For some people their benefits make it worthwhile.
This is a good point. If one spouse stays out of the workforce, their retirement savings aren’t growing, they’re not accumulating credits towards Social Security, their work skills are getting rusty and so forth. It’s not just a simple matter of the cost of day care versus the income coming in.
It works for a lot of families, many of whom you wouldn’t necessarily consider poor, so it’s pretty ignorant to take such a sarcastic tone. In cities like where I live having a single kid in daycare is literally like paying for a second mortgage. I’d say around half of my college-educated, white-collar friends made the choice to have one parent drop out of the workforce when they started a family.
True, but I think the point being made is, having two jobs and sending your kids to daycare may not be the best solution. Perhaps one person quitting their job and staying home to take care of the kid is better. An analysis of the specific situation is needed, not snap “Yeah, like losing a job is going to help poor people!” judgements.
We had just one kid so we bit the bullet and went the private daycare route. Minnesota is one of the more expensive states and it ran around $12,000/yr.
From observing other people we knew who made less than us and had more kids a lot of them, or almost all of them, leaned heavily on family members. Grandparents were the most common. Or larger families had one aunt or uncle watch all the kids while the rest of all the adults went to work.
There is a subtext I think you are missing. Working mothers often have well-meaning people tell them 'You know, after childcare you might almost save money by staying home". it’s annoying because 1) it’s condescending as fuck to assume someone doesn’t understand the financial implications of their own lifestyle 2) it’s a very common sentiment from a section of the population that only approves of mothers working when they “have to” – that the ethical choice is ALWAYS for the mother to stay home, and that anything else is only acceptable if dire financial need demands it.
Language like “give up the housekeeper and make home-cooked meals instead of going out all the time” is especially hackle-raising because it seems to suggest that the mom is only working because she’s not womanly enough to take over the traditional wifely duties–she’s either too lazy or too incompetent and so is looking for an out from what she’s honor-bound to do, shipping her children off to strangers and outsourcing her “real” job.
I don’t think you mean any of that subtext. But it’s absolutely attached to the “staying home may be cheaper” lecture many working parents receive, and it’s irritating as hell. And I say this as a member of a family where we DID decide it made sense for my husband to quit his job and stay home.
Yes, I can see how that would be irritating. And I definitely didn’t mean to attach any stigma to staying at home instead of working.
This is why I get SO MAD when people from the older generation talk about how having a baby isn’t as expensive as you think because “you don’t need to by all that stuff. Babies don’t need much”. And it’s true. They don’t. But the stuff is a fucking rounding error lost in 1) the costs of the medical care/delivery 2) the cost in insurance premiums 3) the cost in lost income for maternity leave and 4) the cost of childcare. THOSE are the costs that practically price middle-class couples out of having children. It’s not because they insist on a fucking diaper genie.
It is really difficult. My girlfriend/fiancee makes about 100K as a priest which sounds great until you find out that about half of that goes to child care. I have my own two daughters to support and they are expensive as hell. We are making about 300K a year and can barely afford it. Don’t break out the worlds smallest violin but I have no idea how whole families that make a fraction of that can afford it.
Their finances must be a mess. Nannies here run 20+ dollars an hour in affluent towns in Massachusetts. You sometimes lose money by going to work. I try to help her by taking care of the childcare as soon as I get off work.
She pays 50K a year for child care?
Yes, literally. She lives in expensive town and nannies are very difficult to find. They have to live there too. Her adopted son has special needs so that limits the pool of people that can do it.
There is also the future cost of lost wages. Women (and it is usually women taking time off) who took off just one year between 2001 and 2015 earned 39% less than women who worked the entire time. To make it even worse, probably the perception that mothers aren’t devoted to their careers, means that women who took time off often never catch up back to where they would have been if they hadn’t taken time off. For example, a women with 10 years of experience over 14 years is still earning less than a woman with 10 years of experience over 10 years. Anyway, that is getting into the gender wage gap, which is only somewhat related to this thread’s original question.
Another thing that families may do is push the lower bounds of latchkey kids (do people still use that term?) I don’t think anybody would care about a responsible 12 year old coming home from school to an empty house, but what about an 8 or 7 year old? Another option is to press older siblings into child care responsibilities.
The thread title is “what do couples…” but it is also important to remember that childcare is a big driving force towards poverty for single parents. Earning barely enough to cover child care is bad for couples, but can be devastating for a single parent household.
