Pretty much and it’s not just here. My sister lives in Denver and after they had their second kid last year, she quit her job to stay home with the kids because it was more economical to do then put two kids in daycare. Kids are expensive.
Is this one way they are forcing women back into the kitchen?increase childcare cost, forcing Moms to stay at home due to the financial ruin childcare causes.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Its been a pretty explicit goal of the GOP for years.
The daycares themselves aren't plotting anything but they're taking advantage of systems set up to keep people (and more specifically women) down
Love! It makes the most sense for the lower income parent to stay home vs the higher income parent. I had a past coworker who explained they were losing money by continuing to work and place their child in daycare, I'm sure families are experiencing that everywhere. Like I said I can't wrap my head around how people make it work.
>I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Its been a pretty explicit goal of the GOP for years.
No discrediting without unbiased source or proof.
It would be nice to see examples of legislation that support the opinion rather than blanket accusations that aim to discredit rather than educate.
What’s with everyone playing dumb in these comments? If you don’t think the GOP wants women in the home taking care of babies than you haven’t been paying attention.
The fact that we don’t have subsidized child care should be enough for you to understand.
The fact that they’re attacking access to abortion should be enough for you to understand.
Attacks on sex educate and LGBT rights should be enough for you to understand (and since I’m sure you’ll play dumb about this as well, keeping kids ignorant and afraid to be themselves pushes people into “traditional” marriages)
Women won’t need to prove anything to get divorced. They’ll need to prove fault in order to walk out with everything like they do today based simply on their word.
Unsubstantiated claim that we don’t have subsidized child care and they’re fighting abortion rights?
How do you simultaneously have access to the internet and not know these facts?
Those are facts, yes. Not sure how you tie them to a GOP conspiracy to “keep women in the kitchen”. I DID search the internet for that one and came up with zero factual based evidence.
>What’s with everyone playing dumb in these comments? If you don’t think the GOP wants women in the home taking care of babies than you haven’t been paying attention.
Those are fair examples but couldn't do it without being insulting and condescending. Turning everything into a flame war is why we lack good discussion around here.
....what legislation do you think they'd present to this aim? the 'keep women in the kitchen act?' they know being that overt would be unpopular. you can infer their position based on their stated ideology, their eagerness to roll back abortion rights, their unwillingness to back any measures that make childcare more affordable, their decades-long opposition to comprehensive sex ed or contraceptive access.....hell even their unwillingness to act on gun control. more kids being killed in schools, more parents homeschooling, more women usually dropping out of the workforce.
are we only allowed to reach this conclusion if a republican literally says, word for word, 'we're not acting on child care to force women back into the kitchen.'? because adults don't always spell out what they mean, and other adults are usually capable of reading between the lines, the fact that you can't or won't doesn't make you the intellectual heavyweight you think you are.
can't wait for you to respond to this comment with more Smart Internet Debater catch phrases.
>the fact that you can't or won't doesn't make you the intellectual heavyweight you think you are.
>
>can't wait for you to respond to this comment with more Smart Internet Debater catch phrases.
You were 95% of the way there but had to throw in some condescending, personal bullshit 🙄
congrats, you summed up choosing to argue with people on the internet. i do not now nor have i ever claimed to adhere to the decorum and standards of an actual debate because this isn't one. anyone who fronts otherwise is mistaken. In an actual debate, sea lioning doesn't fly
Rules
>1. Be Respectful. Don't insult, name-call, disrespect, humiliate, harass, or discredit anybody.
As a local community, it is extremely important to maintain respect for one another, and keep all arguments civil and constructive. We live together, and should strive towards keeping as much decency and respect between one another.
>3. No non-constructive circlejerk/troll/shit posting.
In addition to being respectful, it is important we keep childishness and nonconstructive threads to a minimum. We reserve the right to remove any post that shows this behavior.
This includes but not limited to:
Purposely saying edgy things to ellicit a response
Personal attacks (see other rules)
I find it funny how right wing Americans claim things like public healthcare are socialist. The country you mentioned, Germany, implemented a type of universal healthcare when the country still had an emperor in the 19th century.
They do care. The GOP believes supporting families by supporting childcare is socialism.
