Marged
1941
Except the opportunity cost that women (mostly women, at any rate) face when they take substantial time off from working. Fewer years working means fewer promotions, fewer raises, and less money down the line.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, a big part of me wants to quit my career and start having kids, like, yesterday but figuring out the net in broader terms is not as simple as cost of day care vs. income at this moment.
Yeah, I felt absolutely no desire for kids for my first few years after finishing up college and grad school.
… but then one of my cousins married a girl just about my age and oh my god they have the most beautiful one-year-old boy now and OH GOD WHY DON’T I HAVE A BABY. Financially I’m about as well off as they are-- I make a little less but carry considerably less debt and I believe I may have better health insurance.
Ah, well. I’ve got at least another ten years to think about this…
- Day care is 100-200$ / week
I’m from Virginia. For a Southern woman, daycare is 99% likely to be free. Obtaining it consists of the following procedure:
- Make a list of all your female relatives who really like babies, are in good health, and have raised children. (It may be very long.)
- Note that certain male relatives (particularly grandfathers) may also be so into babies that they should be put on the list, too.
- Call one. Always give pride of place to your mother and mother-in-law. Say, “Hey, I’m going to be working today-- would you like to come over and watch the baby?”
- See how far into that sentence you get before you hear YES HOORAY BABY.
Except the opportunity cost that women (mostly women, at any rate) face when they take substantial time off from working. Fewer years working means fewer promotions, fewer raises, and less money down the line.
Yeah, that crossed my mind. Doing it, even though it’s a net zero, at least means you’re still gaining experience in the workforce and will look good on your resume once the kid isn’t bleeding you dry via day care. So, it makes sense from that angle.
There’s some hidden benefits there too. Even if on paper the daycare costs eats 100% of the take home pay for one of the parents there’s tax credits and pretax withholdings for dependent care and having health insurance and so forth that can still make it a really good idea.
Financial considerations aside, it’s still a good idea in my mind to put kids in preschool because they get better socialized and educated. And the parents stay saner as well.
My day care payment is easily my biggest expense each month (I have 2 kids) and it’s a good 40% higher than my mortgage payment. Luckily it’s a short-term expense with a defined end in sight. In a few years it cuts in half as my oldest moves on to public school, then it zeros a few years after that as my youngest leaves daycare.
Scrax
1945
Hahaha, true that. My neice is a year and a half, and still has a line of people willing to watch her. Well, except for me, I’m more than willing to hand her back to mom as soon as baby starts to leak.
Dean
1946
Sandra Bullock showed that you can do QA from home way back in The Net:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3RN4fTw4sE&feature=related
All she needs is a cradle next to her gently rocking the baby while she blows Nazis away.
That clip fills me with so much unbridled nerd rage … I … ARRGGH!!
So I guess the benefit to the child of having a parent home from the time it’s 6 weeks old till it’s, what, 4 and going to school isn’t really a consideration to people? What about that opportunity cost?
Frankly if you’re having a child it should take priority over your career and if you’re netting zero because of daycare costs I’d say the cost to the welfare of your child is larger than the opportunity cost of one’s career.
I speak my opinions as someone who doesn’t have and never will have children so obviously I’m coming from a less than ideal perspective. To me, the financial aspect is the one that jumps out. For others, parents particularly, there are definitely other concerns.
Yes, that is a consideration to people. Read what Kraaze wrote - he clearly thought about that and came to the conclusion (which I happen to agree with) that preschool is better for the kid than having a full time stay at home parent.
So the benefits you speak of aren’t that clear cut and there’s actually differing views on this. But thanks for the condescending tone.
My wife is a teacher on a clear career path to principal, which she has put on hold (ie said ‘no’ to offers) because as a teacher, she gets home early and can pick up the kids and do her preperation/homework once they’re sleeping. That works for us.
When tallying up the cost benefit analysis here, one should also consider the mental benefit to women who actually likes having a job and responsibility beyond minding the kids.
I dunno. My mom didn’t work when she raised me and I don’t think I came out any better for it than my younger relatives who are being taken care of about as much by grandmothers and aunts and other relatives as their mother and father. As I got older she admitted that sometimes the stress of attending to me full-time really wore her down and shortened her temper with me.
(My dad was in the military then so we lived pretty far from the extended family; we moved back into the area after he retired.)
For the mothers in my generation who are working and getting a lot of help from their families to raise the children, I think as long as all of the caretakers stay on the same page regarding teaching behavioral skills and discipline both the kids and the parents will come out of the experience just fine. I don’t really know how paid daycare factors into the equation, but I imagine getting good caregivers involves spending the kinds of money indicated above.
That’s a consideration that every parent struggles with. My wife had some bad attacks of mommy guilt when each of our children first went to daycare.
Yes, the welfare of the chlidren takes priority over a whole lot of shit. No, staying at home with a dedicated child rearing parent is not automatically superior for the children. That’s an antiquated idea, the last vestiges of some very sexist notions about the proper role of women.
I’d argue it takes priority over everything.
No, staying at home with a dedicated child rearing parent is not automatically superior for the children.
You’re going to have to do better than just say it. What exactly is better about sending a 6 week old off to daycare for the next several years of its life until it starts full days at school? Especially if the advantages of that to the parents are minimal. Parents should be more than just where the child sleeps and who pays its expenses.
You’re going to have a very hard time convincing me that, under normal circumstances, being raised in daycare from 6 weeks through toddler years is better than being raised by the child’s parents.
I can see preschool helping children socialize, but I’m fairly certain children who do preschool don’t necessarily see significant benefits over those that don’t go to large daily gatherings of children until they start kindergarten. Neither of those are applicable until a child is at least a few years old anyway.
Can you really say that daycare is raising the kid? I mean, the parents eventually get off work and they’ll have days off, too. That’s plenty of time for working with kids to teach them basic skills and bonding and whatnot. That’s the important part of parent-child relationship in the early years, not just raw time spent.
Yes, daycare is raising them. If they’re in full time they’re easily spending more waking hours in daycare bonding and learning from their daycare providers far more than they are from their parents.
Your children are how old? I ask because it sounds like you are going on at length about a topic you don’t actually know anything about.
Interestingly, if you do the math, even a child in full time (M-F 8-5) daycare still spends more waking hours at home than they do at daycare.
Rimbo
1958
Take a look at your coworkers. If they have families too (and care about them), you’re fine. If they don’t, or you see a lot of young unmarried + divorced single dads, RUN.
Rimbo
1959
It’s definitely a different story for women than for men. Men don’t have to take nearly as much time off for the kids as women do; young children demand much more out of their mothers than out of their fathers. (Of course, if you’re Dad, you’d better do a bit more than just bringing home a paycheck, too.)
The solution to this is really quite simple: Marry rich.
Seriously. Most women are wired this way, anyway. It’s not that they’re superficial or anything; it’s that a rich man is going to be able to financially support children.
That said, I do know of a couple where the wife makes enough money that SHE has the career, and he is a stay-at-home Dad for their two kids. So that does work!
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!
