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Child Care Can Cost More Than Money
Featured Author:
Dianne McDonald
Dianne McDonald is a weekly columnist for the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, MA. Her “Everyday Feminist” column addresses the topics that are important to “womyn” with a feminist perspective. Dianne has been an ethnographic researcher investigating women’s-only spaces and the community that those spaces promote. Dianne graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Women’s Studies. She lives in Marshfield, MA with her husband Jason, and their five children aged two through 19.
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Dianne McDonald | WomenCo.
July 24, 2008
Woman is ready for a job. Woman is highly qualified. Woman has dress clothes for business environment. Woman has transportation to get to job. But wait: Woman is also a mother. Woman has dilemma.
Challenges are presented when a mother chooses to go to work. Most households require the woman to work. If she is a single mom, she has to bring home the bacon. In a two-parent household, it is common that two incomes are necessary to make ends meet.
While mom is working, who will be minding the young guns? The best-case scenarios would include relatives who live to spend eight hours a day with the kids or having a Mary Poppins-like nanny at your beck and call.
Both options would have to be free of course. But these dream day-care situations are unlikely and unrealistic.
Unfortunately, finding stellar child care is labor intensive. You have to decide what type of child care best suits the family’s needs – at-home, group, etc. Then you have to interview and choose an experienced person who is the most nurturing option or visit facilities and choose the safest. After finding the perfect pseudo-parent, you come to terms with the very real expense of the find. The cost of child care is staggering. You then have to weigh the weekly deduction of child care cost against your net pay.
Ouch… doesn’t leave much.
Not to mention the intense guilt we often feel not being the primary care giver for our own children. So we look for better alternatives. Many moms work second shifts, or work part-time when the other parent is available. There are programs that allow infants to go to work with mothers and there are companies that offer on-site day care. Some mothers find a work-at-home occupation.
Whatever your day-care dilemma is, you are not alone. There is a toddler at my feet right now. The moment my hubby comes home from work I am out the door to go to work and he will take over for the evening shift.
AngelaK
5 months ago
1242 comments
This really hits home for me. Daycare has been a double edged sword for me. A necessary evil. I try to tell myself that this will only last a couple of years before my daughter goes to school but it doesn't help. I don't think there is an easy way around daycare.
Unless you work for a company that either has daycare providers on the premesis (which is probably still a pretty penny) or you can take your kid to work there is just no easy solution.
tina_nelsonmsw
5 months ago
2 comments
If we had government subsidized daycare, like many of the other industrialized nations, daycare workers wouldn't be paid so little, and mothers wouldn't have to pay so much for decent daycare.
It is a constant balancing act, especially because I'm a single mother of two young boys, and I have so choice but to work.
wyrmette
5 months ago
2 comments
Not to be too against the grain, but there are some benefits to GOOD child care- my kids had experiences I could never have provided for them at home (most of them I just wouldn't have thought of) - additionally, they learned how to interact with others, which our 'stay home' friends can't do - i got really really lucky with my daycare situation, i admit-but i get very frustrated when people bash the very idea of daycare-they need to bash the BAD daycare facilities-when you write out the check for the daycare, remember that the teacher only gets about $9-$11/hour-
TheEverydayFeminist
5 months ago
646 comments
Thank you for your feedback- I also think women sometimes compromise/alter their career goals because of the daycare delimma. What do you think??
AJaneChambers
5 months ago
320 comments
I worked part-time after my husband came home until both children were in school full time - then I worked part-time while they were in school, so that I would be there when they got home from school.
BigMomma
5 months ago
68 comments
Sistah, you are singing my song! With gas and day care it costs me almost 2K a month to work...HOLY SMOKES....I want to choke every time I say that....
bluesea
5 months ago
24 comments
it is hard for working moms and I agree that day care is damn costly..
TheEverydayFeminist
5 months ago
646 comments
This is the same article that I wrote for some local newspapers. I am looking forward to your feedback regarding this topic because it is an area I anticipate writing a great deal more about. Thanks :)