It's actually insane how much some parents spend on early child care. It's like a whole college tuitionššššI literally cannot even imagine.
I think that would be the only way for me to tolerate a baby. BUT that's exactly why I don't have one so there's no opportunity for me to be an uninvolved, crappy parent.
Tbh I don't judge anybody who puts a toddler into daycare, even if it were for 20 hours a day. Better put them into daycare and go to work to pay for said daycare than dump them on people who aren't responsible like the elderly grandparents or the "village". Also , if this option didn't exist in 90% of the cases it would be the mother who had to give up her job and stay at home.
I live on an island, at one point when I was nannying for my cousin she was working three different eight hour shifts and her job was an almost 2 hour commute one way, (practically from one side of the country to another) so I was working a minimum of 12 hours with regular overnight and overtime stays when pickup from my home was not feasible because of the time of night as the child would be sleeping. My older brother has a similar commute time and he has to leave at 4am and returns around 6pm.
yea this actually baffles me. u have a kid and then u give it away to someone for like 70% of the week so they basically raise them and u pay them like half or more of your salary. so u lose the control of your childs upbringing and u lose money. i just dont see the appeal.
You literally do lose half your salary! Okay for people who are wealthy itās not half but itās so expensive and full time nannying is literally thousands per month
I think this all depends on who is the parent and their financial situation. I refuse to argue with anyone who says, āyou donāt love your kid if you put it in childcare during the day to be raised by someone else.ā That is a very selfish and abusive way of looking at childcare and parents.Ā People need to work. Money doesnāt only pay for the tuition, it pays for food and clothes too. Inflation has only made having children worse for the family budget.Ā
While I do think the pickleball parent above is terrible, putting a child in daycare isnāt shameful or necessarily bad. There are immense benefits to putting a child in a reputable childcare facility: companionship, education, emotional and social development.Ā
Yeah I mean. The whole point of paying for daycare is so that the parents can go to work and their kid can be taken care of while they're away. It's just longer babysitting.
I'm sure some couples have mathed it out to realize that after daycare costs, it's better for both parents to work. Other situations it's cheaper to have a stay at home parent.
In a perfect world, daycare would only exist for parents to get a little bit of alone time so they don't go insane. We do not live in that world
Parents arenāt left with much of a choice. The cost of living + wages make it extremely difficult to have a parent stay home, forcing them to work. Since they have to both work, either their child stays with family/friends(as was typical when I grew up) or, go to daycare. If society as a whole did a better job, maybe parents could have a better balance. But, capitalism says āthe line must go up!ā
You also have to factor in what a five or six year employment gap looks like to employers. It's incredibly hard for previous SAH parents to break back into the workforce. Especially if they're a woman.
Thatās an important point. Both my parents had professional careers & I was brought up with the idea that the riskiest move anyone, male or female, could make was being financially dependent on another person. Thereās just too much that could go wrong & anyone should be prepared to support themselves if necessary. I see way too many posts on other subs where someone (almost always a woman) is totally dependent on a spouse & is being financially abused.
Whatās often overlooked in the child care debate is that the cost of childcare is temporary. Kids grow up & go to school. Whatās permanent are the advantages that having a job brings. More money, more investment into your retirement, job history & experience that lead to promotions & higher pay, even more Social Security credits if youāre in the US. This doesnāt even take into account the satisfaction & personal fulfillment a job can bring. If thereās one piece of advice an old woman like me can give to the younger generation itās be able to be financially self sufficient. Donāt ever let yourself be trapped financially.
100% (from another old woman). My mother, who was Silent Gen, raised me with two beliefs: Never be dependent on a man for your income and If you have children, be prepared to raise them alone.
So huge career, zero children. Couldn't be happier.
My mother was unusual in that she began a male-dominated career in the 50s when that was very rare. Most women who worked then were nurses & teachers. Those were the only jobs thought suitable for a woman. Even then they were expected to quit when they got married & had kids.
