343: What’s It Like Growing Up Literally Inside a Childcare Center? With Jonathan Pearce

In this episode of Childcare Conversations, you'll meet Jonathan Pearce - a Louisiana childcare leader who literally grew up in childcare (his mom built a center next to her dance studio!). Jonathan shares his fascinating journey from engineering student and bartender to running four childcare centers. But here's where it gets really interesting - frustrated by inconsistent licensing regulations, he found his voice in advocacy. He shares how shifting the conversation from "babysitting" to essential education and business services has created real change in Louisiana. Such an inspiring chat!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real-world strategies, honest talk, and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by Center IQ. If you've ever added a child to a classroom, adjusted staffing, or made a quick schedule change, and then spent the next two weeks fixing the ripple effects, you're not alone. Most leaders make decisions and then see what happens. CenterIQ's decision intelligence lets you see what happens before you decide. Start your free trial today at centeriq.io. Now, let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Well, with the secret to having really good blackened fish is not putting pepper on it, but letting your cast iron do the cooking. Oh, wait, wait, wait. This is the wrong podcast for that. Okay. So today, we all the way from Louisiana, we have got Jonathan Pierce joining us. And no, his name is not Hawkeye, and he did not work in a mash unit. But today, he is going to talk about what it's like to grow up in childcare. And I mean literally. And now he is the voice of Louisiana childcare at a national level. And so, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us. And we are excited to talk about literally all things childcare with you. And let's have a conversation. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about that part where we started, which is how you got here?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yeah, great. Thanks. Well, uh, how I got here. So, you see, when a man and woman love each other, that's special guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

This is that's a different podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Totally different podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

So uh mom owned a dancing school. She started teaching dancing when she was 14 years old. And um when, you know, grew it to this massive uh review productions and all of this fun stuff. And I grew up uh when I was born, she decided that she didn't want to just send me anywhere. She wanted a place where I was actually gonna learn and she understood business, so she said, you know what? I'm gonna open a childcare center. So she had a large piece of property, so she built a center right behind her dance studio, um, which was actually pretty genius because the school age children would flow into the dancing school. And so that's that's I literally from infancy was going there every day.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Um and so Okay, so I gotta ask a question. Do you dance?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

I actually did. Uh we did a lot of adagio. Um, I'll have to find some videos and send them to you guys. Uh, we were in reviews. I danced, I was James Bond on a cruise ship and in Disney World.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Um, so but why is it all past tense? Do you don't do any more dancing? Nobody you don't you don't spin at all anymore?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

So I actually just recently did a dancing with the stars uh fundraiser. Um and we went last and I may or may not have uh missed a few steps because of uh just no food and maybe a cocktail or two. So uh not nearly as good as I used to be, but uh we still had a had a blast with it. Um love that.

SPEAKER_04 3:37

That's a great story. I'm gonna have to we're gonna have to start hunting you down at conferences and go, hey, where's Jonathan? We need to see him dance out here.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Absolutely. I love it, I love it. So, so yeah, I uh you know, then I went to college and I went to college to become an engineer to work in the oil field because in South Central Louisiana, that's what you do if you're a male. And so uh I did, and I really enjoyed the the classes. Uh I I was not extremely studious, but I I did well on, I was a good test taker. So uh, but I had a lot of fun in college. So I was bartending at a local pizzeria, and I was working as a uh camp counselor, then summer camp director, but also doing the books and at night for the dancing school and the child care center.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

So the camp counselor wasn't at the bar?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

No, it was not.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Um so you had two jobs. I'm just trying to make sure I'm on track here because I was like well, now that's an interesting version of camping. Um and I could see how some college students might need that. They need a supervisor over their college, you know, bar experience, but that's not what you meant.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

That's not. Nope.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Okay, all right. Just checking out.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

I was probably one of the ones that needed that. Uh but but no, so I would I would uh work um in the evenings at the bar, and then in the afternoons, I was doing uh I was a camp counselor for after school, and then uh I would work a little bit doing the books, and then I would go bartend and then go to school and somewhere in there you went to school? I did. I was taking 19 hours uh and it was it was a lot of fun. Um I I didn't do very well at the beginning, but realized I had to get this my schoolwork on track. So I I I loved what I was doing in the center. I uh I loved the bartending scene too, but I knew that wasn't gonna be a long-term career for me. And uh so I decided that I wanted to uh my mom and I had a talk. She said, Look, I'm gonna sell your brother, doesn't want to have anything to do with it unless you want to run the business. And I said, I really like what I'm doing. And so I would love to, and I'd learned a lot from her already. And then my grandmother had passed away. So that was in uh oh one, I believe. And so when she passed, um, she had a there was a lumber yard on her property that my grandfather had. So my mom and her two brothers decided to tear that down, and then I helped them build a shopping center. I did not fund it, but I did the the management and the legwork of the you know, managing the contractors and the fire marshal and all that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

So uh also you and Carrie both know what it's like to take something that was not originally something to make it somebody else. So Carrie did that with um Texas Ranch Land and made it into a neighborhood complete with elementary school. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Really?

SPEAKER_03 6:43

And golf course. That's weird. Golf course hiking trails, swimming pool, apartment complexes. So we have had uh well, I mean, it still has. I just don't own it anymore. Um from like apartments that took subsidies all the way to multi-million dollar homes, all in the same community.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

This is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

I need to hear a whole family could live in the same community and have the same access to a swimming pool, to a golf course, to city parks, to a good elementary school.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

That is awesome. I need more information and I want this story.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

That's a separate podcast. So we've got four or five of them that we're gonna uh I did not write those down, so somebody's gonna have to send me a note. So anyway. So you helped build this um shopping center that was what used to be um a tree farm or like a uh a mill.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

A lumber yard, like so where you sell where you sell wood.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Okay, so you weren't growing the trees or milling them, you were just other people you were taking other people's work and selling it. I got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

So that was my grandfather's, who I never got to meet, but I hear he was an amazing man. But he had this lumber yard that we got to play in growing up because it was abandoned. Nobody really just a lot of old stuff. And so when my grandmother passed, they decided to build a shopping center. Um, so I managed it, I helped design, create, and do all the fun stuff. So uh, but again, did not fund it. And then my grandmother's house was uh on a main highway in a small city in uh just south of Lafayette, Louisiana. And so um it was we turned we decided that if I was gonna help come run, if I was gonna come into the business, we needed to make more money so that we could support lifestyles, and so um, and so we decided to turn that uh my grandmother's house into a child care center.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Oh, so it was me, me, me and papa's. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

So so we did it, and it it was uh it's still there today. The building is a lot uh older. Uh they we have since sold the shopping center. Um, and so the current owner is a uh friend, he lives in Seattle, Washington, um, of all places, and uh he's actually got it up for sale right now, and we're toying with the my wife and I are toying with buying it back. So it's just anyway, so that was the second center, which we we kind of started from scratch. Um, and I guess fun fact, my grandmother, uh, way before my time, did have a the first childcare center in that city in a building right next to or right behind her uh house. And so it was kind of like it kind of all came full circle, and um it was so it was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

And then that is a great story. So, what is the name of your programs? And are all of them the same kind of program, or do they all have a unique personality? Carrie had four schools, all with very different personalities, all under the same name umbrella, but very different culture, very different personalities. What about y'all?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah, so pretty similar. So all very similar names. So it's sugar, apostrophe in spice, and then followed by either Acadiana's Preschool, Bruce Arts Preschool, that that's the location, Caracro's or Youngville's preschool. And so they are very different uh in size and in culture. So uh, and a lot of it, but there the the culture and a lot of it, hopefully, thanks to some of the stuff we learned in uh at a class with two lovely ladies about branding in uh Memphis recently is is to kind of bring it all together, but they'll each have their own unique, you know, style. But what we found years ago when we when we opened all of them, they're they're in different areas of our um you know, different areas, and so the culture of the clients were different. And so it even though you know we we are known in Cajun Country as these, you know, we we've got this this uh culture that's really strong, but even in these little pockets, they're a lot different. So we kind of catered to that one, but the buildings are different and their sizes. So we've got one that's licensed for 250 plus, and we've got one that's licensed for 110, and another that's uh uh a hundred something, and then my grandmother's house, which is was licensed for 68.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

And so 250, that's its own shopping center.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Right, right, right, right. It is. It's uh it's a large campus, and that was actually um in the same that was actually the same campus that started everything.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

So that's the one that's is that so is the dance studio now part of the center and now runs the school age program, or is it still a dance studio or so it uh we is it the corporate offices?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Sold the dance studio years ago, and the lady who bought it um sold it again to somebody else. They all took dancing from her, talked with her. And so the lady that owns it now is related to is my uh our vice president Danielle Crater, who I believe you guys met recently.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

We met her in Key West.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yes, okay, and so she uh oh, I heard the duck story. That's fantastic. Way to go, Carrie. I had every bit of faith in you. So um that's for a different podcast, too, maybe. But so her aunt is now the owner of the dance studio, and so during for the nine months that they are teaching dancing, which is during the school year, she utilizes she leases that uh space from us. Um and then in the summertime, we add about a hundred and twenty summer campers to the dance, and we fill up those dance rooms.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

And so your summer has 300 kids?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Uh between all four locations, we're pushing about 320. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

It's uh we've got I would say that's a busy summer. That's a busy summer.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

So it's my favorite part of this, and I I don't do it as much as I used to, but we we go on field trips almost every day. We've got uh buses on the road, and the kids just I mean, we we have a we actually built a splash pad uh a few years back behind that location. So um, and that was at about the time when my wife and I were about to build a house.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Uh and uh instead of building a house, you built a splash pad. I think that's reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

We we actually uh I wanted to expand our playground, and my neighbor um had his house for sale, and so I was like, and it was an old ranch style house, so I was like, look, Mark, I just want to buy the back wooded area of your house of your lot to expand my playground. He said, No, Jonathan, it's I'm selling it all or nothing. So I told my wife, and oh Michelle, she's she looked at it online and she was like, Well, let me just see. Well, he was asking, I think,$215,000, and the house we were gonna build was gonna be double that. And I I was stressed out about it because I didn't know where the hell we were gonna get that money. Um, we'd need to open another three locations, but anyway. So she looked at it, they redid the inside, and so we thought about it and you know, kind of prayed on it. Her dad was a real estate agent at the time. So we called him up on a Friday and said, Hey, uh, we think we want to make an offer on this house. So the Friday we went, we actually looked at it and we made an offer that afternoon. They accepted on the Sunday, and we bought the house next door to our largest center at Messiah.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

So is that where you currently live or you lived there one time?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

No, so we actually currently live there and we've added on. It was a uh it wasn't a small house. I mean, it was but uh we've three kids and a dog. So uh we we definitely added on. Uh, and we love it. It's it's great, it's unassuming.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

And you're available to substitute when needed. Real short.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, now I've one of my favorite things to do is drive our buses. I absolutely love driving the buses. So um I think that answered your question. I just kind of dove in.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Yeah, I don't know. We haven't even talked about anything and we've been on for 14 minutes. So you had a 14-minute life story. Um, so no, that's a good conversation.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Hello.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

That's a good conversation. And I have an idea for a field trip that I might want to go with you on. So we'll talk about that after the call.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Um she wants to go pet some gators. I know what you want, but that is not what I want to do. Pet some gators. There we go.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Um but so you at some point were like, okay, this running of these multiple programs is a lot of you know fun or interesting. And then you decided to go be on boards of things, like because you didn't have enough to do. Like, what was that? What was that step?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

So it's actually a uh a fun story for me to tell, too. So I was getting deep into this, and we have these inspectors come in, these licensing specialists, you know, to do their uh inspections, and we had all our paperwork together. And so the director would like page me in my office and say, hey, the inspector's here. They're saying our paperwork's not right. And so I'm like, Well, we made this paper, I made this document to like sign in, sign out sheets. It had permission, it had all this stuff. I made it with one of our specialists. That's what she wanted. And so I I walked over and I was like, Look, I you need to tell me what's going on.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

I just love that. I walked over.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah. Well, not from my house. This was uh okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

I I'm having visions of literally you you you left the home office and you walked across the parking lot. And I just I sorry, okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

No, no, no, no, no. I my office was in a different building. So I walk over to meet him and I'm like, look, this is what we did. And I just got so fed up with licensing that the they were very just this is how we want it today. Tomorrow it's gonna be different. And I so I started Googling. Let me find the conference and Louisiana, um, childcare Louisiana Conference. Well, Childcare Association of Louisiana came up, and so I was like, all right, I'm going to this conference and I'm gonna learn stuff. And I saw one of the classes was director's roundtable discussion. I was like, oh no, owners slash director's roundtable discussion. I was like, perfect. I'm going to this session. And it was in the middle, it was a breakout session, but it was in the main ballroom. We had Miss Liz Dent, Elizabeth Dent, cutest lady you you'll ever meet. Um, she's a lot older than, but she had a wand. And it was uh she had a uh flip chart and a wand, and we started. What problems? She asked, what problems are you having? And I'll bring you the wand. And so I waited for people to start talking, and you know, somebody would say something like, Oh, we're having trouble collecting money. And I'm like, Oh, well, we're not, but uh, that's okay. So somebody else would say something else. We're having trouble with our licensing specialist. And I'm like, okay, that's me. And then somebody, then all of a sudden I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just started taking notes, and everybody's writing on the flip chart. And so towards the end, we're looking like everybody's looking around the room, and I'm thinking, okay, that was fun. Just a session where everybody goes, and you know, uh just I was gonna say something else, but this is about a childcare conference. They just okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

We use those words all the time. So everybody was bitching. Gotcha. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Okay, and okay, what it was a great bitch session. I mean, I feel a little better, but what are we gonna do with all this? And so I was like, I've got the notes. Let me go talk to somebody. So I went and found the president of the association at the time, is Pat Crocker. And I was like, hey, Pat, you were in this thing with us, but what are we gonna do now? And a few other people were around, and they said, That's a great question. What are we gonna do? And I said, Well, I've got all this document. Like, what do we do with this now? Like, I've I wrote everything down and uh well, we need to go to to set up a meeting with him. Uh, do you want to be a board member? And I was like, Um, let me ask my my fiance. We weren't married at the time, and she dropped me off and went shopping.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

And so I was about to ask you the role that your your wife and kids play in the program. So your wife spends your money. Got it. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Absolutely. And she does a really good job, man. She's really, really good. And so uh, so we we she I talked to her about it on the way home, and she was like, Yeah, I think that'd be great. And so I got on this board not knowing what to expect. Um, and I had actually served on a Chamber of Commerce board of directors in the city of Youngsville, where I still serve, but I'd started that when a great name for a town, Youngsville. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

I think I need to go there.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

You do you absolutely do? Everybody does. It's actually one of the fastest growing cities in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

I don't think we made the connection, Carrie. Kate's last name.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Oh my god. I did not, I don't know where where I was going.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

That's okay. I used to say the same thing when I lived in Oklahoma that I kept needing to go spend more time in Woodward, Oklahoma. In the same kind, I get the same response. They're like, but it's up in the panhandle. Nobody really goes there. And I'm like, so my maiden name was Woodward. Like, you know, like they're like, oh, you know, so I don't have that happen with either of my last names.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

There that's and then happen.

SPEAKER_04 20:45

I want to go run for mayor.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Do it. Yeah, the mayor's actually a really good friend of mine. He's good.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Well, tell them they need to they need to leave and they need to hire me. No, it's real fun.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Come on in. Come on in. We would love it.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

How how did you pick what what your next career is gonna be, Kate? Well, I had this conversation with Jonathan and found out there was a name, a town named after me.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

Not really, but it sounded fun. Okay, so sorry, that was No, no, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

I loved it. So it's the city of Youngsville is the where we had my grand, the my grandmother's house in that center. So I was on the board of directors. So I knew how the boards worked, and um then with this childcare system.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

You thought you knew how boards work.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Right. Yeah, that is 100% correct. And I can tell you some stories over the past uh that was 2009 I started. And then so I learned a lot. We started actually going to the started advocating, not always at the legislature, but advocating with our regulatory authority. And so we would set up regular meetings with them, and it was fantastic. And we were under the uh it was DCFS, which is Department of Children's. And family services are as we used to call them the Department of Communist, Fascist, Socialists. Um and but we actually in 2012 had the uh lead agency change from them to the Department of Education, which was a huge shift for our um industry over here. It was it was awesome, and the regulatory framework kind of changed. We gutted the regs 33 percent, but it was because we were advocating with directly with the regulators, the people that are actually regulating our industry, and we were we had a seat at the table, and we were, you know, we we were polite about it, and so then we started advocating, or at the same time we had a lobbyist uh who was also our is also our executive director. She would lobby at the Capitol. And so then I started following her. Then I became president of the association for a while, and then um I became legislative chair uh right after COVID and when, or right during COVID, and when that we we did a whole lot of good for Louisiana and childcare during COVID. We stayed open, we were we were talking to everybody. But the the advocacy part is like I'm passionate about it because I saw the change that was made. I saw what could happen. I saw it was it was real powerful for me, and so it was exciting.

