Care work has historically been carried out by women outside of the paid labor force (Duffy, 2011). With the growing movement of middle-class women into the labor force, this work has increasingly become commercialized throughout the world (Folbre, 2012). Care workers generally perform what is considered "family work," such as cleaning, watching children, and assisting older people, that is often seen as intrinsically rewarding (England & Folbre, 1999) and as a result is poorly compensated in many countries (Duffy, Armenia, Stacey, & Nelson, 2015). As Helena Hirata (2016) noted in her comparison of care workers in Brazil, Japan, and France, "Care work is a prime example of the inequalities intertwined with gender, class and race, as the majority of carers are women, poor, Black and often migrants" (p. 54). This is true in the United States as well (Ergas, Jenson, & Michel, 2017; Folbre, 2012). Child care is one type of caregiving. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of U.S. families rely on nonparental care for children before they are 5, child care professionals are among the most poorly paid U.S. workers (Laughlin, 2013; Whitebook, McLean, & Austin, 2016). Their voices are also rarely heard in debates around child care policy and programming that directly affects them and their ability to provide care. This article reports findings from a study of licensed center-based and home-based child care providers in New York State (n = 55), focusing on providers' perceptions about their profession. (author abstract)