“James is a firefighter who works 24- and 48-hour shifts. Chelsea is a nurse, but found the 12-hour shifts untenable with her young children. She’s interviewing for jobs with more flexibility around James’ long hours now. Colorado has a shortage of both nurses and firefighters.
“In the Pikes Peak Region, only about 60 percent of moms with kids under the age of 6 are in the labor force. Across the U.S., 43% of children… have a parent who works long shifts of nontraditional hours. But just 8% of child care centers open before 7 a.m. or stay past 6 p.m.
“In El Paso County, nearly three compete for every licensed slot.”
— “A family of first responders pieces together child care, and the logistics are ‘exhausting’ “ by Jenny Brundin, Colorado Public Radio, May 2026
* * *
Before sunrise in Denver, Falon Thomas is already awake. By 5:30 a.m., she’s getting herself ready and getting four children up, fed and out the door.
“I wake up in the morning, I get myself together … then I get the kids together.”
“In her apartment, the walls are stark white, dining chairs rest seat-side down on the table — markers of a recent move. The space is immaculate, but the air feels frantic. She calmly ties a sneaker for her son perched on the kitchen counter, while his brother streaks past in a Spider-Man mask.
“She drops off her two youngest at a preschool in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood and the others at public school.
“There is little room for error; with family in Texas and no reliable option nearby, she doesn’t have a backup plan if she falls sick.
“She balances part-time work with 12-hour clinical shifts to become a respiratory therapist. It’s a dream job in a state facing chronic health care staffing shortages and a job she wants ‘so I can have a better life.’ Without child care, Thomas said, it wouldn’t be possible.
“Like Thomas, thousands of Colorado families are navigating a child care system that is expensive and hard to find, depending upon where you live in the state.
“It’s a system that, by all accounts, is broken and in dire need of fixing, if not to allow Colorado’s nurses, grocery clerks, police officers, firefighters, even members of the military to do their essential jobs, but also to raise children who are well cared for and ready for kindergarten.
“The patchwork of child care and the hardship it can bring cuts across incomes.”
— “Raising Colorado: The untold costs of a broken childcare system,” by Jenny Brundin, Colorado Public Radio, May 2026