The childcare conundrum.

I have a lot of mom friends—some who work full-time, some who work part-time, and a small handful who have put their careers on hold to stay at home. We’re all living under slightly different circumstances, yet there’s a common struggle uniting us: Finding reliable yet affordable help with our kids has proved to be an absolute nightmare. Here in the States, I’m not even sure it exists. But let me back up.

Before I got pregnant for the first time, I didn’t think I had it in me to be solely a SAHM (hardest job ever!), but I also couldn’t imagine a world in which I spent 40 hours away from my babies each week. My dream was somewhere in between, to be a present mother who could also put my schooling to good use with a position that both fulfilled and challenged me. For this reason, I figured that working part-time would be the best of both worlds. And it was, for a while.

When Jude was born, I was working about 15-20 hours a week as a copywriter and social media manager for a women’s health coach; this lasted until the fall of 2020. I started my current job as a Clinical Nutrition Assistant to a women’s health RD in January 2021, the same month I found out I was pregnant with Ayla. Both of my (female) employers allowed for a generous maternity leave and gave me the freedom to essentially create my own schedule. Even though they weren’t moms themselves (until recently—congrats, Amanda!), they always supported me in my role as a full-time parent and provided me with the flexibility to prioritize both my work and the needs of my children.

Sadly, this kind of support is rare. But my decision to keep working depended on it. For the first year and a half of Jude’s life, I attended meetings and cranked out marketing emails while he was sleeping—thankfully, he was a good napper, and that fact made all the difference. As he got older and more active, however, I knew I would need more help to put in the hours my job required.

MY FIRST FORAY INTO THE WORLD OF CHILDCARE

When Jude was 18 months old, our neighbor told us about a nearby daycare that they had just enrolled their toddler in for three mornings a week. The schedule was perfect, and I liked that Jude would have a familiar face in his class; after some research and a tour, Scott and I jumped on the opportunity. Jude’s outgoing personality and adventurous spirit could surely benefit from a change of scenery and a few more friends, I reasoned. Plus, as expensive as daycare was, it would actually be cheaper than hiring a part-time sitter.

From March to August, Jude went to “school” every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8:30-12:30pm while I worked from a coffee shop—an arrangement that, despite the outrageous monthly tuition, served us well. That is, until he came down with his first sickness. And then his second, and then his third. Every other week (or so it seemed), he contracted a new infection, resulting in mounting doctor’s office copays and daycare fees gone to waste.

Here’s the thing: We could deal with these minor hiccups because my job was not super demanding, and my boss was the understanding type. But I think it’s worth noting that had I not been working from home or able to afford time off, this would not have been a sustainable solution.

Looking back, daycare was still 100% worth it at that point in time. The staff was very accommodating, and the service they provided was exactly what we needed for that chapter in our lives. I definitely don’t regret exposing Jude to new surroundings and peers at a young age (even if it meant also exposing him to every virus under the sun during Covid’s prime), because I believe it gave him a solid social foundation and contributed to his resilience. But having our daughter only a few months later changed everything.

DAYCARE AND NANNIES AND PRESCHOOL, OH MY!

Coming down with Covid was a big fear of ours around this time, and since Ayla was set to arrive at the end of September, we made the cautious decision to pull Jude out of daycare in August to prevent illness leading up to her due date. My maternity leave didn’t begin for another month, though, so we took to Care.com to hire a part-time nanny in the meantime.

Let me just say, interviewing nannies is not for the faint of heart. We had several promising candidates who came to the house to meet Jude, and even accepted the position, only to bail a day or two before we needed them. And while the ones we did hire were great people, none of them stuck around for more than a couple months. We must have gone through five or six potential nannies in a span of two years—and even that’s not terrible. I have a friend who could not find a part-time nanny for several months, despite living in a big city: Everyone she talked to required a full-time position, something she didn’t want and couldn’t afford. There was no Plan B, because all of the surrounding daycare facilities were full.

“If we don’t find someone soon, my only option is to quit my job,” she lamented one Sunday evening, sitting next to me at our favorite wine bar and staring into her glass of Cab. “I mean, what else can I do?”

In May, I was in a similar predicament. Our second attempt at daycare a few months earlier had been a bust; the quality of our previous childcare center had drastically decreased since we’d left (as evidenced by the high turnover of teachers and shrinking staff-to-child ratio), but the frequency of Jude’s illnesses did not. At the end of the day, it simply wasn’t worth what we were paying.

My boss was starting her maternity leave, though, which meant my workload was doubling. A summer without childcare would be impossible, so the search to find a suitable nanny started back up again. At the last minute, after two college-aged girls fell through, we miraculously connected with a short-term sitter via a family friend. (She was a godsend, to put it lightly.)

Finally, in August, Jude started his first year of preschool at our church—a program that Scott and I have both been so happy with, both because of the affordability (I’m talking hundreds of dollars less per month than what we were paying for daycare) and the next-level care provided by the staff. For the first time ever, Jude speaks affectionately of his three teachers and gets excited to go to school. Yes, he still gets sick from time to time; most recently, he brought home the flu, from which Ayla and I are still recovering. But now that he’s older, he recovers faster, and missing a day or two of school no longer means throwing away money.

While Scott and I finally feel like we’ve found the best childcare situation for Jude (after almost two years of trial-and-error), now there’s Ayla to consider. I still manage to get the majority of my work tasks done during her morning nap, but the older she gets, the less amount of time I will have to work. She’s much more introverted than Jude, and because of all the hurdles we’ve experienced thus far with finding quality childcare, I don’t have any plans to try with her. My job is at the mercy of Ayla’s napping schedule, at least until we can enroll her in preschool in two years.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Because of the flexible nature of my job, the close proximity to family, and the fact that my husband’s salary is enough to cover our expenses, I am without a doubt one of the lucky ones. In fact, my situation is as close to ideal as it gets. I don’t have to work, I simply choose to. And while I do love my nutrition job, I wouldn’t be heartbroken if Scott and I eventually decided it was best that I step back to focus all of my efforts on our kids.

But my story is not the one that really matters. The defeated friends I’ve listened to, the desperate stories of other moms that I’ve heard—this is the reason my frustration grows at our culture’s lack of support for parents. It’s about the single mother who works around the clock to keep food on the table and a roof over her kids’ heads. It’s about the wife and new mom whose small business pays the majority of the bills. It’s about the part-time medical professional who is forced to reconsider her career on a monthly basis because there’s just no help available. It’s about the stay-at-home mom with a husband who is deployed for months at a time, leaving her to do everything on her own.

Did you know that the average cost for full-time daycare in the United States is $1,100 per month? And that’s IF you can manage to snag an open spot! We’ve built a system that only rich people can opt into, leaving low-income Americans without any options. In other countries around the world, like Denmark and France, childcare is heavily subsidized by the government and surpasses ours in quality. (I was perplexed to read about how sophisticated French daycares, aka crèches, are in Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman!) This article by the New York Times breaks down how little the U.S. spends on childcare for children under 2 compared to other first world countries. It’s astonishing.

In 2022, finding reliable and affordable assistance for families shouldn’t be such a burden. Working moms shouldn’t have to choose between quitting their jobs and childcare that sucks them dry. But this is the conundrum that American women (and some men) face. Admittedly, I don’t have an answer for this. I just know that something has to change.

Parenthood is by far the most important job anyone could ever have. We’re bringing up the next generation! But, sadly, you would never guess that by the way this country puts education on the back-burner and ignores the needs of mothers, fathers, and families altogether. We’re a great nation with extremely messed up priorities.

If it takes a village to raise a child, I think the question to ask ourselves is, as a modern society, how can we start building that village together?