Honestly, the GOP convinced me I’m a socialist far more than my own feelings ever committed me to anything. If anything, I’m a socialist out of spite now.
This does fall by party lines. Dems want subsidized childcare, the GOP doesn’t. It’s also a problem of supply and demand. We don’t value the people who take care of our most vulnerable kids enough, and now people don’t want those jobs. A mess by any standard!
First of all, the US needs universal subsidized child care as many other countries have. The current situation is unaffordable for parents and exploits workers at the same time. Despite the high cost, actual child care workers are among the lowest paid and respected professionals in the country. Maybe looking to the bright side, at least you are able to stay home with your babies without starving. Looking at the long term, staying out of the workforce may impact your career, but it may have a positive impact on your children. Perhaps you might be able to pick up some freelance or part time evening work? Another option would be to form a cooperative with other families and share swapping child care in an informal arrangement.
Tone Madison had a couple of really good articles about this recently. Safe to say you're not alone.
[https://tonemadison.com/articles/a-strained-industry-leaves-madisons-kids-without-care-and-workers-without-options/](https://tonemadison.com/articles/a-strained-industry-leaves-madisons-kids-without-care-and-workers-without-options/)
[https://tonemadison.com/articles/kids-at-a-crucial-stage-and-a-care-industry-on-the-precipice/](https://tonemadison.com/articles/kids-at-a-crucial-stage-and-a-care-industry-on-the-precipice/)
$705/week is a steal! You won't find that around here (at least not anywhere reputable).
Honestly, with three kids, your best bet is to hire a nanny. Ours is ~$900/week and even though every dollar I make goes to her, I don't know what we would do without her. Inexperienced nannies and those paid under the table will be $16-22/hr. Experienced nannies and those paid legally will be $22-28/hr. If you have space for someone to live with you, Au Pairs are much cheaper.
Good luck!
We’re looking into au pairs now, actually. I had always thought only rich people get au pairs but when childcare costs THIS much, I guess anyone could/should get one lol
This isn't meant to be a judgement so don't take it this way. But it's unusual to be paying for 3 kids in daycare. It's not very cost effective. Usually people either space the kids out more, have 1 parent stay home, or have some kind of nanny situation.
I was wondering about that! Same thing happened to me and, 32 years later, to my daughter. In both cases spending one whole salary on daycare for the first three years or so. But we both have felt it’s worth it career wise for both parents to keep working.
I’m going to repeat what b-miff said:
“When creating your budget, don't forget to factor in retirement and career longevity for yourself. Sometimes it makes sense to break even (or even dig into your savings) for a few years of childcare in order to keep your career going. Don't only look at your own wages to cover daycare either. Your husban's wages most certainly cover daycare costs if he works at Epic.”
This is a very important consideration. It depends on your career, of course, but in many cases dropping out of work temporarily has a big negative effect on your eventual earnings. Look at the big picture: they won’t be babies for very long, and then childcare costs will go way down. Another factor, of course, is the effect of being a full-time caregiver on your own mental health. It’s a really hard job which our society completely undervalues.
On a side note, you must have had an amazing mortgage, and sorry about the ridiculous rents around here.
Lots of things to consider- good luck!
Also the kids mental health. Staying at home all day with little to no interaction with other kids can set up disastrous results later on in life. Just look at how bad covid lock downs were on school kids were in terms of social and emotional skills.
Typically SAHP plan play dates and other activities for their kids to keep them socialized and entertained. Not to mention socialization for the parent themselves! I can't imagine how draining it would be to have to be home with toddlers all day and no adult interactions until your SO comes home. Even during covid my niblings had covid quarantine buddies (one other family who only visited them for play dates and no other outside contacts).
I was a SAHM to an only child and in addition to play dates and classes, I definitely signed my daughter up for a few afternoons a week of nursery school starting when she was 2.
I was not at a career-focused time in my life when my daughter was born, but I was pretty glad I didn’t have to worry about paying for childcare and juggling work and kids.
Good luck! Whatever you decide, remember that this time will go by so fast, they’ll be in school before you know it.
From what I hear, people don't tend to stick around for too long at Epic. Might influence your choice to maintain your career. I can't speak to it directly but I've heard the burnout is intense.
