Years ago, I was a new mom at home with my baby Amelia, and I got this grand idea that I could go to law school.

I headed off to a state law school that cost $450 a semester, but first…I needed to find child care.

I thought, “How hard could that be?” Well, I found out just how hard.

I spent weeks visiting all kinds of places, and none of them were right. Either the kids looked miserable, the place had a funny smell, the waiting list was a mile long, the cost was way outside our budget… 

It was getting down to the last week before law school classes were going to start, and I was starting to sweat. But then I found a truly great place. It had a cheerful teacher, a nice play area, nothing smelled funny…but there was one problem: They only took children who were “dependably” potty trained. 

At the time, Amelia was not quite dependable, but I couldn’t let that stop me. I had about five days to get my toddler dependably potty trained.

I just want you to know that I’m here today courtesy of three bags of M&Ms, and a very cooperative toddler. 

But here’s the thing: Child care never stopped being an issue for me — just like for so many working parents today. It was this weight I had to carry around every single day and it never let up. Eventually I graduated from law school pregnant with baby number two, Alex, and then I got a teaching job at a law school in Houston and I was beyond excited. 

I loved teaching and I knew that this job was what I was meant to do, so I did whatever it took to make it work while also caring for my family. I still got dinner on the table every night — even if most nights it was late and the kids were cranky. We ate a lot of stuff from boxes that said “Just add water!” 

I’m sure a lot of you know this story. Washing dishes, bathing children, doing laundry at 11:00 at night, and then starting to prepare for the next day — falling into bed sometime in the early hours of the morning.  

It was hard — but I could do hard. It was exhausting — but I could handle exhausting. But the thing that eventually sank me? Child care.

In the space of a few months, I tried everything to find help. A babysitter, a daycare center, another daycare center, a neighbor. One day I picked up my son Alex from a daycare, and he had been left in a soggy diaper for heaven only knows how long. 

I was upset with the daycare people, but more than anything else, I was upset with myself. I felt like I was failing my baby. 

So one night after I put both kids to bed, my 78-year-old Aunt Bee called long distance from Oklahoma just to see how I was doing. I said “fiiiine” in a thin voice. And then I just started to cry. I couldn’t hold it together any longer. I told my Aunt Bee that I was going to quit my job.

I hadn’t thought about it much, but it just all started to crash down and the words just fell out of my mouth. I cried, I sobbed…I loved that job. But that was it.

Finally I blew my nose, I got a drink of water, and then Aunt Bee said 11 words that changed my life forever: “I can’t get there tomorrow, but I can come on Thursday.” Two days later, she arrived at the airport with seven suitcases and a Pekingese named Buddy and she stayed for 16 years.

Here’s the thing about this story: Without child care, I was a goner. Today I am a United States senator in part because my Aunt Bee rescued me on a Thursday about a zillion years ago.

I’m so, so grateful for my Aunt Bee, but so many families don’t have an emergency Aunt Bee solution. We live in the richest country in the history of the planet — and yet the child care crisis has just gotten worse and worse and worse since this story.

And if you can believe it, it’s about to get even worse unless Congress votes to extend emergency funding at the end of this month. And MAGA Republicans are doing everything they can to cut off this funding. 

Without this funding, at least 3.2 million children would lose their child care. 70,000 child care programs could shut their doors. Nearly a quarter of a million child care workers could lose their jobs.

I’m fighting like hell to get this emergency funding passed as a short-term solution, and to pass my Child Care for Every Community Act in the long-term. Under my plan, half of all American families would pay no more than $10 a day for child care, costs would be capped for everyone, no one would pay more than 7% of their income, and child care workers would get badly needed, well-deserved raises.

This issue is a part of my heart forever. And if it’s a part of yours, too, I want to hear from you. Please share with me how access to child care — or lack thereof — has impacted your life. Your story is very important to me.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth