Day Care Enrollments Plummet as Families Struggle to Pay the Bills
New Horizons daycare center just outside of Chicago has seen its enrollment cut by 50
percent in the last three months. And a San
Gabriel, California
daycare saw its enrollment go from 51 kids last year to 15 this year.
As the economy goes from scary to terrifying, parents around the
country are being forced to cut back on childcare or pull their kids out of
daycare altogether, relying instead on extended family or drastic changes to
their own work lives.
“It is not about people making choices to drive a
second car,” said Diane Stout, who is the executive director of New
Horizons. “For many low income people it is making a choice for food.” And, with yearly day care costs averaging between $3,380 and
$10,787 for childcare for one preschooler, even middle income families are
being faced with the need to cut back on childcare.
Providers say they
are seeing increased disciplinary problems amongst kids who are stressed by
their families
We have the same problem. My mom and my MIL take care of our two boys (5 months & 2 years) for now. I work part time so we can keep our health insurance, but if our situation were to change & our parents couldn’t keep them any more we would be in a lot of trouble. It would be 1600. per month to put them in daycare, and that is more than we pay for our mortgage. I would stay home, but the insurance offered through my husbands job is horrible and would break our budget if I lost my job or had to stay home to take care of the boys. It’s scary.
I am still home with the twins, because we can’t afford for me to go back to work. It just so happens that I love this arrangement, for now. I am not planning to stay home with them until kindergarten, though. I don’t know what we’re going to do yet. I find it frustrating when people tell me it’s a luxury to stay home with them. It is nice, but it’s actually a necessity for us. I am a teacher, and there are two of them… we’ve done the math.
We pay $260/week and are just getting by. Some months we’re in the hole, but overall we’re getting by, but living paycheck to paycheck. It’s very frustrating. If the cost went up or we get pregnant again, we won’t be able to afford it at all.
Living in Boston, and as a student, I’m paying 3000 dollars/month for part-time care for my 2 kids, although I’m a full time student. That’s 10,000 more per year than my stipend. I have to take out loans to cover the rest, and with the economy in the crapper, who knows if I’ll even have a job when (if) I finish!
I’m still pregnant, and I’m totally freaking out about how we’re going to swing daycare when I go back to work. My husband and I both work four days a week, ten hours a day. We need daycare from six am to six pm, Sunday through Wednesday. It’s going to be almost impossible to find someone who will take an infant for that long, especially including a weekend!
Holy crap, MC! I just worked out that’s like $400 a WEEK. I work from home, so I don’t pay daycare, but it takes it’s own toll, both physically and emotionally. I can only work when my child is napping or in bed, so I find myself still at my computer at 1 a.m. and am then greeted by a crabby toddler 6 hours later. I rarely ever get a break from her, and when I do, I have to use that time to work, so there’s no downtime to recharge. Sometimes I really miss going to the office, but daycare would just take too big a bite out of my already stretched-thin budget.
I *wish* that my 7-month old baby’s daycare cost “between $3,380 and $10,787″. I live in NYC, my husband and I make FAR from a lot of cash, and we spend $20,000 a year! It’s horrifying, and is one of a few reasons why I strongly ponder us finding jobs elsewhere and moving.
I know I can’t afford day care for my son, nor can I afford to stay home with him.
Right now my mother watches him for $75 a week but she’s looking for a job herself. When she finds one, I have no idea what we’ll do.