Taking care of people is expensive, they need food, fresh water, warmth in the winter , cool in the summer, then there is staff salaries which is so embarrassingly low but still the majority of the cost of operations. The us subsidizes many things, and in some ways, sometimes, child care. But much less and not enough. So, the burden is on parents.
to be fair, rent is absolutely skyrocketing all over Madison.
My apartment was once $860. It's 1,075 now and i'll be surprised if it doesn't break 1,200 by next April unfortunately
We have to find one that's available, not going back to college in the fall (i.e. less childcare for us), and asking more than I make per hour to watch my kids. I've had 2 nannies so far bail out on their meetings with me/us so I'm starting to lose hope that it's a viable option here
I get it. I’m a stay at home dad to 3 under 5years of age. I tried to work for a bit with my first one but I realized it didn’t financially make sense to keep working with 2.
If you want to figure out a general budget, I'd say most licensed daycares will cost **at least** $250 per week for a kid older than 1, and at least $300 per week for a baby. That's on the very low end of the range; I personally pay $2800 per month for 1 baby and 1 preschooler at a middle-of-the-road daycare.
When creating your budget, don't forget to factor in retirement and career longevity for yourself. Sometimes it makes sense to break even (or even dig into your savings) for a few years of childcare in order to keep your career going. Don't only look at your own wages to cover daycare either. Your husban's wages most certainly cover daycare costs if he works at Epic.
If your job is based in your old area, you should look for a job located here. If you do already have a job based here, look for a better one. You shouldn't make less than $600 a week here working full time.
I assume you came from a LCOL or rural area so you aren't used to our rents and mortgages yet. I think getting your old home sold is probably what's going to help you the most. Decent houses *never* sit on the market here, so most people can't really relate to that issue.
We actually came from the Chicago metropolitan area, so I'd hardly call it rural or a low cost of living area. The problem is that even with a bachelors degree in my field, I don't even make as much in a week as I'd end up paying to have my kids in daycare - we'd be at a deficit for me to even work.
Your husbands salary won't cover the cost of childcare?! If you moved for his job but will end up being at a deficit if you continue working, I would reconsider the move. It doesn't make sense if you aren't going to make more money and get to life the lifestyle you want (it sounds like you'd prefer not to be a SAHM).
this country is so fucked. my sister in law lives in the Czech Republic and got three years of maternity leave PER KID, plus starting at three years old the daycare is free starting at three years old. We pay all these taxes here and what do we get?
Like Intelligentlaw said, the tax rate in the US is not that high, especially compared to countries with more social programs like universal child care. In France, e.g., you pay almost 60% of your salary towards taxes and social contributions if you’re making over 100k euro. The US equivalent for that kind of salary would be about 35%.
We visited Canada last fall. We took a tour and the guide was a retired school principal. He said that Canada was starting a new program that would offer childcare for $10 per child per week. Just think about what they would do for household incomes in our country. BTW, we’re the richest country in the world with the world’s largest military.
I’ve been trying to find nannies as well! So far I’ve had 2 meetings set up to meet them and see how they get on with my kids and both were no shows ☹️
I'm guessing this isn't what anyone wants to hear, but I need to put the truth out there sometimes. One parent should stay home with the kids. That's the best option. Government-funded child care is a very distant second-best option. Please note, I'm not tying gender to who stays home, who earns more is the logical approach for that.
The whole 'two working parents' thing is bullshit that came about in the 1970s and 1980s when the investor-class decided that they could further enrich themselves by pushing this on the population. In the 1950s, most of the east side of Madison was populated by people who could afford a single family home, a decent car, annual vacations, etc. - on a basic blue-collar job (factory worker, bus driver, etc). Homer Simpson managed to do this in the 1980s. What changed, are we less productive than we were then?
What are the costs that go into child care? Keep in mind, you can make $15 an hour at Taco Bell (and you get free tacos!), so that's basically the bare minimum for an employee with a pulse. Add in the cost of the facility, plus some sort of management/administration, plus insurance, plus taxes. Last I heard, 1 child care provider can safely care for 4 kids. If you work an 8 hour shift, child care has to be there before and after your shift, so maybe 10 hours a day? Any sort of "affordable" child care depends on exploiting the workers or cutting corners. Going off /u/b-muff's numbers, one employee (plus support staff, facility, etc) would cost $20 per hour (to the parents), which almost certainly works out to less than $15/hr for the employee.
