Josh Brooks hadn’t planned for a career taking care of young children, but in tenth grade he started spending time with his friend’s younger brother and discovered that he had a real knack for it.

At 18, Brooks took a job at Common Ground, a child care center in northern Virginia, and enjoyed it so much he kept working there throughout college, where he studied psychology. After graduating, though, he felt pressure to get a “real grown-up job” and applied to work as a government contractor. He maintained spreadsheets all day and was miserable. “After nine months I realized how ridiculous that notion was, to keep myself from something that I loved,” he said. And so he returned back to Common Ground.

Brooks, now 28, knows his career path is unusual: In the US, only 3 percent of the prescho

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