Can I cut it as a day care worker, one of the most exhausting, worst paid, and smelliest jobs in America? - By Emily Yoffe - Slate Magazine

This article offers a behind-the-scenes description of daycare work for the uninitiated. While it points out major flaws in the structures and economy of daycare provision in the USA, it stops short of calling for real change. Instead, its author seems rather resigned to the current state of affairs, which is a pity. Is it enough that the work gets done and, after all, the children seem happy, don't they? The transcript of a reader discussion with the article's author (at: http://www.slate.com/id/2194347/) reinforces the "calling" and "vocation" aspect of work with young children and questions the need for education and professionalization in the field. I found it especially interesting that one reader dreams of moving to the daycare utopia she thinks (apparently monolithic) "Europe" is, where subsidised daycare grows on trees and the problems of quality, cost, and staffing have supposedly been solved. Ahem.