We asked new parents about their experience navigating childcare. Unsurprisingly, each family had to wrestle with steep costs. But what happens if those costs are so high that it makes more sense for a parent to leave the workforce? We showed them.
Transcript:
VANESHA: OMG. Are you serious?
JULIE: Oh. Yeah I don’t think I can afford that.
BRITTNEY: We made a decision before even we had a baby that if we were going to have a kid, we could only afford to have one child.
TREY: The first person to find out Brittney was pregnant was the uh a daycare provider. We were on like 5 waitlists, and this is to pay what is essentially more than rent.
JULIE: we’re just trying to steal ourselves for some very lean times. We’re going to definitely have to make sacrifices to pay for childcare for two kids who are not yet in school.
VANESHA: He’s a stay at home dad and I bring home the bacon basically. I’m a doctor so i could pick up extra shifts.
CHRISTINA: When I weigh my nanny salary and what we pay her her versus my take home pay, I basically work for $200 a month.
VANESHA: The more people I see, the more I get paid. So, it’s just a machine.
VICTORIA FLEISCHER, ThinkProgress: Do you feel like you get time to see your kid?
VANESHA: No, I don’t. And, so yeah it’s just really hard.
The hidden cost of a failing child care system. Okay…
TREY: Oh wow. Holy…that is a lot of money.
VANESHA: Holy crap.
BRITTNEY: Wow.
BRITTNEY: Thank goodness I had family that was able to come and help support because if we didn’t have that, I would have had to stop working.
CHRISTINA: Basically, we assumed I would have to take time off for a second child, because the costs of childcare for two children so greatly outweigh what I make even.
JULIE: I did have sort of an instinct that we couldn’t afford for me to stop working even as it feels like we can’t afford child care. It’s just a really tough spot to be in.
TREY: If for whatever reason something happening that like her daycare didn’t work out in any way, it feels like I don’t have a lot of options.
VANESHA: If something happens to me, there, we’re in trouble. These numbers make me feel, I feel super responsible to take care of my family.
CHRISTINA: I really would love to spend more time with her, but I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be able to re-enter the workforce to do work that I care about later on down the road.
TREY: For a country that talks about wanting to support families, and families being so critical, we have way too few options and the options that we have don’t seem like it fits with where we want to be as a country.
BRITTNEY: We’re paying crazy amounts of money and none of us even feel good about where we’re sending our kids. We’re putting all of the American families in this impossible choice.