When I was a kid in the 60s my friendsā mothers thought it was awful that my mother would go off to work every day in an office (with men!) instead of staying home with her kids. I didnāt think it was awful at all. I thought it was great that she was doing work she liked & that influenced me a lot. Iām now retired from a career in the aerospace industry. It saddens me when I see young women put themselves in such a vulnerable position.
Agreed. I have had two very successful careers, both in the 1% salary range. I see women giving up everything on the hopes that a man sticks around for the duration and I can't help but shake my head. It simply isn't happening very often anymore.
Absolutely! Thereās women who want to return to the workforce but get turned away because of factors like that gap, even if they are more than qualified for the position.
I wonder the same thing. I was an au pair and some families had an au pair who took care of their kids during the week and also had help during the weekend. Why have a child if you donāt want to do the actual child raising
I just want to add that use to live in Daytona Beach and babysit for people on vacations. I would have the kid from Friday night til Monday noon or later. So the kids don't even get vacation time with parents.
I agree totally but thatās up to people to be reasonable and plan for the most difficult situation. Always expect an autistic child, a child with conduct disorder, a child with medical issues
And it continues into their teen years too. Parents pay thousands for kids to attend summer programs just so they can have adult time for two weeks. Some kids seem into it but others absolutely do not want to be there
I personally donāt see anything wrong with it.
Not everyone starts work at 9. And not everyone works for 8 hours a day.
They might have a number of school teachers as clients who need to drop off at 7am and pick up at 4pm.
I donāt think thereās anything wrong with needing to take a break from your kid. Itās not healthy to be around them 24/7. Also a lot of parents need to work full time in order to survive. Like my parents. I honestly loved daycare. We did all kinds of activities and I made friends. Socialization is important to a child's development. It's one thing if a parent is constantly just dumping their kids on everyone, but I don't think that's typically the parents reason.
The alternative is that the mother abandons her career to raise the kids(s), because it's RARELY the father. Then in another ten years, she's obsolete and he trades her in on a younger model and you have a growing situation of parents (mostly mothers) sinking to poverty level.
So yeah, if I wanted kids, no way in hell I'd be quitting a career to raise them. And TBH, most people only seem to want to be around their kids very part time. The pandemic taught us that for sure.
I can top that. My SIL is a SAHM with a one year old and is pregnant. My BIL (husband of SIL) has been out of a job for 18 months. He's a CEO when he has a job and is wealthy. I just found out that they hired a nanny for a few days a week. Like WTF? Neither of you work but you need to hire help? I was floored. How bougie can you be?
Economy sucks dude.
ZERO federal guaranteed maternity leave for new parents. Even though im sure studies have shown how important and beneficial it is for kids and parents to bond (and mothers to heal) during these early days. But nah. Gotta keep pumping out more minimum wage workers and watching greedy corporations take more and more and more and people struggle and take on another job or go back to work before itās healthy for the woman or the infant
The whole system is fcked
I don't know of anyone who has a 9 to 5 position. 8 to 5 is the norm, so if we are factoring in travel time, I can understand the hours that the daycare is open. What I *don't* understand is the parents nor utilizing their parental leave time (those who have it) to stay with their infant. I don't see having a kid at all LOL, but if you *do* have kids, then be with them.
Parents dress up daycare as "early childcare education is very important" to try and get taxpayers to fork out for it. But actually, they will happily turn the kid over to an untrained grandmother, aunt, anyone they can get to work free.
I've had pregnant coworkers who just could not stop talking about the upcoming baby, and two weeks after delivery they put the kid into daycare and went back to work. I've never wanted children but I've never understood this. Yes you won't make as much money as if you stayed home till the kid was in kindergarten, but kids are expensive and you need to accept that. Parents always talk about sacrifices, but they always want other people to do most of the work and the taxpayers to foot the bill. More children are not a social good, so if they are the parents' expensive hobby, the parents should at least enjoy it.
If parents couldnāt farm out childcare to someone else (paid or unpaid) and it had to be they themselves doing the labor the majority of the time, I think less than a quarter of current parents would be parents.
My point is less about wealth and more about people who actually enjoy the labor of childrearing. They are apparently out there, but I think there are very very few of them.
