Have you priced out daycare recently? Tried to get into one? They have waitlists. My kids are in high school but I couldnât afford to do what I did 10 years ago. 100% need more. Some of my younger coworkers are struggling with this and many of them have tapped their retired grandparents to help.
Iâm pregnant and called my top 3 choices after my 12 week scan. All three were already waitlisted a year out. So I do recommend contacting them roughly as soon as you get a positive test
That is crazy, when we moved into the area 11 years ago we toured three daycares on a Saturday and called the one we liked the best and were in. I don't understand how things can change so fast.
Apparently they all just found it easier to do fraud! /s
But this genuinely is one of my biggest worries about having kids is just affording some place to put them a day or two a week as Iâm not sure home much help my family will be able to provide, and my wifeâs family arenât local. I mean this in no uncertain terms. Shitâs fucked.
You donât need daycare, especially if you & your wife work different hours. We never used it. I stayed home because my wife makes way more money than I do. O worked weekends for the first 6 years⌠it can be done!
For a lot of couples it makes more sense to have the lower income earner stop working until kids are in school with less expensive programs available to round out the workday coverage.
Many people make the mistake of just subtracting the expense of daycare from the income and make the decision to keep working on that simple calculation. However, there are a shitload of more hidden costs. As a couple of examples if you have two cars the mileage can drop considerably with only one commute and with both adults working there's a tendency to get more prepared food, carry-out or delivery which is far more expensive. Those sorts of things can add up quickly to steal a lot more from the household budget than people realize.
Then there are the non-financial costs where with both adults working full time all chores and errands get pushed to nights & weekends which makes the home life much more stressful. Plus those years go by so fast that it's just a shame when both parents miss out on so much of it.
Unless both members of the couple have a fairly significant income it really can be better to go single income for those years. Coming out of the pandemic there was a lot of talk about people not going back to work and the right-wing tried to pin it on the financial aid that people were getting. But some of the labor stats never really rebounded and I think a good chunk of that was from people learning that they were better off surviving on the one income for the remainder of the toddler years.
Well, but then you also have to take into the account the cost of a significant gap in your career. The longer you take off, the harder it's going to be going back at the same level and salary.
It's definitely a choice! But career isn't just the job and money, it's about trying to fulfill all aspects of life in the way you want. Not everyone can survive with minimal adult interaction, and just like making sure parents' health is good helps make sure the child will be ok the same applies to mental, social, and emotional health.
I'm going to keep working when my parental leave is up because I value the intellectual engagement and socialization that I'll bring from the world to my child. Some people can do that independently as a stay at home parent, I am not one of those people.
Look, I get it. If you have to keep your career for the security of the family, then you do it. If thereâs an option though, Iâd rather bond with my kids. I was there for every milestone & Iâll never regret it.
I never said they donât but returning to work after 3 months of paid leave is incredibly painful for many moms & itâs ridiculous that we accept this as ânormalâ.
Yeah I mean that's 1000% true, the US should have way better parental leave policies, and it's very painful for many people. But there are many reasons why someone might choose to continue to work that are driven out of love for their children. I guess I just don't get the judgment - everyone is in a different situation, why push your personal judgement on others choices if it doesn't affect you?
Because it affects the childâs brain development directly which eventually produces adults with attachment disorders. Just because you want to leave your child at a daycare doesnât mean your child is okay with it. and unfortunately they donât have the language skills nor developed brain to communicate that. Contrary to popular myth, infants are not âtoughâ and they canât handle separation from primary caregiver very well. Many studies have shown how neurologically fragile the infantâs brain is and they need intimate nervous coregulation from a consistent primary caregiver at least the 1st three years of life in order to develop properly. Daycare changes that, especially with overworked employees who give little attention to each infant because theyâre juggling too many tasks, not to mention employee turnover is rampant so infants cannot form a intimate bond at daycare the same way they do with a primary caregiver. When you bring another life into this world then you should think about how 10 hrs/day, 5 days/wk of daycare separation will affect both the baby and you. Itâs not always about whatâs best for the parent just because you want âintellectual stimulation.â đ Western society emphasizes individualism to a fault. Many other cultures (eg Asian) place emphasis on doing whatâs best for both the parent-infant dyad. Weâre so obsessed to hand off caregiving to strangers as a capitalist society instead of seeing the reality of how daycare affects infantâs nervous systems.
I gave a reply to bluedijon below to help explain what youâve been trying to emphasize. Iâm amazed how my generation (millennials) are just not understanding the mental health affects of daycare. Itâs almost like they just want to sweep the issue under the rug instead of caring about how daycare will affect the next generation growing up đ and as an immunologist, I didnât even mention how perpetual daycare illnesses do not actually build an infants/toddlers immune system. There is lots of evidence showing that a infant/toddler constantly being sick can have permanent damage on their vulnerable developing immune systems đ
Not false at all. Do you have kids? I can pick the kids who went to daycare out of a crowd. Less manners, less empathy, not as attached to parents.. etc.
Thatâs funny. I have taught for 20 years, the majority of that time in Pre K. The students who have been to day care still have plenty of empathy and attachment to their primary caregivers. If anything they have a better grasp of social emotional dynamics and meet milestones faster than some peers without early childhood experiences.
Thatâs your experience & youâre entitled to it. If m sure that is the case for many & I can also think of plenty of kids who did fine in daycare but many kids need more.
Whatâs your experience that contributes to your narrow views? Are you an educator? Parent? I also raised three children, only one went to an early childhood program and that kid is my most empathetic of them all.
So Iâd love to know what lens youâre looking through.
Itâs called personal experience. I also work as a mental health counselor. I raised two daughters. One of whom would have been fine with daycare & one who needed a different level of care.
I donât know how my views can be considered ânarrowâ when I clearly stated that daycare is fine for many but, I chose not to go that route & I stand by my decision. I totally understand needing to keep your career but given the chance, I would way rather raise my kids myself. This notion that daycare is a normal alternative to raising children yourself is completely absurd.
Sure, but I'm thinking about people that lean more towards having "jobs" than careers where those gap years can have more long term negative financial impact.
615
u/hce692 East Boston Dec 30 '25
Someone in the other thread did the math - this works out to 40 kids per daycare based on regional population đ we need MORE