There’s also the idea that if you can support only having one income, raising your own children is all around better than paying someone else to do it as a job.
That’s usually the main reason that I know of why the college-educated, white-collar crowd does it, even if the income/cost difference is fairly dramatic. Plenty of women with white collar jobs come to a sort of realization that they’re willing to put their children ahead of their career, and accept lower (or no) future earnings, in exchange for raising their children. In my experience, women who are very career-oriented aren’t having children anyway, so it’s a moot point.
In my experience, this is very much not the case. In my experience, very career-oriented women tend to choose partners who are eager to share the burden of parenting and household duties. Which means neither one of them expect the other to sacrifice their career for the sake of the family.
Heh, I was the second oldest of four, and somehow my older sister got out of it, but I had to watch my younger brother and sister a lot. Also, I never got an allowance so the only way I could earn pocket money at my age was babysitting. I started with neighborhood kids when I was 11 1/2 and continued until I got a “real” job at the local public library mid-way through my junior year in high school.
All that babysitting really killed any desire I had for kids (not my later-in-life career).
Today there is the child care tax credit so single parents can get a credit up to $3000 and couples up to $6000. All custodial parents need to be working in order to qualify.
In my area, and I’m sure this isn’t the case everywhere, the school district, cities, and counties have a variety of options for cheap, discounted, and free child care. For example, 2.5 hours per day of pre-K four days per week in my district is $400/month. Preschool at the county rec center is similarly priced. There are also cheap, discounted, and free after school programs. Those probably are not substitutes for all day childcare.
My university’s childcare program is about $1500 for full day, five day care. That is the same price for the $3 million/year football coach and the $13/hour custodial staff. So, a person taking one of the full time custodial positions would essentially be working to pay for child care. The benefits might make it worthwhile, but it certainly wouldn’t be adequate for a single income household.
Gonna be Captain Obvious and say that parents still are raising their kids even if they use daycare services.
Parents (not just women) that value their careers usually don’t see work outside the home as incompatible with good parenting. I’m an example of such a parent. So they are less likely to give up their jobs. What I think is usually the case is that parents who leave the workforce to stay at home either choose to do so because they don’t value their jobs very highly or because they can’t afford childcare.
Unlicensed in-home daycare. That’s what we did. Much cheaper and IMO better care if you chose carefully. My son’s daycare provider was like a second Mom to him, and the 4 other kids she cared for like siblings.
I used to work with a woman who was a biologist and had a good career going. Only problem was it required late and long hours.
Well one day when she picked up her son he didnt want to go home with her and literally called the daycare worker “Mom”. Thats when she decided no fancy career was worth this and she changed jobs.
So your right, one can quit a job and take up another which has maybe better hours.
The problem is to advance ones careers often requires working long hours or odd hours or frequent travel.
For example in the Navy your often gone for months at a time. I read where one female admiral finally quit because after one tour where she was gone for 9 months her daughters didnt want anything to do with her.
And even when the parents finally get home their jobs are so exhausting and demanding they have little time to do anything productive with their children. its just feed them (often take out food) and send them to bed.
Well maybe but for some if not most parents I know have to make a choice. Like the former coworker of mine who found her son calling the daycare worker “Mom” and refused to come home with her.
Yes, many kids spend so much time with daycare workers they literally ARE the kids parents. Dropped off at 6 am and picked up at 6 pm.
It’s probably in the degree of career focus where we differ; the ones I’m talking about aren’t having kids (or in a few cases relationships!) because they perceive that they would put a dent in their careers.
But I know plenty of college-educated stay at home parents who have chosen to stay home because they value that more than they valued their career or any future earning difference this may incur if/when they go back to work. Some had parents who both worked, and went to day care themselves, and don’t want that for their kids (know a few of those too).
As far as the day-care vs. stay at home debate goes, the articles I’ve read seem to support the argument that it’s the quality of care that counts, not whether it’s at home or elsewhere. So if you’re a good parent already, you can ensure that your kids continue to get that care if you stay at home.
Which is why I think a lot of parents who can make it work financially, choose to have one parent stay home, rather than roll the dice with underpaid, underqualified day care workers and/or preschool workers.
I do wonder though, how the financial math works out based on the number of kids you have? Two kids might be cheaper to put in day-care, but three might be cheaper to stay at home with, for example.
We pay almost $3K per month for childcare. It’s pretty close to my entire take home pay. I own my own business now so days like tomorrow when my daughters day care is closed she’ll spend the day playing with her dolls in the office.
When my oldest was born we could afford childcare in California and so I tried working from home and scheduling meetings during her nap times and then giving her the minimum care I had to while generating work the rest of the day. Eventually, I made enough it was worth it to send her to day care so I could work a full day and she could get the early education she needs to set her up for life. My youngest started daycare when she was 4 months old and it is crazy expensive getting infants cared for since there can only be 4-5 infants per caretaker. We discussed me quitting but between harming my long term earning potential, not being as good of a caretaker as
the professionals even breaking even its better to send the kids off. If we have a third kid before the oldest is in regular school I’ll have to quit.
Or alternatively, good parents might believe that their good parenting can offset any suboptimal daycare or babysitting experiences. The babysitter watches TV more than she engages with the baby? The daycare center staff don’t all have advanced degrees in early childhood education? Big freakin’ whoop, as long as Mom and Dad provide stimulation and attention once they get home from work.
At 3 kids its also why many choose to keep the kids at home and hire a nanny. A nanny might be only at most $500 a week (thats $100 a day). Even $1,000 a week is cheaper than many daycares you all are talking about plus again, you dont deal with hauling them to and from the daycare and they also will have someone on days the kid is sick.
Well of course you have to make a choice. My point is simply that “use daycare” and “raise your own kids” is a false dichotomy.
Fathers working 40+ hours has been the rule for a long time, but I rarely see anyone shaming them for this or accusing them of foisting their parenting duties off on to others. But oddly, it seems like working mothers are expected to just sit there and silently accept the idea that they are not raising their own children. They get lectured about choices in a way that men don’t.
I’ve heard, anecdotally via a coworker, that top-tier Waldorf/Montessori daycare for a single child in the Boston area can run $40k a year. $50k for a nanny that’s qualified to care for a special needs child sounds plausible to me. Keep in mind that we don’t know how special those needs are.
For what it’s worth, we live in Ohio, and we spend about $11,000/year for one kid at a Y-run daycare. It’s fine. I’m not particularly impressed with the academics, and the teachers tell me she’s the “smartest” kid in a class where the majority of the kids are 6-9 months older, but it suits our logistical needs right now.
We’re definitely trying to get her in to a public pre-K magnet program this fall, though. A big issue is that there’s no standard before/after care program for the pre-K kids. Each school is different; some have arrangements with the local rec centers for a few bucks a week. Others will give you the number of a neighborhood lady who runs an unlicensed outfit out of her home. Others have no arrangements at all.
This is challenging when school hours are 9-3:30, and when one parent works 40-45 hours per week and the other works 50-60.
So even when high quality public pre-K is an option, our choices are limited by the logistics of before and after care. Which means that when we apply to the lottery to for magnet schools, we can only list those schools with reasonable extracurricular arrangements, meaning we limit our overall chance to get in to a magnet pre-K… etc.
It’s frustrating. It wouldn’t be financially disastrous for us if we had to suck it up and pay the $20-30k per year for a private Montessori pre-8 school that’s within reasonable driving distance, but it twists my chaps a bit that it’s only slightly less than tuition at the local private university.