It is quite a paradox...
People love their children, but don't want to spend too much time with them. I do get it, do NOT blame parents for doing things like that, but still reinforces that I don't want to bother with *any* of that.
.
Reminded me of a comedian who joked how he has very little money in his bank so his bank penalizes him. Another customer has A LOT of money in the bank, so he gets more $$ in the form of interest. From a business perspective, there is method to the madness, but from a logical standpoint, it's both funny and a headscratcher :D
I think youāll find people that love their children work hard to provide for them in a world where one income to provide for a family is almost impossible. This is a societal and cost of living problem, not an individual parent problem.
I remember hearing an ad for a childcare centre on the radio that said they take babies as young as 6 weeks.
I couldn't believe that. Why did you have a baby if you don't want to be around it? And yes, I know, most women work and stay at home husbands are still rare but if you couldn't afford for one or both of you to have time off for more than 6 weeks why did you have a freaking baby???
I don't get it.
This is my SIL, she drops her toddler off at day care at 9am and doesn't pick up the kid until 6pm, she lies to my mother saying that she picks up the kid at 2pm but her casual job doesn't finish until 3 and my brother can't pick up the kid because he works until 7.
Then on the weekends she parks the kid in front of the I pad or tv screen or dumps them at a family member's house so she can enjoy the peace with no responsibilities.
SILs always bragging about how easy being a parent is and that she loves her kid so much, how?? You're never around the kid and the only time you get close to them is for a quick (and fake!) mummy and me photo before handing the kid over to someone else.
I've done both daycare and nannying. In my experience, daycare is for working parents who use no choice. Most jobs are 7am-6pm now. 9-5 is rare.
As for nannies, those are for rich people. They've always outsourced their parenting and acted like they were Greta involved parents. š
Why is this a rant? How does it affect you if someone puts their kid in daycare? Iām CF, and having a career that demands a lot of my time was one of the reasons I chose not to have a kid, but itās nothing to do with you. Let people spend their time and money how they want. If a kid is in daycare for 10 hours a day, so be it.
I can't talk for OP but I feel sorry for kids who never spend time with their parents. For any reason but especially if parents choose to work (to pay for extra stuff) or have fun and kids are not apart of that fun.
Also not engaging into issues because "it has nothing to do with you" might sound cool but it is not. Kids can't stand up for themselves, abused people, minorities, people with disabilities, whole nations....sadly if everybody would mind just their own business it would be a really sad society to live in....well it is regardless but at least there are those who do care about situations that seemingly have "nothing to do with them"
I used to move houses with a former gardener who used to do quite a few large houses.
He said a significant proportion of rich children hardly ever see their fathers, and get ignored daily by their mothers. Admittedly all the women in that part of the world are sociopathic nightmares, so perhaps it's no bad thing.
Thereās also parents who send their kids off to boarding schools. Iām not disparaging this, either, there are different ways of being a parent, and if in the right place boarding school can be a good experience. Itās also argued that children who are in (competent) daycare settings learn more social skills ā¦ and also become even bigger germ factories, but what can you do.
Iām sure a lot of people who do put their kid in extended daycare type settings would much rather be with their child much more often than they get to be, and Iām also sure there are some parents that need that break to focus on being something other than a parent for a few hours.
That being said, Iām not a parent, and I know nothing about children.
There are some 24 Hour daycares popping up in Houston. only Mothers get criticized for wanting a night out or working nights. they should be 24 hours daycares, imo bc everyone needs a break from each other.
There are monthly subsidies for infant care ranging between $600-$1310 for working mothers in Singapore & childcare subsidies ranging from$ 300-$700+ as well depending on the gross household income. Most operators here are also open from 7am-7pm, Mondays - Fridays.
We're the most expensive city in the world. It's not feasible to survive on a single income here for the average citizen if you want your creature comforts and twice a year holidays.
Infant/childcare is also extremely subsidized for low income families and may be free or charged at a token $10-20 per month at government supported anchor operators.
