We happily enrolled our two in full-time childcare and preschool from 3-4 months on. They thrived, and so did we. My mom saw one of her friends basically give up her life to take care of her grandchildren & was adamant that she wouldn’t be doing the same. She was great at picking them up from school or taking care of they were sick, and having them over for short periods, but she was tired.
My in-laws never watched the girls.
Our oldest and SIL don’t plan on kids for whatever reason. Our younger daughter, I don’t know. Maybe if she marries her long-time BF?
I just looked up the center they went to at 2 1/2 - it would cost $60K/year for full-time care and preschool for two kids. Baby care would be even more. I wouldn’t be able to do it.
With mortgage, insurance, normal expenses- I don’t know how kids are affordable unless you’re high or low income.
That’s true, of course. Not every woman sees a career path ahead anyway, or one that can’t withstand a 5 yr interruption. And for some young couples, I think they are doing whatever they have to at the moment.
I stopped working, and didn’t reenter the workforce for many many years. Did that change things? Of course. Of course. But my mid-life job was a happy one. I’ve no regrets.
I noticed this is infant care, which is more expensive than older kid care in our state.
As @fallgirl mentioned - it’s more expensive than college. It’s also almost twice as expensive as the 4 year public college near us.
I have mentioned many times that I do regret taking a 10 year hiatus from the paid workforce. In my case it was more a logistical issue( H traveled, no family nearby) than childcare costs.
I think it’s a mistake in assuming the childcare cost should be deducted from the woman’s income. If there are 2 parents present, it should be deducted 50/50.
As a SAHM I had kids here before school, after school, half days, breaks and did aftercare pickup and brought kids to CCD, sports and dance (had great carpools, I was always just the early leg). I always had kids here anyway, and they’d bring snacks. For years my landscapers assumed I ran a daycare (yard toys and such, plus the kids). I know I am lucky to live in an area with a village. I hope my kids have one.
D & SIL both work at home, but it’s pretty much impossible to work and watch their D. They absolutely have to have someone else watch her … and not at home, because she wants to be with Mom if she’s there. So yes, childcare is necessary for working parents unless they are on opposite shifts (I had several parents who did that when I worked as a production supervisor). And it is expensive … very expensive. D has a couple friends with three kids who took a break from work once the third arrived - the cost of childcare exceeded one income.
Even supposedly inexpensive childcare in my area is too expensive for the typical worker. Some leave their kids in less than ideal childcare situations because they don’t have a choice. Others use childcare but are not always able to pay the provider, which leads to providers having to close. Our local paper did an excellent deep dive into the situation, and it isn’t a good one. Parents need childcare, and if they can’t afford it, they can’t necessarily just quit working …
I absolutely ruined my ability to earn a decent salary when I took time off to raise my kids. I was fortunate to be able to afford to stay home, but the impact on my future earnings was huge. I don’t regret it, but again … I was able to afford it. Too many people don’t have that luxury.
Our state has free universal preschool for four year olds, which relieves some of the monetary burden once the kid is 4. But before that time - and in the summer - the cost is staggering. My S has a coworker who told him what he pays for childcare, and my S told me that he doesn’t know how this man and his wife can afford childcare - yet if one of them quits, it doesn’t really solve their problem. He has never wanted kids, but he is absolutely certain now that he knows what childcare costs.
Carpools, stay-at-home parents, and involved grandparents saved my sanity and allowed my kids to get involved in activities that would have otherwise been inaccessible as well as have downtime playing with friends and hanging out with grandparents.
Our lives would have been much more stressful without a village. During times when my job was rigid, the help was invaluable and I leaned on other people or I took the late leg of the carpool. During the times when my job was flexible, I tried to pay it forward by meeting buses or picking up other kids or taking an early carpool leg so other parents were leaning on me. Heck, sometimes it wasn’t another parent, but another child’s nanny or babysitter would take one of my kids some place while I took a sibling and a different set of friends some place else.
