I know a working couple with kids, they spend more on daycare than I spend on all my bills.
Which begs the question, what do couples who have trouble affording daycare do?
I assume if you have differing shifts you can switch childcare. If one parent works a first shift and the other works 2nd or 3rd, you can shift who takes care of the kid.
You can ask family to watch kids.
I’m assuming some couples do co-op things with other parents where they maybe get a few other couples and one parent takes all the kids on one day, then another parent takes them all on a different day, etc.
Basically how do people who can’t afford daycare do it?
Some daycare places (meaning 0-5 years old) offer reduced prices to people in need, especially church- or publicly-run daycares. Public daycares are very cheap to begin with.
Once you get them into public school there are inexpensive aftercare programs, I assume everywhere, because often both parents gotta work as you describe.
There’s a Burger King near me, which I stop into from time to time. There’s a young woman who works behind the counter, who clearly doesn’t have other daycare options, because I will sometimes see her young daughter (probably around 3 years old) parked at one of the booths, with several toys, books, snacks, etc.
(And, yes, I know it’s the woman’s daughter, because one time, the little girl was upset over something, crying “Mama, Mama” until the woman came over and comforted her.)
One option is for one of the parents to quit working. This not only eliminates the cost of daycare, it also eliminates the costs associated with the second job (clothes, noon lunches, transportation, taxes…). Eating out/take-out is replaced with home cooked meals. Maid service is no longer needed.
There are government subsidies for daycare for the really poor in Arkansas. Headstart is a learning centered one. I think kids with disabilities get the first slots and then it’s need based. The elementary school starts at age 3 with pre-K.
Or Grandma.
Yes as Beckdawrek said many states have income-based subsidies for childcare that will pay the majority of the cost. We have it in Illinois, and where we live in Chicago pretty much every daycare takes vouchers (it’s like section 8 in that the family has to qualify but the provider also has get certified to be in the program). I honestly believe that if it weren’t for this program there would not be any licensed daycare in our neighborhood because there simply are not enough families who are able and willing to pay the for full-fee licensed care, the entire industry would go under the table (i.e paying your SAHM neighbor to watch your kid).
Separate from that, many parents just have to live near or with grandparents who can babysit and help out in general … even if grandma is not very reliable or easy to get along with, or not entirely physically capable of caring for a small child (toddlers are heavy). I hear a lot of upper-middle class parents say stuff like “I wish we had grandparents nearby to help!” not really realizing that the ability to move around for your job, and figure out childcare and household support once you get there, is in itself a luxury in the eyes of many.
I was discussing this with my daughter - there are costs either way. It may be worth it to spend all of your earnings on daycare so that when your child hits school age, you haven’t been out of the workforce for 5-6 years, and in the long run, you earn more. Then again, how do you balance that against having your child raised by strangers for those years? It’s a tough situation…
Most ethnic restaurants are like that where the owners kids practically grow up in the restaurant. I remember one Chinese place I used to visit and over several years I watched as their toddler son grew up and sometimes he would play in a booth, sometimes be riding his boke outside, and later on he was a waiter. All until he went on to college. I have a Korean neighbor who grew up like that in his parents restaurants but he went to college and left that. But hes still a damn good cook.
Most states do have child care assistance, which allows you to pay a sliding fee for child care. Unfortunately, in many places the wait list is very long. Here in the Twin Cities it’s at least 2-3 years, unless you meet certain rules.
When my daughter was little and I was waiting on the list, she was shuffled between one of my aunts and her paternal grandmother while I worked. When I was able to afford it, but still waiting on the list, she attended in-center care part time. After almost two years, I was approved for assistance and she was in-center full time. She was almost 4 years old by that time, so the cost wasn’t as enormous as if she was a newborn or toddler, but it was still way more than I could’ve afforded on my own.
Many of my daughters’ friends are in that position right now. One couple work split shifts, so they don’t have daycare. Another purposely decided to work at a daycare center (not a place she thought she’d ever work) specifically for the reduced costs. Many go to grandma’s house. None have become stay-at-home parents, simply because they cannot afford it.
What a brilliant solution! If you’re poor, cut your income! It’s no wonder there are so many people stuck in the lower income strata since these simple solutions somehow elude them.
In the past, I’ve seen episodes of 20/20 or some similar program, where they visited a family where both parents worked and they used daycare. The program analyzed their finances, and found out they were actually losing money by the mother working. So, it can happen.
I would expect that maid service is totally off the table for a couple that is making a decision for one parent to quit their job due to the cost of daycare. IOW, when both were working and daycare was straining the budget, extras like maid service were never countenanced. This might be a cultural thing that varies by region and/or nation.
When my daughter was in daycare (25 years ago) she came home and told us about a bad boy in her class, Joshua Sommers (an alias). Turns out Joshua bit a kid. The head of the daycare spoke with the kid’s parents and warned them that biting was not acceptable.
After Joshua bit for the third time, he was expelled. I was picking up my daughter, and Joshua’s dad was arguing about his son’s expulsion. He had no idea what he was going to do the next morning, as he had no backup plan. I felt bad for him, but when he told me how unfair it was, I told him I could totally understand parents not wanting their kids bitten.
Fast forward 20 years, I happened to meet a Joshua Sommers, the right age to be the biting boy. Although I was curious, I could not think of a way to ask if he had a biting problem when he was 4.