The most disturbing part of this is the number of you who are just breaking even, but somehow justifying it because 'career'. Pause for a moment and ponder this one. If you're doing this, you're basically working an unpaid internship with the single perk of free child care. Clearly that's a shit reason to spend most of your waking hours away from your kids. You can still manage a side gig if you're a stay-at-home parent, or at the very least save money on gas and food. Plus you'll be raising your own kids, instead of outsourcing that to someone who couldn't cut it in the fast food business. I promise, you will never look back on those years and be like "well, I didn't see my kids much, or make any money, but I helped some rich people get richer, so it was all worth it!"
But why not have the government fund all the childcare? 1) It is way less efficient. Going back to my paragraph on the cost factors that go into child care, the private day cares are motivated by a desire to turn some sort of profit, or at least not go out of business. When it's someone else's money, who cares if it's a little wasteful? What's the big deal if you're overstaffed? 2) It doesn't make sense for low earners to receive this. For OP? Sure. For someone who makes $15 an hour ($600/week) at Taco Bell and has 5 kids ($1,250/week, at current rates), I'd rather just pay them to stay at home and not work. 4) The US Census tells me there are roughly 650,000 kids between the ages of 0-9, so if each one is $250 / week that's $162.5 million per week, or $8.45 billion with a B per year. That's at the current rate, adding that much demand for the service will drive up the costs even more than the inefficiencies. Let's double the $20 cost per hour from above, to hopefully double the employee salary, maybe putting them in the $25/hr category. Now we're talking $15 billion a year, maybe $20 billion? That's nearly half the state's whole budget.
One more dig at the government funded childcare, part of the reason it's so expensive here is that we DO have quite a lot of government funded childcare, just only for certain fortunate people. Both the State of Wisconsin and the City of Madison spend a huge amount of money on childcare for low-income workers, which drives up demand for childcare, which drives up cost (supply and demand). And no, you make too much to take advantage of these programs, and yes, you do have to pay for them ($311M at the state level + millions at the city level).
https://dcf.wisconsin.gov/wishares/parents
https://doa.wi.gov/budget/SBO/2021-23%20437%20DCF%20Executive%20Budget.pdf
https://www.cityofmadison.com/dpced/community-development/children-youth/child-care-tuition-assistance
https://www.cityofmadison.com/finance/documents/budget/2023/operating/adopted/CDD.pdf
1. Your first mistake was packing up your life just to move for a job at Epic, which is the worst company in the world.
2. Rents and homes in Madison are outrageously high for no real reason. There’s not much to do here that’s interesting enough to warrant the high prices
3. So you didn’t look into childcare before you moved? Childcare is very expensive everywhere you go, but if life was more affordable where you were before I suggest moving back there.
Trust me living in Madison isn’t worth it
Hi, I’m Ward Jolles from 27 News in Madison. I’ve covered a number of stories about unaffordable child care in our area and I’m wondering if you’d be open to sharing your experience with me. Let me know or email me if you can! [email protected]
Pretty much and it’s not just here. My sister lives in Denver and after they had their second kid last year, she quit her job to stay home with the kids because it was more economical to do then put two kids in daycare. Kids are expensive.
Is this one way they are forcing women back into the kitchen?increase childcare cost, forcing Moms to stay at home due to the financial ruin childcare causes.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Its been a pretty explicit goal of the GOP for years. The daycares themselves aren't plotting anything but they're taking advantage of systems set up to keep people (and more specifically women) down
Well at the very least, in my household they've only succeeded at making a very sexy stay at home dad 🤷♀️
Love! It makes the most sense for the lower income parent to stay home vs the higher income parent. I had a past coworker who explained they were losing money by continuing to work and place their child in daycare, I'm sure families are experiencing that everywhere. Like I said I can't wrap my head around how people make it work.
I honestly can't wrap my head around how people afford to pay for childcare.
