In Tuesday’s free newsletter I talked about my experience registering my kids for camp and shared data suggesting that getting American kids into summer camp is an exclusive, expensive mess. I also talked about the fact that moms tend to do most of the mental gymnastics involved in finding summer childcare, and that they are most often the ones who have to change their job schedules to accommodate childcare gaps.
Today, I want to hear your horror stories. When have you had a particularly grim experience securing childcare, and what happened? Have you had to make a sacrifice because you couldn’t fill a childcare need? All kinds of stories are welcome — funny, sad, infuriating. Vent away, and we will send you virtual hugs.
There is one childcare center in my town. One. In the next town over, 5 miles away, there are several head start centers, which I don’t qualify for, and nothing else except for unlicensed home care. And then there’s nothing for tens of miles.
The center in my town is associated with my employer, so employees get priority. Good for me, right? I put my 1st kid on the list when I first got pregnant with him. A part time (3 days/week) spot opened up for him when he was 6 months old, 2 full months after I had to go back to work full time. A full time spot opened up when he was 9 months old, a full year and 6 months after I’d put him on the list. Those five months of working full time with 3 days a week of childcare while still sleep deprived and pumping and all the rest of the baby stuff were hell. We hired some college student to watch him a few hours a week, and we both have semi-flexible schedules (I’m a college professor), so on the day I didn’t teach I’d stay home with the baby. I’d make up the lost hours grading and doing course prep late into the night. I was exhausted.
I thought with my 2nd it would be easier, because she was due in June, and at our center a bunch of slots open up in the summer and fall as preschoolers move up to kindergarten and then toddlers are able to move to preschool. But she was born in June 2020, so that all went to hell. Our daycare center closed in March 2020, and when it reopened in the summer, it did so at reduced enrollment. We lost our spot for our son. They didn’t return to full enrollment until late March 2021, a full 54 weeks after they closed. So we had a toddler and a baby while trying to work from home with no childcare available for a full year. It nearly broke us. We managed by trading childcare with other parents in the same situation and hiring college students to baby sit a few hours a week.
The childcare situation in this country is terrible. It’s a disgrace. And you’re right, it’s because the patriarchy.
We had a childcare crisis that eventually sorted itself out, but was stressful at the time. I live in New York, and there are options here for childcare centers in most neighborhoods, but often they are all expensive. Or they are Head Start programs that I don't qualify for. When my son was born, there were only 4 centers we could use within a mile walking distance of our house accepted children under 2. We found one that we liked that was middle of the road on pricing, and my son stayed there from when he was 3 months until he was 3 years and a few months (with a pandemic closure of 5 months in 2020).
Then we were told in late November 2022 that the center didn't pass a health inspection because of a paperwork error with the new school director. They said that they didn't have the right licensing for kids over 3, so my son's classroom was being shut down and we had 2 weeks to find a new daycare solution. This message was delivered after the center lied that the issue was with a leaky pipe in one of the bathrooms. We were told this the week before Thanksgiving, and we were planning to be out of town that entire week, and so we really had just one week to find a new place.
I toured multiple schools and created a spreadsheet. It was all me because I have the more flexible work-from-home job. We were stressed out because the public schools with 3K weren't taking mid-year students, and private preschools were hideously expensive - some of them were double what we were paying before. We lucked out that we found a great daycare center that participates in the public 3K program, so we only have to pay for before school and after school care. My son loves the new school and only paying for extended care is cheaper, so it's a win-win ultimately, but it was still a stressful situation that required many changes to our family routine.
We found out from a neighbor that the week after we left the previous center, the whole thing was shut down. There were three other classrooms, and it left parents scrambling for care. My heart goes out to the teachers who were fabulous and had nothing to do with the problems, and for all of the parents with kids under 2 who have very limited choices in the neighborhood.