About Waging Love
A documentary. A podcast. A research project. One mission: justice for the people who care for our children.
Why This Project Exists
The early childhood education workforce in the United States is in crisis — and it is a crisis by design.
ECE professionals earn a median wage of $13.07 per hour. More than one in eight live below the poverty line. The workforce is overwhelmingly female and disproportionately composed of women of color. Despite requiring specialized education, ongoing professional development, and the kind of emotional labor that no training fully prepares you for, early childhood educators are compensated as though their work is unskilled.
This is not a market failure. It is a policy choice — the result of decades of underinvestment in a system that every working family depends on. And it is sustained by what researchers call the sacrifice economy: the expectation that care workers will accept poverty wages because they love children.
Waging Love challenges that expectation. Through documentary film, scholarly podcast, and data-driven research, this project documents the lived reality of ECE workers, connects their experiences to structural analysis, and makes the case — with evidence, not sentiment — that the people who raise our children deserve to be compensated as the professionals they are.
About the Director
Tim Harper has worked in early childhood education for over twenty years. He has been a classroom teacher, a program coordinator, and a center director. He currently serves as a Child Development Center Director and teaches ECE courses at De Anza College in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Tim holds a Doctorate in Education (EdD) from San Jose State University, where his dissertation research examines the intersection of race, compensation, and workforce retention in early childhood education. His academic work draws on critical race theory, labor economics, and narrative inquiry to understand why the ECE field remains one of the lowest-compensated professions in the country despite the educational requirements and societal importance of the work.
Waging Love is the culmination of that research — a project that bridges the gap between academic scholarship and public advocacy. The 17 interviews at the heart of the documentary were conducted as part of Tim’s doctoral research, ensuring the film is grounded in both rigorous methodology and genuine human connection.
The Research Behind the Film
Waging Love is not journalism. It is a research-based documentary. The project draws on data from CSCCE, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, NAEYC, NIEER, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other leading sources. Every claim made in the film, the podcast, and on this website is sourced and verifiable.
The 17 original interviews were conducted using qualitative research methodology — semi-structured, IRB-approved protocols designed to capture both factual accounts and the emotional texture of ECE work.
Project Timeline
2021-2023 — Doctoral coursework and literature review at San Jose State University. Research design and IRB approval.
2024 — 17 in-depth interviews conducted with ECE professionals. All interviews recorded and transcribed.
2024-2025 — Dissertation writing and defense. Data analysis and visualization.
2025-2026 — Documentary post-production. Podcast development. Website launch. Social media content pipeline in development.
2026 — Targeted completion of documentary. Podcast launch. Festival submissions and screening tour.
Support the Mission
Waging Love is independently produced. Every dollar supports production, research, and distribution.
For institutional partnerships, grants, or sponsorship inquiries, please contact us.