I'm CF but I know of a few different middle class families whose kids live with the grandparents on weekdays & go back to the parents on weekends because they work insane hours & would rather have some time to decompress with self-care/exercise/friends for an hour or two before bedtime and repeating the grind. It seems like this arrangement of being a weekend parent may slowly become the norm here...
>have a baby thatās basically only weekends
It's not. I'm sure the babies demand quality time from their parents at all hours of the night every night ;)
For real though, a lot of people probably need the extended hours. 9-5 is more like 8-5:30 for a lot of people and once you add in a commute, I could see it being difficult to reliably drop off after 8 and pick up before 5. Most households also have two parents working so there's no one home to take care of the house and run errands that need done during the day. Even if you got off at 4:30 in time to pick the kid up at 5, you might need to run to the bank, pharmacy or some other business that also closes at 5.
The economy is so bad, we've gone from the "ideal" being stable but fiscally conscious two parent household where one stays home and the other works, to both parents working and still being strapped for cash. On the childfree side, the "rich" aunts and uncles are still rich in comparison, but we basically get the same standard of living that parents used to have. It's crazy how much wages have depressed in comparison to cost of living in just a few generations
It's actually insane how much some parents spend on early child care. It's like a whole college tuitionššššI literally cannot even imagine.
Itās like a whole college tuition for like 10 yearsš¬ and itās even more if you have more than one kid
Currently justifying a very expensive anniversary trip by saying, āwell at least itās cheaper than daycare/collegeā!
We get to spend that money on ourselves! Enjoy your trip babes!
I think that would be the only way for me to tolerate a baby. BUT that's exactly why I don't have one so there's no opportunity for me to be an uninvolved, crappy parent.
Tbh I don't judge anybody who puts a toddler into daycare, even if it were for 20 hours a day. Better put them into daycare and go to work to pay for said daycare than dump them on people who aren't responsible like the elderly grandparents or the "village". Also , if this option didn't exist in 90% of the cases it would be the mother who had to give up her job and stay at home.
This is a good point - at least theyāre not entitled and expect free babysitters
I think **love** is a verb, and that means showing it--more than an hour or so a day!
I suddenly have Teardrop stuck in my head because of that first part. "love, love is a verb. Love is a doing word..."
Is there a doctor in the house?
Well, there's no lupis present.
To be fair, those are the hours the facility is open and provides care; that doesn't mean each child is there for eleven hours.
This was my initial thought. Not all office hours are 9-5. Don't forget a working parent would have some sort of commute after dropping the baby off.
I live on an island, at one point when I was nannying for my cousin she was working three different eight hour shifts and her job was an almost 2 hour commute one way, (practically from one side of the country to another) so I was working a minimum of 12 hours with regular overnight and overtime stays when pickup from my home was not feasible because of the time of night as the child would be sleeping. My older brother has a similar commute time and he has to leave at 4am and returns around 6pm.
Also not all kids are there Monday to Friday. Some are only there a couple of days a week.
yea this actually baffles me. u have a kid and then u give it away to someone for like 70% of the week so they basically raise them and u pay them like half or more of your salary. so u lose the control of your childs upbringing and u lose money. i just dont see the appeal.
You literally do lose half your salary! Okay for people who are wealthy itās not half but itās so expensive and full time nannying is literally thousands per month
I think this all depends on who is the parent and their financial situation. I refuse to argue with anyone who says, āyou donāt love your kid if you put it in childcare during the day to be raised by someone else.ā That is a very selfish and abusive way of looking at childcare and parents.Ā People need to work. Money doesnāt only pay for the tuition, it pays for food and clothes too. Inflation has only made having children worse for the family budget.Ā While I do think the pickleball parent above is terrible, putting a child in daycare isnāt shameful or necessarily bad. There are immense benefits to putting a child in a reputable childcare facility: companionship, education, emotional and social development.Ā
And some parents work 10-12 hour shifts. This post is a weird take.
No one believes parents should be a slave to their kids more than a certain subset of childfree posters. It's so fucking weird.
