Cecelia McGee: “I don’t see this as a burden. It’s something I like to do.”

Story By: Bruce Poinsette

Illustration By: Paola De La Cruz

This story is made possible by a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation.

Cecelia McGee has been an in-home childcare provider for 14 years. Currently, she looks after eight children who range from 18 months to 12 years old. 

As a longtime, proven Black provider, she has been able to weather the COVID 19 pandemic by being in high demand, especially from parents looking for culturally relevant caregivers. While she is registered in the Child Care Resource and Referral program, most of her recommendations come from word of mouth.

“I’ve been able to spread my wings by caring for children and having parents tell other parents about me,” says McGee. 

She actually got her start when her daughter was expecting and needed support. McGee suggested sending her to daycare, but the costs were too high.

“Mom you’re not gonna do that to me right?,” she remembers her daughter asking.

From there, McGee began researching the childcare business. She was working as a Human Resources director at a nursing home at the time. While the prospect of starting her own childcare business was costly, her background in caregiving both professionally and with her family in Liberia helped prepare her to make the transition.

McGee came from a family of 8 children and has 5 children of her own. She says they didn’t have washers, dryers or an electric stove. Nonetheless, she was able to get her children ready for school every day and handle food and transportation.

“I learned the hard way,” says McGee.

It also helped that she grew up in an environment where taking care of children was seen as more of a community responsibility.

“Mom can go off to the market and tell the neighbors, ‘Keep an eye on my child,’” she says.

Fast forward to today and McGee’s days, which might seem like a gauntlet to some, are easy for her. During the school year, she gets started at 8:30 am (in the summer, it’s 5:30 am) and often doesn’t have the opportunity to sit until 5:15 pm. Most days, she closes at 7 or 7:30 pm, which doesn’t include the hour plus she spends cleaning the facility so it’s ready for the next day. In addition to providing instruction, arts and crafts and other activities for her children, McGee is also responsible for providing five meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks) throughout the day, plus an additional meal for children who stay after 7 pm. Since many of her parents are comfortable with her, McGee says they often run errands and their children end up staying after the 7 pm closing time.

“I don’t see this as a burden,” she says. “It’s something I like to do.”

While McGee’s husband and daughter can help at times, she says it’s only her 95% of the time. Nonetheless, not just does she feel comfortable with the eight children she currently watches, she is actually looking into expanding. There are a number of obstacles to finding additional space, but the most pronounced is cost. For example, in the Concordia neighborhood, where she has been looking, she says she hasn’t seen a house under $500,000. There are also proposals for laws  requiring amenities like sprinkler systems that could pose a financial obstacle for providers like McGee who operate from their homes.

While these potential new measures could pose a challenge, McGee tries not to think about what regulations or other resources she would change. After working in a nursing home, she says she gained appreciation for the barriers preventing some of the worst abuses in caregiving.

That said, she would like to see more reimbursement for food. Even though she is required by law to provide five meals, the state only reimburses providers for three.

If things stay as is, McGee is content though. Word of mouth referrals keep her busy and she prefers them because they come with built-in familiarity.

No matter what happens, she doesn’t see herself slowing down anytime soon. McGee says she wants to keep going until she’s 65.

“This is easy,” she says. “I had someone say, ‘The kids don’t cry much.’ Why would they if they’re alright?”