SPEAKER_04 23:26

Okay, so I just want to make sure I clarify and that if people are listening didn't catch this, um you guys started by really advocating at the regulatory agency level, not at the state level. And I think that that's important because I think sometimes, especially in states that have multiple associations of different types, that not everybody has to be at one level. So if your issues are at the regulatory level, starting there, now if your issues are at the state budget level, the regulatory folks can't help you, right? So like that's a whole different but that again, if you are a state, which most states have two different child care associations with different and some have five. Some have some have some have a few more. Um but usually you've got two organizations. Um, and again, like Texas, we've got several that because we've also got our own child care or child organization. So not necessarily child care, but advocating for children, which covers like all kinds of topics, right? And so I think that it's really interesting that if you are sitting here listening to this podcast and you're like, okay, Kate and Gary have some advocacy person like every other month. This month they've already, they're already up to two in three weeks. Um, you know, I I get it, but and so I just want to I want you to hear that, yes, we talk about it a lot because it is something that we all have a voice for. Our teachers have a voice, as owners, as directors, we have a voice. But that voice, sometimes we talk about it should be at your local um sometimes it's local zoning.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Because um, there's a there's a town that the zoning said that you could only have child care centers on four lane roads or higher. So it had to be four lanes or more, and that's where you they wanted the child care centers. They didn't want them in the in the neighborhoods, they wanted them on the busy commercial streets. And I was like, that's dumb. Um, and so I did some advocacy on that and they've changed it. Um, and other times it is your regulatory agency is out of sync with what is reality, and other times it's that your state has decided that they're not gonna fund childcare anymore. And you know, it's what is the issue for your community, your center right now, and advocate for that and go get you some friends, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

A lot, and and that, but that that was it. We re- I learned that it's on all of those levels. We is and people, what I found in the legislature or the regulatory bodies, they weren't looking at us as businesses, they were looking at us as babysitters, childcare centers. Um, they didn't realize the impact we had on the business community, like the idea of the.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Okay, so I have a question about that. So, did that did that continue even when you guys went to the Department of Education, or did it get worse there?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

So it started getting better because they started uh looking at us not as babysitters or not as diaper changers, but as educators. And so we started credentialing and leveling up our teachers, and you know, we we put some quality stuff that was important. We had these school readiness tax credits that we helped develop, which are amazing. I mean, these are business tax credits that come with them. It's that you know, it's based on you know what our teachers are doing with the kids. And it's you know, it's it's not a perfect system, but it's it's really great. It benefits the teachers because they get this refundable tax credit of$3,000. So we saw the regulatory um uh burdens come down, and the inspectors were there, uh, the specialists we call them now, they were there to help us and not to, I got you. And we we saw that like that kind of came down a little bit, which was a lot, and people started to notice. And so our membership grew because they realized what we were doing, and so people would talk about it. You need to go to this conference. And so what we have now, and we actually have our conference uh on April 10th and 11th um this year, our spring conference, and it's we actually have the Department of Education, the early childhood folks, the people that deal with CCAP, uh, we have food program, we've got the regulatory folks, we've got the the head of uh early childhood at the Department of Education, he's right under our state superintendent. They come to our conference and they talk. Uh they they open up our conference after this year's our after our keynote, they'll come in and speak. But uh our keynote is uh Regina Miller this year. And so um they come in and they talk about what's going on, and then they've got a staff in the back that are there for technical assistance. Like, so we tell our members, look, if you have a problem that you're you're needing help with, bring your laptop, bring your computer, and go meet with them in the back. So, like things like that that really, really help out. And it's not a perfect system, but then to answer your question, Kate, it did kind of taper off. And it was, you know, the uh we we had some other people come in, and then they had uh a legislative audit, and when they had a legislative audit, they were running over time and doing some things that maybe they shouldn't have done, and so they had to really cut back, and then so the the uh the top dogs kind of changed up a little bit, and so they they had to put the uh hammer down on some of these folks. So it's uh but but it's getting better, slowly getting better.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