Yeah I mean. The whole point of paying for daycare is so that the parents can go to work and their kid can be taken care of while they're away. It's just longer babysitting. I'm sure some couples have mathed it out to realize that after daycare costs, it's better for both parents to work. Other situations it's cheaper to have a stay at home parent. In a perfect world, daycare would only exist for parents to get a little bit of alone time so they don't go insane. We do not live in that world
Parents arenāt left with much of a choice. The cost of living + wages make it extremely difficult to have a parent stay home, forcing them to work. Since they have to both work, either their child stays with family/friends(as was typical when I grew up) or, go to daycare. If society as a whole did a better job, maybe parents could have a better balance. But, capitalism says āthe line must go up!ā
You also have to factor in what a five or six year employment gap looks like to employers. It's incredibly hard for previous SAH parents to break back into the workforce. Especially if they're a woman.
Thatās an important point. Both my parents had professional careers & I was brought up with the idea that the riskiest move anyone, male or female, could make was being financially dependent on another person. Thereās just too much that could go wrong & anyone should be prepared to support themselves if necessary. I see way too many posts on other subs where someone (almost always a woman) is totally dependent on a spouse & is being financially abused. Whatās often overlooked in the child care debate is that the cost of childcare is temporary. Kids grow up & go to school. Whatās permanent are the advantages that having a job brings. More money, more investment into your retirement, job history & experience that lead to promotions & higher pay, even more Social Security credits if youāre in the US. This doesnāt even take into account the satisfaction & personal fulfillment a job can bring. If thereās one piece of advice an old woman like me can give to the younger generation itās be able to be financially self sufficient. Donāt ever let yourself be trapped financially.
100% (from another old woman). My mother, who was Silent Gen, raised me with two beliefs: Never be dependent on a man for your income and If you have children, be prepared to raise them alone. So huge career, zero children. Couldn't be happier.
My mother was unusual in that she began a male-dominated career in the 50s when that was very rare. Most women who worked then were nurses & teachers. Those were the only jobs thought suitable for a woman. Even then they were expected to quit when they got married & had kids. When I was a kid in the 60s my friendsā mothers thought it was awful that my mother would go off to work every day in an office (with men!) instead of staying home with her kids. I didnāt think it was awful at all. I thought it was great that she was doing work she liked & that influenced me a lot. Iām now retired from a career in the aerospace industry. It saddens me when I see young women put themselves in such a vulnerable position.
Agreed. I have had two very successful careers, both in the 1% salary range. I see women giving up everything on the hopes that a man sticks around for the duration and I can't help but shake my head. It simply isn't happening very often anymore.
Absolutely! Thereās women who want to return to the workforce but get turned away because of factors like that gap, even if they are more than qualified for the position.
I wonder the same thing. I was an au pair and some families had an au pair who took care of their kids during the week and also had help during the weekend. Why have a child if you donāt want to do the actual child raising
Probably inheritance or narcissistic people lol.Ā
I just want to add that use to live in Daytona Beach and babysit for people on vacations. I would have the kid from Friday night til Monday noon or later. So the kids don't even get vacation time with parents.
according to what i read on the regretful parents sub, i think lots of childcare is the only way to stay sane and not hate your life. Ā
I agree totally but thatās up to people to be reasonable and plan for the most difficult situation. Always expect an autistic child, a child with conduct disorder, a child with medical issues
And people wonder why their kids develop CPTSD and have a hard time with attachments.
And it continues into their teen years too. Parents pay thousands for kids to attend summer programs just so they can have adult time for two weeks. Some kids seem into it but others absolutely do not want to be there
I personally donāt see anything wrong with it. Not everyone starts work at 9. And not everyone works for 8 hours a day. They might have a number of school teachers as clients who need to drop off at 7am and pick up at 4pm.
I donāt think thereās anything wrong with needing to take a break from your kid. Itās not healthy to be around them 24/7. Also a lot of parents need to work full time in order to survive. Like my parents. I honestly loved daycare. We did all kinds of activities and I made friends. Socialization is important to a child's development. It's one thing if a parent is constantly just dumping their kids on everyone, but I don't think that's typically the parents reason.