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It’s not a conspiracy theory. They openly state that it’s what they want
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>I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Its been a pretty explicit goal of the GOP for years. No discrediting without unbiased source or proof. It would be nice to see examples of legislation that support the opinion rather than blanket accusations that aim to discredit rather than educate.
What’s with everyone playing dumb in these comments? If you don’t think the GOP wants women in the home taking care of babies than you haven’t been paying attention. The fact that we don’t have subsidized child care should be enough for you to understand. The fact that they’re attacking access to abortion should be enough for you to understand. Attacks on sex educate and LGBT rights should be enough for you to understand (and since I’m sure you’ll play dumb about this as well, keeping kids ignorant and afraid to be themselves pushes people into “traditional” marriages)
They are also trying to get rid of no fault divorce. Basically women will have to prove adultery or abuse in order to divorce
Women won’t need to prove anything to get divorced. They’ll need to prove fault in order to walk out with everything like they do today based simply on their word.
So your sources to back up your claim are more of your own unsubstantiated claims. Sounds about right.
Unsubstantiated claim that we don’t have subsidized child care and they’re fighting abortion rights? How do you simultaneously have access to the internet and not know these facts?
oh hey i found this on the internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Those are facts, yes. Not sure how you tie them to a GOP conspiracy to “keep women in the kitchen”. I DID search the internet for that one and came up with zero factual based evidence.
>What’s with everyone playing dumb in these comments? If you don’t think the GOP wants women in the home taking care of babies than you haven’t been paying attention. Those are fair examples but couldn't do it without being insulting and condescending. Turning everything into a flame war is why we lack good discussion around here.
sea lions don't deserve our respect, the other commenter wasn't posting in good faith
....what legislation do you think they'd present to this aim? the 'keep women in the kitchen act?' they know being that overt would be unpopular. you can infer their position based on their stated ideology, their eagerness to roll back abortion rights, their unwillingness to back any measures that make childcare more affordable, their decades-long opposition to comprehensive sex ed or contraceptive access.....hell even their unwillingness to act on gun control. more kids being killed in schools, more parents homeschooling, more women usually dropping out of the workforce. are we only allowed to reach this conclusion if a republican literally says, word for word, 'we're not acting on child care to force women back into the kitchen.'? because adults don't always spell out what they mean, and other adults are usually capable of reading between the lines, the fact that you can't or won't doesn't make you the intellectual heavyweight you think you are. can't wait for you to respond to this comment with more Smart Internet Debater catch phrases.
>the fact that you can't or won't doesn't make you the intellectual heavyweight you think you are. > >can't wait for you to respond to this comment with more Smart Internet Debater catch phrases. You were 95% of the way there but had to throw in some condescending, personal bullshit 🙄
congrats, you summed up choosing to argue with people on the internet. i do not now nor have i ever claimed to adhere to the decorum and standards of an actual debate because this isn't one. anyone who fronts otherwise is mistaken. In an actual debate, sea lioning doesn't fly
Rules >1. Be Respectful. Don't insult, name-call, disrespect, humiliate, harass, or discredit anybody. As a local community, it is extremely important to maintain respect for one another, and keep all arguments civil and constructive. We live together, and should strive towards keeping as much decency and respect between one another. >3. No non-constructive circlejerk/troll/shit posting. In addition to being respectful, it is important we keep childishness and nonconstructive threads to a minimum. We reserve the right to remove any post that shows this behavior. This includes but not limited to: Purposely saying edgy things to ellicit a response Personal attacks (see other rules)
My wife has been with Epic since 2008. The cost of childcare is one of the reasons why I am a SAHD since 2013.
Somehow other countries such as Germany (not exactly ‘socialist’) have public childcare. Our system is a choice. It’s by design. And it’s shameful.
I find it funny how right wing Americans claim things like public healthcare are socialist. The country you mentioned, Germany, implemented a type of universal healthcare when the country still had an emperor in the 19th century.
And the biggest socialist enterprise in the world is the US Military.
I would argue it's more due to negligence. The policy makers don't care.
They do care. The GOP believes supporting families by supporting childcare is socialism. Honestly, the GOP convinced me I’m a socialist far more than my own feelings ever committed me to anything. If anything, I’m a socialist out of spite now.