In part to help this situation, a few years ago Colorado passed a law, which allows small home daycares to operate without a license, as long as it involves no more than 4 children (and some other exceptions). In practice this is legalizing many arrangements that already existed under the logic that small providers will be more willing to seek training and assistance if they won’t be penalized.
But that is a nanny. When people say “child care” are they normally talking about nannies?
It seems similar to if I said “I spend 80K a year on food costs!” when I really mean “I employ a personal chef that costs 80K”
Sometimes they leave the kids with neighbors, relatives, and/or friends — or just alone. And pray nothing bad happens.
The stigma goes the other way: I think your comments came off more like, “these people are too irresponsible / dumb / “modern” to consider the proper solution of a full-time homemaker.” Not saying you meant that, but THAT’S the comment that gets under my skin more.
My partner and I are actually in a similar headache. Right now, with two kids in daycare and both of us working full time, we essentially break even. Based purely on tuition vs salary, we MIGHT actually come out ahead a little if I quit my job and stayed home, but we’d have to reevaluate things like FSA savings and increases to benefits costs.
But it’s also not that simple. My partner makes substantially more than me, but I’m on a career trajectory with MUCH higher growth potential. She COULDN’T afford to quit, because living solely on my income would be extremely difficult AND she would also lose tenure at her job and have to start over at a much lower payscale when she returned to work. We could technically afford to live on her income alone if our kids were pulled from daycare, but losing 3-5 years of career growth will stunt our finances more in the long run (and possibly result in me having to spend money on education to catch back up to the industry).
Further, our kids are in an education-focused daycare that we consider an investment in their future education. The work they do is much more likely to help our kids get spots in selective placement schools. We can teach and reinforce readin’ and writin’ at home, but we aren’t early childhood education experts and teaching things like play-based learning and social dynamics really isn’t something we are prepared for.
This 100%. I cannot tell you how many people were shocked that I didn’t quit my job when my first came along. Then my second came along and it was, “OMG, you’re farming out both your children now! You never see them and it would be oh, so much cheaper to just stay at home.”
I don’t think people realize how short-sighted and outright hurtful some of these comments can be. The reality is that my husband isn’t eligible for medical insurance where he works; I am. I’m one seizure away from brain damage, so one of us better be able to provide it. My husband isn’t eligible for a retirement account; I am. And heaven forbid I ever choose to leave the workforce for a few years. My earning potential is substantially cut. It isn’t as easy as, “Oh, just TRY!”
With respect to how people do it, a lot of the parents in my neighborhood have had their kids come home alone from school since kindergarten to avoid the cost of childcare. I’m fortunate that together my husband and I make enough we can afford some place for our youngest to go to. Back when my kids were in preschool, though, and I was pregnant with #3 (which was devastating b/c it was ectopic), we were seriously considering having me exit the workforce because we were already paying $25,000/year in childcare and didn’t think we could afford another. I imagine that the older ones often have to watch the younger ones or childcare is cobbled together from family and friends and other kids.
Well, which ever way. I didn’t mean it either way. Just that people should analyze what they are doing to see if staying at home or both people working is the best solution. I personally don’t think one or the other is “better”.
Yes, analysis like that.
That doesn’t sound at all implausible. In Chicago, the minimum price we found for two kids in bottom-of-the-barrel, large-group, lets-them-watch-TV-for-several-hours, mostly-caters-to-government-subsidized-families daycare for our two kids would been pushing $30k annually. The daycare we selected, which is the absolute cheapest education-focused, small-class daycare we found, is about $45k annually. It’s a very solid school, but is only that cheap because they’re in an inconvenient, underdeveloped location. It would be easy to spend nearly twice that if we wanted a school closer to home.
And that’s for two kids with no special needs in a group setting. If a child needs something like 1:1 care or special needs assistance, that price is much higher – you’re essentially paying a professional person’s entire salary.
I agree certain women in certain careers, it would be almost devastating to take a few years off to raise kids. My cousins wife was like that so she chose daycare. Other people have so-so jobs and leaving for a few years makes sense. Every persons situation is different.
Now I knew one woman who was a top engineer and was going to quit to be at home for the kids. The company didnt want her to leave so they paid for a home nanny and a home office so she could work at home.
I note that your link doesn’t mention how much men were penalised in the highlights. The actual report itself looks interesting and bears closer reading. I can speak from personal experience that the penalty for men is much the same. Probably for the same reason - if you’ve taken one break from work for family, you’re more likely to take another. Plus I was asked to prove I hadn’t been in prison.