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And yeah, just TRY to work from home with a needy, demanding toddler.
Yup! Every once in a while I work from home with the kids home... impossible. I end up just responding to emails via phone (to show presence) through the day and actually do real work into the night sleeping later than usual. It cascades into the rest of the week as I never seem to catch up work wise... ugh..
Interesting bunch of assumptions you've pulled together there.
I believe that reasoning is called the 'great slippery slope' when employed by the liberal left. When that same logic is applied by repubs it is known as wearing a tin foil hat.
You could buy a new truck with cash for one year of childcare in some east coast locations.
Now the equivalent cost of a college education.
The tendency is for the government to step in, raise tax to provide the money for CC, instead of addressing the problem of cost and finding a solution. Just throw more taxpayer money at the problem.
Insurance costs and safety regulations are major drivers along with an application of whatever the market will bear.
This was part of why my spouse and I decided it would be better to focus on maximizing his income potential while I left my career to become a full-time mother. I'm not sure our strategy would be wise or even successful for a couple today, but we were able to make it work.
We took the middle ground.
In the beginning (our 2nd birth was twins with medical issues), she stayed home full time with the children. At the time, I worked two jobs and later transitioned into a higher paying single job (but long hours) but overall easier on my mind/body.
As the medical issues eased a little... she transitioned into Part-time work/career and part-time stay at home mother... the only requirement was that we at least broke even with the part time day care costs. She was having difficulties being a SAHM plus we decided at some point in time the kids will be in school. She'll need something of a work/career history to transition back into the workforce. The kids are now in public school (this is the first year). I think she'll still be part-time for a little while to give her a few days to focus on other things and the kids are still at a demanding age.
The costs of childcare are a problem, I agree. If we had a year of parental leave, that would help immensely.
When I had one child, my employer paid half of my daycare costs. That was a huge help! If they hadn't, I would have had to stay home simply because we would not have been able to afford to pay for daycare (when you consider all that goes along with that, including more doctor visits for the baby who picks up every bug at daycare, work clothes, commuting costs, not being home to cook dinner each night and relying more on takeout, baby formula rather than exclusive breastfeeding, and so on). By the time I was pregnant with my second, my husband and I decided that it would make more sense for me to just stay home. And so that's what I did.
I know families where the dad works a middle income job and the mom works a close-to-minimum-wage job and they send their child or children to daycare. I don't understand it at all. One mom works at a convenience store (as a cashier, not a manager) and they have two children in daycare. Her entire paycheck must go toward daycare.
Looks like they want the "child care model to be changed". That seems to be just another way of saying they want free and drastically reduced prices for childcare and the government pays the rest.
Seems like liberals want 22 or 23 years of government-paid education programs as opposed to the current 13 years.
Interesting, how it doesn't seem two-parents working full-time with megacommutes and big child care expenses isn't the utopia as promised.
Rather then 13 years of schooling paid for by government, liberals seem to advocate birth thru college for free which would mean 22+ years paid for by government.
Since day-care and universities are more expensive this would require the educational component of taxes to nearly double from the already extreme expenses
They haven't seen anything yet, minimum wages are set to skyrocket in many states and supposedly child care worker wages tend to be several dollars over the minimum wage.
There is also lots of parents out there only paying a few dollars a day for childcare and the government takes care of the rest, which means that supply plummets from all the welfare payments which means child-care centers can charge as much as they want for middle-class parents.
Supposedly, many centers charge a dollar a minute after 6pm which means if a parent is stuck in traffic like many cities that they run up a big tab for being late.
I didn`t know that I wanted free child care until I read this. Thanks OP.
Didn't cost us a penny with both my girls. I changed my shift so I made sure I was home while my wife worked hers. It wasn't easy sometimes but we made it work. Very rare we needed a day here or there and that's where my mom, my MIL or SIL stepped in. Reckon we was lucky is all.
Didn't cost us a penny with both my girls. I changed my shift so I made sure I was home while my wife worked hers. It wasn't easy sometimes but we made it work. Very rare we needed a day here or there and that's where my mom, my MIL or SIL stepped in. Reckon we was lucky is all.
Yes.
Many people I know have each parent working an opposite shift or one parent working while the other takes care of the family. Sacrifices required? Oh, heck, yeah. The kids are better off for it, though.
I've never told my children this explicitly, but it's always been my plan, given continuing good health, to take care of any grandchildren I am lucky enough to have. Childcare expenses are too high for it to work any other way. But that may actually be moot because none of my kids seem to be interested in becoming parents -- one is absolutely adamant about not having children -- and I think it mostly boils down to the economics of it. It's not because we had a bad family life, quite the opposite, but they're all really scared that they just won't be able to afford it, and I understand their reticence.
When I had one child, my employer paid half of my daycare costs
Unfortunately, we've been seeing less and less employers willing to extend benefits like this to their employees.... as a cost cutting measure these days. It is a sign of the times. They don't really need to go above and beyond to attract hires.
20+ years ago when I was working my first "real" job, there was a group of parents with toddlers and infants. They worked it out with the company to provide closed office space while the parents shared the cost of furnishing and paying someone to provide daycare in the office. It allowed the parents to spend lunch time with their kid (the space was next to the lunch room). I'm pretty sure the whole thing was far cheaper than daycare.
It would have been nice to have something like that when I had children... I'm lucky just to find employers to offer 401k....
Didn't cost us a penny with both my girls. I changed my shift so I made sure I was home while my wife worked hers. It wasn't easy sometimes but we made it work. Very rare we needed a day here or there and that's where my mom, my MIL or SIL stepped in. Reckon we was lucky is all.
Yep.
But people won't look for solutions. They want someone else to figure out their lives for them. All the while saying 'it can't be done' as people all around them are doing it.
And the whole 'mom's career" takes a hit argument is bogus. With the amount of money thrown into daycare for 5 years, the raises she is getting? Aren't raises. She'd have been better off taking a few years part time or staying home, and then starting FT later. She hasn't "lost" income, as any income she would've earned during those years would've been burned up paying for daycare.
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Her entire paycheck must go toward daycare.