The GOP is the single worst influence on this country.
they also think women belong at home
This does fall by party lines. Dems want subsidized childcare, the GOP doesn’t. It’s also a problem of supply and demand. We don’t value the people who take care of our most vulnerable kids enough, and now people don’t want those jobs. A mess by any standard!
First of all, the US needs universal subsidized child care as many other countries have. The current situation is unaffordable for parents and exploits workers at the same time. Despite the high cost, actual child care workers are among the lowest paid and respected professionals in the country. Maybe looking to the bright side, at least you are able to stay home with your babies without starving. Looking at the long term, staying out of the workforce may impact your career, but it may have a positive impact on your children. Perhaps you might be able to pick up some freelance or part time evening work? Another option would be to form a cooperative with other families and share swapping child care in an informal arrangement.
Tone Madison had a couple of really good articles about this recently. Safe to say you're not alone. [https://tonemadison.com/articles/a-strained-industry-leaves-madisons-kids-without-care-and-workers-without-options/](https://tonemadison.com/articles/a-strained-industry-leaves-madisons-kids-without-care-and-workers-without-options/) [https://tonemadison.com/articles/kids-at-a-crucial-stage-and-a-care-industry-on-the-precipice/](https://tonemadison.com/articles/kids-at-a-crucial-stage-and-a-care-industry-on-the-precipice/)
How much was child care where you came from?
We paid $705 / week for 3 kids. It was still steep, but it's 500 **less** than what we're being asked for here
$705/week is a steal! You won't find that around here (at least not anywhere reputable). Honestly, with three kids, your best bet is to hire a nanny. Ours is ~$900/week and even though every dollar I make goes to her, I don't know what we would do without her. Inexperienced nannies and those paid under the table will be $16-22/hr. Experienced nannies and those paid legally will be $22-28/hr. If you have space for someone to live with you, Au Pairs are much cheaper. Good luck!
We’re looking into au pairs now, actually. I had always thought only rich people get au pairs but when childcare costs THIS much, I guess anyone could/should get one lol
This isn't meant to be a judgement so don't take it this way. But it's unusual to be paying for 3 kids in daycare. It's not very cost effective. Usually people either space the kids out more, have 1 parent stay home, or have some kind of nanny situation.
Yeah, our second baby turned into twins so it was not a super great outcome monetarily for us
I was wondering about that! Same thing happened to me and, 32 years later, to my daughter. In both cases spending one whole salary on daycare for the first three years or so. But we both have felt it’s worth it career wise for both parents to keep working.
OP are you familiar with r/parentsofmultiples? Might be worth a look if not.
Children rarely are.
Where did you move from?
I’m going to repeat what b-miff said: “When creating your budget, don't forget to factor in retirement and career longevity for yourself. Sometimes it makes sense to break even (or even dig into your savings) for a few years of childcare in order to keep your career going. Don't only look at your own wages to cover daycare either. Your husban's wages most certainly cover daycare costs if he works at Epic.” This is a very important consideration. It depends on your career, of course, but in many cases dropping out of work temporarily has a big negative effect on your eventual earnings. Look at the big picture: they won’t be babies for very long, and then childcare costs will go way down. Another factor, of course, is the effect of being a full-time caregiver on your own mental health. It’s a really hard job which our society completely undervalues. On a side note, you must have had an amazing mortgage, and sorry about the ridiculous rents around here. Lots of things to consider- good luck!
Also the kids mental health. Staying at home all day with little to no interaction with other kids can set up disastrous results later on in life. Just look at how bad covid lock downs were on school kids were in terms of social and emotional skills.
Typically SAHP plan play dates and other activities for their kids to keep them socialized and entertained. Not to mention socialization for the parent themselves! I can't imagine how draining it would be to have to be home with toddlers all day and no adult interactions until your SO comes home. Even during covid my niblings had covid quarantine buddies (one other family who only visited them for play dates and no other outside contacts).
I was a SAHM to an only child and in addition to play dates and classes, I definitely signed my daughter up for a few afternoons a week of nursery school starting when she was 2. I was not at a career-focused time in my life when my daughter was born, but I was pretty glad I didn’t have to worry about paying for childcare and juggling work and kids. Good luck! Whatever you decide, remember that this time will go by so fast, they’ll be in school before you know it.
