Doing the Math

Paige Connell Explains How It Is

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I finished listening to Joe Rigney’s The Sin of Empathy yesterday, and read a variety of reviews, and started a post of my own, but I’m not quite done yet, and so I thought it would be fun to saunter back over to that irritating person, Paige Connell who, last seen, at least by me, was explaining why she decided, after all, not to divorce her husband. In today’s episode, she delves into how expensive childcare is and why, even so, you should consider not leaving the workforce because you won’t be able to get back in. You can click the pic to follow the link, or scroll down because I took the trouble to transcribe it all.

Here’s what she says (me interjecting as I go):

Where I live, it costs about $20,000 a year for childcare for one child, and so if you have two kids like the average family typically does, that's $40,000 a year for childcare.

Wow wow wow. Why is the second child exactly the same amount as the first? Because for that amount of money, isn’t the person coming to your house and also cooking your dinner? What kind of childcare is this?

And a lot of families are doing the math, because these numbers are astronomical. That's a lot of money on childcare. And so families are doing the math. They're trying to figure out, does it make sense for our kids to be in daycare, or should one of us stay at home?

Before going even a step farther, let me just say two things. First of all, that cost sounds outrageous to me, but I live in a backwater town where eggs only ever went up to 9 dollars for 18, which, I think, is not bad, comparatively. I think wherever you live, you’re going to have to deal with your finances as best you can. Second of all, I would imagine that if I lived in the City or New Jersey or somewhere like that, you almost couldn’t pay me enough to look after Mrs. Connell’s children. Being the childcare worker for her children would be grueling, not because of the children, but because of her. Also, I would imagine that you might consider taking even Mrs. Connell’s children if you wanted to stay home with your own kids, but didn’t have the financial means, and so would have to burden yourself with other people’s cultural expectations.