A recent article from the Josiah Bartlett Center compared government regulation of housing and child care, claiming both industries suffer from overregulation. On the surface, the analogy may seem appropriate: two essential services, both expensive and in short supply. But the comparison is flawed, misleading and dangerous because it ignores the profound differences of human beings and inanimate objects.
Housing regulations typically deal with zoning, building codes, rent control and environmental impacts. While critics argue bureaucracy can slow development and drive up costs, a house is a product, an inanimate structure subject to economic variables.
Child care, by contrast, involves the care and development of living, vulnerable human beings. Regulations in this field are not arbitrary “red tape” but safeguards for children’s safety, learning and well-being. New Hampshire children are not commodities, and their care should not be governed by the same logic as housing markets.
Rules on licensing, staff-to-child ratios and background checks exist for a reason: those
entrusted with young children bear responsibility for their safety and development. Weakening these protections in the name of affordability is not only risky but morally indefensible.
Providers themselves understand this. In a recent New Hampshire focus group, child care
professionals overwhelmingly opposed increasing child-to-staff ratios, even though higher ratios could boost revenue. Their concerns centered on safety, burnout and quality of care. The risks of deregulation are serious, including more safety hazards and risk of neglect, poorer learning and developmental outcomes, higher caregiver turnover and burnout and rising liability costs and diminished accountability.
If regulation is not the culprit, what is? It’s the child care workforce crisis. At an average wage of $15.43 per hour, among the lowest of all the industries in the nation, child care educators are leaving the field in alarming numbers. In 2025, a National Association for the Education of Young Children survey found that nearly half of child care educators experienced more burnout than the year before, largely due to inadequate resources for managing children’s developmental and behavioral challenges. Burnout translates directly into closed classrooms and fewer available slots.
Insurance adds another layer of strain. Liability coverage is a requirement in New Hampshire, yet premiums have skyrocketed or been denied entirely because of sector risks. A 2024 NAEYC survey revealed that 65% of providers would be forced to shut down without it. In Montana, similar regulatory adjustments have already destabilized providers and threatened access for families.
This is not to say regulations are beyond improvement. There is room to streamline processes and modernize oversight without compromising health and safety. In fact, New Hampshire is already doing this. From 2024 to 2025, Child Care Licensing and the state’s Child Care Advisory Council brought together a diverse group of providers, which they termed “ambassadors” who represented centers, family homes, nonprofits, and school-age programs, to review regulations.
Over 18 months, they met and went line by line through all of the New Hampshire licensing rules which resulted in recommendations that balance efficiency with the health and safety of children. These new regulations are pivotal to ensuring children’s health and safety while at the same time reducing some of the administrative barriers to operating a child care business.
That’s the kind of reform we need: thoughtful, collaborative and grounded in child well-being.
A poorly constructed house may be uncomfortable or expensive, but a poorly regulated child care system can cause trauma, delay development or even end in tragedy. Equating child care and housing is not just a bad analogy, it’s a disservice to New Hampshire families, child care educators and communities.
Children are not houses. Deregulating construction may cut costs. Deregulating child care would only increase risks, deepen inequities and erode public trust. Families deserve solutions that respect the dignity, safety and future of every child, not simplistic shortcuts that gamble with their well-being.
Lynn Ouellette is Chair of the New Hampshire Child Care Advisory Council.
Jacqueline Firmin represents the New Hampshire Association for the Education of Young Children she is also Secretary of the NHCCAC.