So before we wrap up, tell us about so now you've got them thinking of you guys as really understanding that your businesses, that you actually have, you know, financial impact in the community if you're not open. Tell us a little bit about how what you would say to somebody who's listening to this podcast who is not from Louisiana. If you are from Louisiana, all of Jonathan's contact information is in the show notes. If you are not from Louisiana and you're going, our state so doesn't do this, they need to talk to Jonathan, Jonathan's contact information is in the show notes. Go grab them and reach out to him. But if somebody's listening and they're like, I just can't even get my local community to understand I'm not a babysitter. What is vocabulary that an owner or director should think about incorporating about helping folks get that mind shift, mindset shift?

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Oh, nice. Well done. So I love and hate this question. I I love it because it's so important and I hate it because it's so tough to answer. I don't think there's a perfect answer. But what what I do know for a fact, and somebody taught me this years ago, uh you and when you're communicating, communicate the way that somebody else wants the person you're communicating to, communicate them that way. And whether that's text messaging, uh leaving voicemails, whether that's face-to-face, whether it's on a podcast, a Zoom, or whatever. Like meet them where they want you, they want to communicate. And then you have to the words that you use are going to be different at different levels. So they're gonna be different across party lines. So it it and that's that's a big one too. So right now in Louisiana, we've got a supermajority. So focus on who you're talking to first and speak to them in their language because we're we're everything. We are uh we are small businesses, some large businesses, we are advocates, we are educators, we're plumbers, electricians, uh bus drivers, all of these that we talk about all the time. But if if I'm gonna talk to a Democrat that is uh you know uh really big on social welfare, then I'm gonna talk to him about funding childcare assistance and matching the CCDF, and I'm gonna explain it to him on a level that doesn't make him feel stupid or her. Um but if I'm speaking to a Republican who is like pro-business, then and you know, oh I'm gung-ho pro-life, then say, all right, look, all your kids that you want to be born, they need a place to go. And then we're gonna talk about the business aspect of what we do and the economic impact. And so they're not gonna care about the so we found over the years, and and not everybody's exactly the same, but we found some are diehard, and they're not gonna change the way that they think about us being babysitters and just dick ears. So we're gonna have to figure out how to explain to him the importance of what we do and make it if if that's what you think we are, we're here because parents need to go to work. And those and what we're trying to do is help those families uh lift them up, right? Like that's that's what social welfare is about. So, but if we're talking a regulatory advocacy about us being businesses, then we're gonna explain to them uh it in a totally different fashion. And say, because they they don't know what it's like to be business owners, and so a lot of the legislators do, um, but a lot of the regulatory folks don't understand it. And so look, we we understand that you know you're coming in, but we also had the fire marshal come in and tell us that we can't lock this door, and so you know, and and it's it's just kind of showing them how we have to navigate things. Oh man, look at that new fence. That fence cost me$15,000, and my salaries are 60% of my revenue on a good month. Um, and yeah, but but explaining it to them. And the the parents, they they they don't understand expenses most of the time. They they just know that childcare is expensive.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

And so another piece of advice is when you go up on tuition, don't go get a new truck the next day.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Yeah, no, don't get a G-Wagon if you're complaining that you don't have the the money for something. Absolutely. No, absolutely not. So that F-150. I got the brand new F-150 and I got the spinning wheels. And no, no, don't do that.

SPEAKER_04 34:15

Absolutely not. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us. And folks, we will definitely have Jonathan back for maybe one to five more episodes. We'll see. We might have Jonathan um be a be a regular guest. But uh, we are so glad that you joined us. And Carrie, what does what do people need to do?

SPEAKER_03 34:33

Well, they need to share the show with somebody else who needs to know what we talked about today. And um go out and figure out who is one person you can talk to about a challenge that you're having in your program. Find one person. It can be, you know, that go and making friends so that you have somebody to go with you to talk to licensing or go with you to talk to your city council, but find what is one issue that you're having a problem with and go find one person to talk to. And then you can find a second person to talk to. And make sure you're subscribed to the show and so that you hear who we have coming on next. And who knows, it might just be Kate and I talking about some stuff, or we might have a fun guest who grew up in the industry and is remaking the regulatory structure of their state. You won't know if you're not subscribed or following the show. Talk to you in a few days.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Thanks, Kate.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at kateandcary.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.