Parents with kids in child care (1 parent full time, 1 parent part time)

We’re considering me going back to work, part time. I’m thinking about four 4-hour days, plus a one hour roundtrip commute. That would mean we’d need 20 hours a week of childcare, and I’d be earning hourly for 16 hours (don’t get paid commute time) of work.

What percentage of the part time earner’s salary goes to the child care (in your case)? Mind you, this is a private nanny (the waiting list for creche is about 5 months), who lives in our town. We’d be taking out daughter to her. She doesn’t provide meals, snacks or drinks.

We’re both really on the fence about this, and while the extra income sounds attractive, I’m not sure if it’s worth the hassle of her getting accustomed to the new child care person, the new routine, etc. At this point, I’m still in negotiations with my potential employer about this.

Background info: Hub works full time, from about 9am (he’d be dropping her off) to 6pm. I stay at home with our 2 year old. We’re in France, and my daughter is just starting to pick up bits of French, so the language barrier is a consideration, too. We’re thinking she’d benefit from going to the nanny’s house (that’s how they do it here) because she’d be with the same kids 4 days a week. Right now, she goes (for social reasons only) to a day nursery for about 9 hours a week. There are always different kids there.

When I worked part time, I found child care to be the most difficult issue to deal with. My husband worked a lot of weird hours and as a result, most of the issues fell to me. The day care centers only seemed interested in full time care.

When I went to full time, although the day cares were more willing to do it, I found it to be much harder.

I had two kids in day care and after I figured out, what I spend on daycare and fuel in the car and time spent in transit, I discovered that I actually lost $5.00 per week. Not a lot, but enough to make me quit. I really didn’t need the stress and I certainly didn’t need to lose 5 bucks a week.

I’m pretty sure that this happened for me this way because I am what could be called an unskilled worker and only made minimum wage.

Financially I can’t do the math for you, but I will chime in to say that my son goes to a similar type of daycare. He goes to someone’s house, and there are a small number of “regular” kids there. I believe it has benefitted him greatly. He has formed some close bonds with other kids (also a healthy amount of siblingish rivalry with a few, heh) and I feel like he has a second family there.