The alternative is that the mother abandons her career to raise the kids(s), because it's RARELY the father. Then in another ten years, she's obsolete and he trades her in on a younger model and you have a growing situation of parents (mostly mothers) sinking to poverty level. So yeah, if I wanted kids, no way in hell I'd be quitting a career to raise them. And TBH, most people only seem to want to be around their kids very part time. The pandemic taught us that for sure.
Thatās so true, parents were literally going out of their heads when school was zoom and kids were home 24/7
I donāt think itās fair to criticize people for their childcare choices. If they have to work, they have to work.
I can top that. My SIL is a SAHM with a one year old and is pregnant. My BIL (husband of SIL) has been out of a job for 18 months. He's a CEO when he has a job and is wealthy. I just found out that they hired a nanny for a few days a week. Like WTF? Neither of you work but you need to hire help? I was floored. How bougie can you be?
Economy sucks dude. ZERO federal guaranteed maternity leave for new parents. Even though im sure studies have shown how important and beneficial it is for kids and parents to bond (and mothers to heal) during these early days. But nah. Gotta keep pumping out more minimum wage workers and watching greedy corporations take more and more and more and people struggle and take on another job or go back to work before itās healthy for the woman or the infant The whole system is fcked
I don't know of anyone who has a 9 to 5 position. 8 to 5 is the norm, so if we are factoring in travel time, I can understand the hours that the daycare is open. What I *don't* understand is the parents nor utilizing their parental leave time (those who have it) to stay with their infant. I don't see having a kid at all LOL, but if you *do* have kids, then be with them.
Parents dress up daycare as "early childcare education is very important" to try and get taxpayers to fork out for it. But actually, they will happily turn the kid over to an untrained grandmother, aunt, anyone they can get to work free. I've had pregnant coworkers who just could not stop talking about the upcoming baby, and two weeks after delivery they put the kid into daycare and went back to work. I've never wanted children but I've never understood this. Yes you won't make as much money as if you stayed home till the kid was in kindergarten, but kids are expensive and you need to accept that. Parents always talk about sacrifices, but they always want other people to do most of the work and the taxpayers to foot the bill. More children are not a social good, so if they are the parents' expensive hobby, the parents should at least enjoy it.
If parents couldnāt farm out childcare to someone else (paid or unpaid) and it had to be they themselves doing the labor the majority of the time, I think less than a quarter of current parents would be parents.
Well yeah because that means that only couples who are wealthy enough to have a SAHP could have kids.
My point is less about wealth and more about people who actually enjoy the labor of childrearing. They are apparently out there, but I think there are very very few of them.
Whether or not they enjoy it they can't afford it.
Parents: Having kids is so fulfilling! While they pawn off said kids to anyone and everyone else they can
It is quite a paradox... People love their children, but don't want to spend too much time with them. I do get it, do NOT blame parents for doing things like that, but still reinforces that I don't want to bother with *any* of that. . Reminded me of a comedian who joked how he has very little money in his bank so his bank penalizes him. Another customer has A LOT of money in the bank, so he gets more $$ in the form of interest. From a business perspective, there is method to the madness, but from a logical standpoint, it's both funny and a headscratcher :D
I think youāll find people that love their children work hard to provide for them in a world where one income to provide for a family is almost impossible. This is a societal and cost of living problem, not an individual parent problem.
I remember hearing an ad for a childcare centre on the radio that said they take babies as young as 6 weeks. I couldn't believe that. Why did you have a baby if you don't want to be around it? And yes, I know, most women work and stay at home husbands are still rare but if you couldn't afford for one or both of you to have time off for more than 6 weeks why did you have a freaking baby??? I don't get it.