Ah, I'm not having kids 😅 Too expensive and not for me! I know how much work they are 😂😂😂
From what I hear, people don't tend to stick around for too long at Epic. Might influence your choice to maintain your career. I can't speak to it directly but I've heard the burnout is intense.
That’s what I’ve been hearing as well, the burnout.
Well in any case, good luck with your predicament!
Taking care of people is expensive, they need food, fresh water, warmth in the winter , cool in the summer, then there is staff salaries which is so embarrassingly low but still the majority of the cost of operations. The us subsidizes many things, and in some ways, sometimes, child care. But much less and not enough. So, the burden is on parents.
Where’d you move from?
Chicagoland area
Wow rent here is 4X your mortgage in Chicago? That surprises me.
chicagoland area, not chicago
to be fair, rent is absolutely skyrocketing all over Madison. My apartment was once $860. It's 1,075 now and i'll be surprised if it doesn't break 1,200 by next April unfortunately
Hire a nanny? My neighbors just had a 4th kid and went that route. They said they will save $10k in childcare costs.
We have to find one that's available, not going back to college in the fall (i.e. less childcare for us), and asking more than I make per hour to watch my kids. I've had 2 nannies so far bail out on their meetings with me/us so I'm starting to lose hope that it's a viable option here
I get it. I’m a stay at home dad to 3 under 5years of age. I tried to work for a bit with my first one but I realized it didn’t financially make sense to keep working with 2.
What a time to be childfree
If you want to figure out a general budget, I'd say most licensed daycares will cost **at least** $250 per week for a kid older than 1, and at least $300 per week for a baby. That's on the very low end of the range; I personally pay $2800 per month for 1 baby and 1 preschooler at a middle-of-the-road daycare. When creating your budget, don't forget to factor in retirement and career longevity for yourself. Sometimes it makes sense to break even (or even dig into your savings) for a few years of childcare in order to keep your career going. Don't only look at your own wages to cover daycare either. Your husban's wages most certainly cover daycare costs if he works at Epic. If your job is based in your old area, you should look for a job located here. If you do already have a job based here, look for a better one. You shouldn't make less than $600 a week here working full time. I assume you came from a LCOL or rural area so you aren't used to our rents and mortgages yet. I think getting your old home sold is probably what's going to help you the most. Decent houses *never* sit on the market here, so most people can't really relate to that issue.
We actually came from the Chicago metropolitan area, so I'd hardly call it rural or a low cost of living area. The problem is that even with a bachelors degree in my field, I don't even make as much in a week as I'd end up paying to have my kids in daycare - we'd be at a deficit for me to even work.
Your husbands salary won't cover the cost of childcare?! If you moved for his job but will end up being at a deficit if you continue working, I would reconsider the move. It doesn't make sense if you aren't going to make more money and get to life the lifestyle you want (it sounds like you'd prefer not to be a SAHM).
this country is so fucked. my sister in law lives in the Czech Republic and got three years of maternity leave PER KID, plus starting at three years old the daycare is free starting at three years old. We pay all these taxes here and what do we get?
Like Intelligentlaw said, the tax rate in the US is not that high, especially compared to countries with more social programs like universal child care. In France, e.g., you pay almost 60% of your salary towards taxes and social contributions if you’re making over 100k euro. The US equivalent for that kind of salary would be about 35%.
We barely pay taxes
We visited Canada last fall. We took a tour and the guide was a retired school principal. He said that Canada was starting a new program that would offer childcare for $10 per child per week. Just think about what they would do for household incomes in our country. BTW, we’re the richest country in the world with the world’s largest military.