But overall, it was not always reciprocal in the moment —sometimes I’d do more than the other parents in my village and sometimes I had to do less. And other times, I just had to say no to my kids because I couldn’t magically be at four different places simultaneously or I thought as a family, we all needed to take a breath and just stay home. It all worked out in the end but wow it was exhausting and when I remember those days, I am amazed that I had that kind of energy. The logistics alone was mind bending!
But going back to the original thread about 500k jobs, there was a question about how we can even know how other people live and what stresses they face —I claimed that I had a good idea of the lives of friends making much less and much more than I do. How did I learn about their lives and get at least some idea of their good times, triumphs, woes, and hard moments? I made them part of my village. You can find out a lot when you allow yourself to lean on other folks and welcome them in to lean on you.
With everyone saying that WFH also requires childcare, I have always thought that this easily explains why a SAHP should not be expected to do other work (housework) while watching children either. Frankly, it’s safer and more effective to write emails in a room with a toddler than to cook on a hot stove or use chemicals like bleach in a room with a toddler.
I totally agree about the impact on a mother’s salary and work-life/career if she’s expected to not work instead of paying for daycare. No one has yet mentioned what can happen if the husband leaves her or if he becomes incapacitated (or dies). Childcare is a family cost, not a woman’s cost.
D1 spent 8 years teaching Kindergarten. D1, SIL and GD moved to his home state of CT earlier this year where they could afford to buy a house. D1’s MIL was let go from her job last January after 43 years with the company. She lives 45 minutes from D1, SIL and GD and is helping 2 days a week with childcare for GD who just turned 1. D1 has cobbled together about 15 hours per week of work that she does over the 2 days when her MIL can help so that she does not have to pay childcare costs at this point.
Possible death or disability of a working parent should be considered for buying life and disability insurance on the working parent. If a parent is staying home to watch the kid(s), then the cost of replacing that parent’s child care labor should be considered for life and disability insurance on the stay-at-home parent.
Not disagreeing- but disability insurance (other than what someone’s workplace might offer) is VERY expensive, and it can be tough to justify with a young family’s budget. Having a second wage-earner is risk management, for sure…
Our DD lives about an hour and ten minutes from us. Helping her with childcare could be done… but not everyday.
Also, she has two dogs…and while I alone can manage a baby, I think, I cannot manage a baby and two dogs (one is 75 pounds, the other 35 pounds…and they need lots of attention).
Also, DD and SIL live in a small house. So having us spend the night could be challenging.
Eons ago when I was in HS and wondering what type of career I might want to pursue my dad jumped in. He researched jobs that would be “good for a woman”. And while I took offense to some extent from the description he did a good service for me. A lot of health professions fit the bill and I was science minded. They allowed someone to jump in and out of the profession (as long as in demand) if you stopped to have kids, were available nation-wide even in rural areas, and provided an income independent of a spouse (which he felt was very important). Worked out well for me! I was able to jump in and out of the workforce.
Now my kids are the beneficiaries from the WFH trend. It doesn’t solve the problems of needing child care but it definitely adds flexibility that didn’t used to exist.
My dad died unexpectedly and suddenly in his mid-40s, leaving my mom and 5 kids. There was $10K in life insurance. My mom had to quickly take over the family business, which she then ran for the next 17-ish years. Thank god for the survivors benefits. She was so exhausted that she wasn’t going to do childcare - and I didn’t blame her!
Friends of hers left abusive spouses, others were divorced and got nothing. It was scary out there when fewer women worked outside the home. Scary now when neither parent really knows if they’ll have a job in the future. (See Microsoft offering 27K the opportunity to quit, and the layoffs that are sure to come after.)
I really don’t know how real middle-income families do it these days
I had one of those careers (allied health professional). Terrible hours, worked shifts and holidays, high stress, little chance for advancement. pay was peanuts.
FWIW = I had a few work colleagues in the “good for a woman” profession who were returning after taking breaks for raising families. Regardless of years of experience, they were paid starting salaries and were at the bottom of the list for shifts/weekends/holidays. No thanks.
Went back to school and changed professions. No regrets.
I switched to my “good for women” career after realizing that I didn’t want to be pregnant while working in an assembly plant. First job, early 80’s, post-staying home job late 2000’s … earned less at the new job than I had earned 35 years before. Same field.
