Published by Patagonia, Family Business: Innovative On-Site Child Care Since 1983 illustrates what quality child care looks like and why providing on-site child care to working families is at the heart of responsible business.

Patagonia supports employees with paid leave to care for themselves or an immediate family member. We do it because it’s the right thing to do for employees and their families—and because it’s good for our business.

Patagonia has offered quality on-site child care since 1983. In this video, working mothers tell what Patagonia’s child-care center means to them. As one says about having her children at work with her everyday, “It is not just making a living, it is making a life.”

When companies offer on-site child care, the benefits are profound. Fathers tell how Patagonia’s child-care center allows them to balance work and family, changes them as fathers, and how it could transform gender roles.

Patagonia has offered on-site child care since 1983. In this video, a Patagonia employee describes how the on-site child-care program did much more than take care of his child while he was working—it transformed his life.

Offering on-site child care is the right thing to do for employees, working parents, and the workplace. It’s expensive to offer quality care and subsidize tuition, but the benefits—financial and otherwise—pay for themselves every year.

Unstructured play, where kids get messy and wild, is the pinnacle of play; and it’s at the core of Patagonia’s child-care program. Rejecting the idea that early childhood is for academics, we stand for children’s right to play.

Patagonia was founded by climbers—risk-taking is in our blood. We believe small risks build skills for assessing larger ones. Kids at our on-site child-care center take risks and learn to guide themselves safely, thoughtfully and confidently.