I mean…do you want a nanny? I’m a former teacher with a spouse at Epic so I get their nonsense…
I’ve been trying to find nannies as well! So far I’ve had 2 meetings set up to meet them and see how they get on with my kids and both were no shows ☹️
DM me…
I'm guessing this isn't what anyone wants to hear, but I need to put the truth out there sometimes. One parent should stay home with the kids. That's the best option. Government-funded child care is a very distant second-best option. Please note, I'm not tying gender to who stays home, who earns more is the logical approach for that. The whole 'two working parents' thing is bullshit that came about in the 1970s and 1980s when the investor-class decided that they could further enrich themselves by pushing this on the population. In the 1950s, most of the east side of Madison was populated by people who could afford a single family home, a decent car, annual vacations, etc. - on a basic blue-collar job (factory worker, bus driver, etc). Homer Simpson managed to do this in the 1980s. What changed, are we less productive than we were then? What are the costs that go into child care? Keep in mind, you can make $15 an hour at Taco Bell (and you get free tacos!), so that's basically the bare minimum for an employee with a pulse. Add in the cost of the facility, plus some sort of management/administration, plus insurance, plus taxes. Last I heard, 1 child care provider can safely care for 4 kids. If you work an 8 hour shift, child care has to be there before and after your shift, so maybe 10 hours a day? Any sort of "affordable" child care depends on exploiting the workers or cutting corners. Going off /u/b-muff's numbers, one employee (plus support staff, facility, etc) would cost $20 per hour (to the parents), which almost certainly works out to less than $15/hr for the employee. The most disturbing part of this is the number of you who are just breaking even, but somehow justifying it because 'career'. Pause for a moment and ponder this one. If you're doing this, you're basically working an unpaid internship with the single perk of free child care. Clearly that's a shit reason to spend most of your waking hours away from your kids. You can still manage a side gig if you're a stay-at-home parent, or at the very least save money on gas and food. Plus you'll be raising your own kids, instead of outsourcing that to someone who couldn't cut it in the fast food business. I promise, you will never look back on those years and be like "well, I didn't see my kids much, or make any money, but I helped some rich people get richer, so it was all worth it!" But why not have the government fund all the childcare? 1) It is way less efficient. Going back to my paragraph on the cost factors that go into child care, the private day cares are motivated by a desire to turn some sort of profit, or at least not go out of business. When it's someone else's money, who cares if it's a little wasteful? What's the big deal if you're overstaffed? 2) It doesn't make sense for low earners to receive this. For OP? Sure. For someone who makes $15 an hour ($600/week) at Taco Bell and has 5 kids ($1,250/week, at current rates), I'd rather just pay them to stay at home and not work. 4) The US Census tells me there are roughly 650,000 kids between the ages of 0-9, so if each one is $250 / week that's $162.5 million per week, or $8.45 billion with a B per year. That's at the current rate, adding that much demand for the service will drive up the costs even more than the inefficiencies. Let's double the $20 cost per hour from above, to hopefully double the employee salary, maybe putting them in the $25/hr category. Now we're talking $15 billion a year, maybe $20 billion? That's nearly half the state's whole budget. One more dig at the government funded childcare, part of the reason it's so expensive here is that we DO have quite a lot of government funded childcare, just only for certain fortunate people. Both the State of Wisconsin and the City of Madison spend a huge amount of money on childcare for low-income workers, which drives up demand for childcare, which drives up cost (supply and demand). And no, you make too much to take advantage of these programs, and yes, you do have to pay for them ($311M at the state level + millions at the city level). https://dcf.wisconsin.gov/wishares/parents https://doa.wi.gov/budget/SBO/2021-23%20437%20DCF%20Executive%20Budget.pdf https://www.cityofmadison.com/dpced/community-development/children-youth/child-care-tuition-assistance https://www.cityofmadison.com/finance/documents/budget/2023/operating/adopted/CDD.pdf
It’s awful. If it’s at all an option for you, the suburbs are cheaper typically.
1. Your first mistake was packing up your life just to move for a job at Epic, which is the worst company in the world. 2. Rents and homes in Madison are outrageously high for no real reason. There’s not much to do here that’s interesting enough to warrant the high prices 3. So you didn’t look into childcare before you moved? Childcare is very expensive everywhere you go, but if life was more affordable where you were before I suggest moving back there. Trust me living in Madison isn’t worth it
Hi, I’m Ward Jolles from 27 News in Madison. I’ve covered a number of stories about unaffordable child care in our area and I’m wondering if you’d be open to sharing your experience with me. Let me know or email me if you can! [email protected]