that there isn’t some kind of industrial action happening in one German state or the other over pay and conditions.

Issues over wages for carers not only reflects the changing nature of the job since the beginning of the pandemic, but also the overall shifts in the types of children needing placement. In our city at least, there are more and more children coming from non-German speaking backgrounds, which requires carers to have new skills to support infant language acquisition. As possibly the only source of German in the lives of very young children, finding carers with functional knowledge of more than one language is difficult, especially when the wages offered in some cities is less than what can be made in many service industry jobs. 

The knock-on effect of these issues is that many parents will be unable to find a place for their child in local day care centres. Without adequate alternatives, the burden of caring for a small child will frequently land on women more than men. To some extent this is just part of having a baby. The relationship between mothers and their children is very different from that of fathers. At least in my own experience, building the bond between my daughter and I has taken concerted effort, yet it is clearly very different from the connection between her and my wife. Staying home with a child might be an option for some mothers, but for many others the desire or necessity to return to work means a need for reliable childcare. However, there is an unspoken social stigma around working mothers. After all, the days of women being called Rabenmutter (Raven Mother) for supposedly neglecting their children by returning to work is only a generation ago. Few people may utter this slur out loud today, but there are still many Germans who feel that women should be willing to give up their own agency so their partners can continue to work full-time. 

In my previous life as a business English trainer, I spent a lot of time in meeting rooms with predominately male managers and executives. When conversations turned to women returning to work or childcare in general, it was often just assumed that women would face a career penalty of some kind for having a baby. Often this was justified as an overall positive for child development. These arguments are spurious at best, perhaps if the men of Germany were to show more support for enabling women to return to work after having children, either by taking up a larger role in parenting or by putting pressure on companies to provide more day care facilities, this issue would not be such a prominent and continual problem. 

The complex issues of childcare were never going to be resolved overnight, but it does feel that a most of the last decade has been wasted. Despite many promises from previous governments, the problem persist. Perhaps with the new government things will improve, but I’ll not hold my breath. As for my family, well we at least have a Tagesmutter, but we’re still hoping to find a Kita place. The letters of acceptance or rejection could come any day now, here’s hoping the news is positive.

Image Credit

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