A note about childcare
Can I just complain for a minute?
We send our kids to good daycares, DELC and ECEC, a Montessori school. We also have the luxury of having them home with a nanny for a few hours a day, which means that we get to pick them up from school (3 days a week), talk to their teachers about their day, and have them around at home while we finish our workday. The other two days a week we go shopping, or to the museum or ballet class.
So it's pretty great, they get to socialize, we see them all the time, and our nanny Kerstan is really wonderful. But.
First, it's incredibly complicated even on a normal week. Clementine goes to school M, Th, F, which are the only days we can have. Calliope goes to school M, W, F, a far more reasonable schedule. So we're paying for childcare on Wednesday and Thursday mornings even though I can't work either of those mornings. Then Kerstan comes working around her class schedule (she's a college student), assignments, and other job.
Now on top of this layer the monthly schedule adjustments. This week is "spring break" which I guess means we're supposed to be on vacation but we actually need to work. So we have to find childcare 3 days this week -- luckily Grandma and Grandpa Brown were in town so they took one day, and then we got to pay the teachers at the preschool to watch the girls -- at the preschool -- on top of what we're already paying for that month. That was available mornings 2 days this week. Then I had the babysitting co-op lined up for a few hours today but of course with the pneumonia I had to call it off, which does not in fact mean that either Ryan or I got to call off work.
Now the thing is, this kind of chaos happens every single month. There's winter break, summer break, teacher in-services, training days, cleaning days, holidays, etc. etc. Not to mention Kerstan's schedule and being out of town for her spring break, of course on a different schedule than ours, or her summer vacation, or my own travels for work.
Now I still hold that we're incredibly fortunate to be able to have these great schools and this great nanny, and the stress and chaos every month I could even swallow IF... we weren't paying what we're paying for childcare every year. Which is to say, considerably more than it would have cost us to send one of them to college last year. Seriously! You hear about the price of college all the time but rarely about the cost of daycare. And it's not like the kids can pitch in. We need daycare -- so that we can both bring in income to pay the bills and, ironically, save for college, and because we both do want to be able to work. I guess that parents paying for daycare are too run down to mention tuition (not to mention the fund-raising obligations)! There doesn't seem to be anything to be done about it, but maybe those old-fashioned families living together with all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins had it right!
We send our kids to good daycares, DELC and ECEC, a Montessori school. We also have the luxury of having them home with a nanny for a few hours a day, which means that we get to pick them up from school (3 days a week), talk to their teachers about their day, and have them around at home while we finish our workday. The other two days a week we go shopping, or to the museum or ballet class.
So it's pretty great, they get to socialize, we see them all the time, and our nanny Kerstan is really wonderful. But.
First, it's incredibly complicated even on a normal week. Clementine goes to school M, Th, F, which are the only days we can have. Calliope goes to school M, W, F, a far more reasonable schedule. So we're paying for childcare on Wednesday and Thursday mornings even though I can't work either of those mornings. Then Kerstan comes working around her class schedule (she's a college student), assignments, and other job.
Now on top of this layer the monthly schedule adjustments. This week is "spring break" which I guess means we're supposed to be on vacation but we actually need to work. So we have to find childcare 3 days this week -- luckily Grandma and Grandpa Brown were in town so they took one day, and then we got to pay the teachers at the preschool to watch the girls -- at the preschool -- on top of what we're already paying for that month. That was available mornings 2 days this week. Then I had the babysitting co-op lined up for a few hours today but of course with the pneumonia I had to call it off, which does not in fact mean that either Ryan or I got to call off work.
Now the thing is, this kind of chaos happens every single month. There's winter break, summer break, teacher in-services, training days, cleaning days, holidays, etc. etc. Not to mention Kerstan's schedule and being out of town for her spring break, of course on a different schedule than ours, or her summer vacation, or my own travels for work.
Now I still hold that we're incredibly fortunate to be able to have these great schools and this great nanny, and the stress and chaos every month I could even swallow IF... we weren't paying what we're paying for childcare every year. Which is to say, considerably more than it would have cost us to send one of them to college last year. Seriously! You hear about the price of college all the time but rarely about the cost of daycare. And it's not like the kids can pitch in. We need daycare -- so that we can both bring in income to pay the bills and, ironically, save for college, and because we both do want to be able to work. I guess that parents paying for daycare are too run down to mention tuition (not to mention the fund-raising obligations)! There doesn't seem to be anything to be done about it, but maybe those old-fashioned families living together with all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins had it right!
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