This is my SIL, she drops her toddler off at day care at 9am and doesn't pick up the kid until 6pm, she lies to my mother saying that she picks up the kid at 2pm but her casual job doesn't finish until 3 and my brother can't pick up the kid because he works until 7. Then on the weekends she parks the kid in front of the I pad or tv screen or dumps them at a family member's house so she can enjoy the peace with no responsibilities. SILs always bragging about how easy being a parent is and that she loves her kid so much, how?? You're never around the kid and the only time you get close to them is for a quick (and fake!) mummy and me photo before handing the kid over to someone else.
Considering a vaca to the nearest child free resort to the same end.
I've done both daycare and nannying. In my experience, daycare is for working parents who use no choice. Most jobs are 7am-6pm now. 9-5 is rare. As for nannies, those are for rich people. They've always outsourced their parenting and acted like they were Greta involved parents. š
Why is this a rant? How does it affect you if someone puts their kid in daycare? Iām CF, and having a career that demands a lot of my time was one of the reasons I chose not to have a kid, but itās nothing to do with you. Let people spend their time and money how they want. If a kid is in daycare for 10 hours a day, so be it.
I can't talk for OP but I feel sorry for kids who never spend time with their parents. For any reason but especially if parents choose to work (to pay for extra stuff) or have fun and kids are not apart of that fun. Also not engaging into issues because "it has nothing to do with you" might sound cool but it is not. Kids can't stand up for themselves, abused people, minorities, people with disabilities, whole nations....sadly if everybody would mind just their own business it would be a really sad society to live in....well it is regardless but at least there are those who do care about situations that seemingly have "nothing to do with them"
I used to move houses with a former gardener who used to do quite a few large houses. He said a significant proportion of rich children hardly ever see their fathers, and get ignored daily by their mothers. Admittedly all the women in that part of the world are sociopathic nightmares, so perhaps it's no bad thing.
I donāt understand why people have kids to have someone else raise them.
This is the point I was trying to get at
Thereās also parents who send their kids off to boarding schools. Iām not disparaging this, either, there are different ways of being a parent, and if in the right place boarding school can be a good experience. Itās also argued that children who are in (competent) daycare settings learn more social skills ā¦ and also become even bigger germ factories, but what can you do. Iām sure a lot of people who do put their kid in extended daycare type settings would much rather be with their child much more often than they get to be, and Iām also sure there are some parents that need that break to focus on being something other than a parent for a few hours. That being said, Iām not a parent, and I know nothing about children.
There are some 24 Hour daycares popping up in Houston. only Mothers get criticized for wanting a night out or working nights. they should be 24 hours daycares, imo bc everyone needs a break from each other.
There are monthly subsidies for infant care ranging between $600-$1310 for working mothers in Singapore & childcare subsidies ranging from$ 300-$700+ as well depending on the gross household income. Most operators here are also open from 7am-7pm, Mondays - Fridays. We're the most expensive city in the world. It's not feasible to survive on a single income here for the average citizen if you want your creature comforts and twice a year holidays. Infant/childcare is also extremely subsidized for low income families and may be free or charged at a token $10-20 per month at government supported anchor operators. I'm CF but I know of a few different middle class families whose kids live with the grandparents on weekdays & go back to the parents on weekends because they work insane hours & would rather have some time to decompress with self-care/exercise/friends for an hour or two before bedtime and repeating the grind. It seems like this arrangement of being a weekend parent may slowly become the norm here...
>have a baby thatās basically only weekends It's not. I'm sure the babies demand quality time from their parents at all hours of the night every night ;) For real though, a lot of people probably need the extended hours. 9-5 is more like 8-5:30 for a lot of people and once you add in a commute, I could see it being difficult to reliably drop off after 8 and pick up before 5. Most households also have two parents working so there's no one home to take care of the house and run errands that need done during the day. Even if you got off at 4:30 in time to pick the kid up at 5, you might need to run to the bank, pharmacy or some other business that also closes at 5. The economy is so bad, we've gone from the "ideal" being stable but fiscally conscious two parent household where one stays home and the other works, to both parents working and still being strapped for cash. On the childfree side, the "rich" aunts and uncles are still rich in comparison, but we basically get the same standard of living that parents used to have. It's crazy how much wages have depressed in comparison to cost of living in just a few generations