People say kids are expensive. I didn’t believe them!
Eschewing all the various and expensive detritus that comes with a new baby – the swings, cribs, strollers, car seats – we got what we needed secondhand or from friends. I think we spent $300 the first year she was alive. No big deal. I was shocked when we did our taxes, because we made eight bucks that year (thanks, EI!) but I never felt poor.
But then, childcare.
For us, the math was pretty easy. I could stay home, work super-part-time at my self-employed job of dreams, or go back to my full-time job and take home about $400 after taxes and daycare costs. Not a tough choice. Not so for families not blessed with two parents who can work, family close by to watch the kids a couple hours per week, or even (this one is important) the desire to stay home with the kids.
The enormous cost of childcare in this province – second highest in Canada, in fact – means that people who would rather be back in the paid workforce often struggle on one or zero incomes. This is to say nothing of parents putting careers on hold for periods of years simply because daycare costs are enormous.
It bears mentioning that the math we did in our family never considered the possibility of my husband staying home with our daughter – as the higher earner in our family, he will keep working the same as before, meaning his status as such will likely remain unchanged.
This might partially explain the persistent gap in wages between genders: women earn 66.7 cents on men’s dollar when part-time workers, as many post-maternity women find themselves, are included in the equation.
When so much of one’s personhood is subsumed by the mantle of “parent,” the inability to choose freely here affects families’ well-being both economically and emotionally.
I am happy with the way the calculations have worked out for us. But I know no small number of women who have felt they did not have a choice in leaving their jobs to do unpaid work at home with their kids.
This is not optimal for those families, the overall happiness of our society, or for that pesky provincial economy that seems so insistent on going down the toilet. What if all those people were earning salaries and paying taxes, and jobs were being created in subsidized daycares to boot?
It’s not an impossible dream; other provinces have successfully implemented programs to bring down the cost of childcare and make sure that folks who want to go to work, can. The choice to work or to stay home with kids is one best made based on what supports the well-being of the family, not on cruel mathematics.
What I want is for people who want to be at home with their kids to be able to do that, and for people who want to engage with other work – because, to be clear, parenting also is a shitload of work – to be able to do that.
I suppose we best get to work on that.
I worked and studied for many years to carve out a career in this province. I didn’t realize when I had kids that childcare was going to be so hard to find and so inordinately expensive. It was never a question of whether I would return to work, but when. I was lucky to have an employer to hold my job and a husband who earned a good income and a decent line of credit while I took three of the last four years home with the kids. They are still young and it is such a toss-up (daily!) trying to figure out what is best for them, and for our family. It’s almost a zero sum game for parents. Have both parents go to work full time and earn next to nothing while you pay for childcare and worry about the quality of it plus your child’s mental health; or stay home and live on a shoestring while all the time, schooling and energy that you put into your career (not to mention all the $$ you are still paying for student loans) goes down the drain. And then worry about your mental health, if staying home wasn’t your preferred option. I tell prospective parents not to bother having children unless they have exceptional family (i.e., free!) support. Otherwise, you will never find someone to care for your children when they are sick, you will not get a break for self-care and you will find parenting very expensive and/or difficult without time for yourself. It’s very Thatcher-ian but in hindsight I would not have had my kids if I had thought for a minute about who would (or in my case - would not) be supporting me in my own family circle, or how much paid childcare would exact a toll on our lives/budget.
Childcare is prohibitively expensive, yup. It’s not the primary reason I’ve stayed home though. The article is about choice, as well as lack thereof. Sure hope my children survive my lack of “training” and experience, as you know… their parent.
This is the tale of modern parenthood in our province and it’s sad. You’ll get people who will say “don’t have kids if you can’t afford them” but how can you figure out all the costs ahead of time AND how could you just decide not to have kids because things will be tough? Our province’s future depends on people not only having kids, but thriving as families and communities. Instead, we’re in a situation where a two-parent family with more than one kid needs both parents working full time, or one very high-earner parent, or help from family/friends nearby. To add to what Hope noted in her article, going to pre-school is such a wonderful thing for children as they’re enriched and socializing in ways they wouldn’t at home (parents are not trained, but ECEs have specialized education and experience). Plus the gaps families fall in to including that most pre-schools don’t accept kids before the age of two, and grade school days end well before typical work days so child care costs do not end when kids go to school. Talk to any parents in this province and you’ll find few who don’t have a story to tell about the challenges of finding, affording, and maintaining good childcare because it’s such a common thread.
CATS???!!! Where oh, where did I go wrong?
Just like her mum!!