# So... Who takes care of the kids over the summer? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 18, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833 "2013-07-18T12:35:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/41 "2013-07-19T02:06:11Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > YMCA camp is $120 per week for eight weeks. At four kids, that’s about $4000 a year! What a steal. Probably won’t add too much above and beyond the existing costs for music lessons, sports, field trips, museum visits, etc. from the rest of the year. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/42 "2013-07-19T03:03:48Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > You can’t straight deduct your child care expenses, but there is a child care tax credit. The maximum amount of the credit is tied to your income, but as I recall, our credit was something like a quarter of what we paid out, which is about what, in our tax bracket, we’d have saved if it was in fact a deduction. Heh heh, yep. I remember getting a year end statement from daycare showing we paid ~$11,000. Our tax credit was something like $500. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/43 "2013-07-19T14:31:46Z")
I have an 11yo and a 7yo. We have done camps in the past for the older kid, when the younger was in full time daycare, but now that they’re both school age we hire sitters for the summer. We pay $15/hour for 40 hours a week. That makes it about the same cost and less logistically-challenging than the full time summer camps around here. However, 40 hours/week means that we have no child care one day a week, so I work at home that day and the kids live without much attention. Summer is hard on the budget. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/44 "2013-07-19T15:58:44Z")
My daughter’s after school program is open all day during the summer. It has all the certifications of a day care and although it’s ran independently, it occupies a couple portables right next to the school (it may be on school property, I’ve never really figured that out). Since I work M-F, she goes there after school during the year and all day during the summer. I pay babysitters to pick her up and take her to the movies or swimming or whatever so she doesn’t get burnt out on it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/45 "2013-07-19T23:28:15Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > People in this area will tell you that having kids is a choice so you shouldn’t get anything for it even though the newer generation has to come from somewhere. Workplaces will tell you you it is ‘not their problem’ even when you have absolutely no choice to leave to pick up your child on time so you have to choose between going to jail for abadoning your child or keeping your job in some cases. > > I did the evening pickups for 6 years and I had a hard stop for work at 5:30 pm in order to get to day care by 6 pm. I don’t mean 5:31 or even 5:30.01 pm. I had to be out the door before 5:30 or I would get fined and bitched out by daycare and I usually made it with just seconds to spare. > > My previous employer was particularly unsympathetic to anyone that wasn’t available 24/7 365 days a year. I had a groups of managers try to stop me at the front door one evening when I had to leave to do a pickup. I told them I had to go politely twice. They said we had to talk about something rather trivial that could wait. I said ‘No’ and just put up my forearm and checked a VP standing in way in the chest as I walked out the door. I fully expected to be fired the next morning but surprisingly, they didn’t say anything the next day. > > The big blowup came a few weeks later when I was doing childcare solo on a Saturday morning because their mother was travelling. My manager called me out of the blue for a conference call for something I barely had anything to do with. I said sure but I had to drop my daughter off at a birthday party and I would be back in 15 minutes to join. The reply was quite unwelcome and unexpected. My manager screamed “We don’t pay you to worry about your kids, tell her that she has to skip the party (she was 5 at the time) and join the call now”. I said absolutely not and he told me to join or lose my job. I told him I that I wouldn’t work for a place that treated people with young children like that so have my termination papers waiting (involuntary) Monday morning. I didn’t get fired for it but we did have an epic blowup in a locked conference room. He quit or got fired a few weeks later for some unknown reason and the sad part is that he had young kids too. I think he was just transferring down his mistreatment from his managers to me. > > It is a bitch to be a parent of young children if you don’t have much extended family around to pick up the slack. I have no idea what people do if they don’t have that plus little money to pay babysitters or camps. I love being a parent but I never want to go through that phase in my life again. Older kids or so much easier logistically. That’s real bitch. My daughter, fortunately, is the chief copy-editor and, essentially, office manager for a group of scientific journals. So long as they get published on time, no one is going to look over her shoulder. Her husband, also an editor for a book publisher, is not in quite the same position, but they just know that he leaves at 5 and that’s that. Again, so long as the work gets done, they don’t bug him. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/46 "2013-07-20T01:00:46Z")
A friend of mine is a single parent, working for the UK civil service. She is effectively a part timer as she works full time hours during termtime and takes the school holidays off. Of course there is more holiday time given in the UK and (I think) more bank holidays than the US so this also figures into the weeks she has off. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/47 "2013-07-20T07:00:24Z")
My nephews have two grandmas, one Auntie Nava, one Uncle Navabro (the other uncle never gets recruited for childsitting, plus he’s having his own first baby any day now), summer camp at the pool (think “country club”), summer camp at school (immersion English). Sometimes I wonder whether they’re children or postal packages, the way they get shuffled around. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/48 "2013-07-20T12:59:00Z")
Depending on where you live, and depending on how much the second spouse makes, a nanny can be cheaper than daycare. The cost benefit analysis can be tricky though. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/49 "2013-07-20T13:14:53Z")
I have a 7 year old and a 3 year old. My son goes to Y camps during the summer and my daughter stays in preschool. It’s a huge pain in the ass planning for my son over the summer. I have to set up the calendar and map out all the available camps (most camps only go for a week), then decide what series, along with his input, he’ll be going to. It doesn’t interrupt my work _much_, but I kind of hate it because I have to be so freaking careful not to inconvenience my work while simultaneously figuring out all the logistics of who picks up who. And getting my son signed up for the Y is a pain in the ass because here the Y camps only go from 9-4. You have to sign them up separately for before care, then separately for aftercare. And of course, before care is extra and aftercare is yet another charge on top of that. God forbid if work schedules extra meetings for me or JAR sessions like we have next week for 10 hours a day - sometimes taking conference calls in the car is an absolute necessity, and that few minutes in my car is the only time I have free every day usually. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/50 "2013-07-20T15:12:25Z")
The sprog goes to YMCA day camp five days a week. It’s $126 a week but it’s money that’s well-spent because it keeps him off the sofa and us at work. On some level, though, it’s less about finding someone to watch the kids and more about the socialization and fun of trying new things that he can’t do at home. The sprog, for example, loves canoeing, which we can’t do easily or cheaply. He’s made new friends that he’ll be able to hang out with at school, and he’s gotten more confidence. All this is cheap at twice the price. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/51 "2013-07-20T16:16:48Z")
When I was very young there was day camp. My sister is older than me by four years. When she was old enough to be in charge that tapered off. We mostly stayed home and read a lot of books and watched a lot of TV. My son went to day camp for a couple of summers. His father and I split up when he was tiny. His summer trips to Dad’s have varied in length anywhere from one week to eleven weeks. He turns sixteen in the fall and this summer he has been working nearly full time. He’ll spend the last month before school starts with his dad (who lives in another state) and then his grandmother. ---
**Author:** ![turtlescanfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@turtlescanfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turtlescanfly)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833/52 "2013-07-20T19:18:07Z")
My oldest is 23 now, she has been responsible for keeping an eye on her younger siblings (4 of them) since she was about 13 or so. I only have three kids still at home now, the oldest is 15 and he is responsible for keeping an eye on his 11 and 8 year old sisters. When my oldest was not yet old enough to be a babysitter, my wife and I just arranged our work schedules so that one of us was always home (we both worked for convenience stores so there were 3 shifts to choose from.) On the rare occasion we couldn’t get that to work, we would get a babysitter or other family member to help out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-takes-care-of-the-kids-over-the-summer/663833.md?page=2)