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Not having kids I didn't realize how insane childcare costs had gotten. Someone posted an article to a local reddit that says people are pre-registering unborn

Not having kids I didn't realize how insane childcare costs had gotten. Someone posted an article to a local reddit that says people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Others responses indicated that it's running around $1500 to $2000/month for childcare. Add in housing costs and no wonder people are hesitant to have kids now.

cutthegrass2 4y ago
this is the same in the UK. Childcare costs are abhorrent. As a sample of one, I have twins at ~2yrs old. We pay ~£3,000 per month between private nanny and private nursery. It's literally 2x our mortgage cost.
- b800h 4y ago
  We were in exactly the same position in the UK, putting our twins into nursery from a very early age so my wife and I could continue our careers. In retrospect we regret it somewhat, as it clearly affected them negatively. But it has been positive financially downstream. At least you know you can afford to privately school them later on to make up for it.
  - cutthegrass2 4y ago
    Curious to know how you thought it effected them negatively. Wondering whether I can see any similar signs…
    - b800h 4y ago
      I was going to put it on here but thought better of it, tbh. Buzz me on Twitter? I'll leave my username in my profile for a while or until I hear from you.
idontpost 4y ago
ch4s3 4y ago
Yeah its really insane. The child care space has been legislated into un-affordability. Between licensing requirements, staffing ratios, building codes, and a litany of other requirements its a service that can basically only be provided to upper middle class families if not HEAVILY subsidized.
- jmole 4y ago
  Legislation has nothing to do with it. Staffing ratio minimums are 6:1 in California, which means $2000/child can get you pretty far. The costs are the same as any other service industry - you have to pay more for higher quality teachers and you have to pay more for a location in more expensive areas.
  - lupire 4y ago
    You think $2000/month after taxes is a good price?
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      There is no such thing as a “good” price. It might just be that the supply of labor to enable the price that people desire for childcare does not exist.
      - setr 4y ago
        Childcare (specifically thinking of daycare) strikes me as a low-skill job, so labor volume should be fairly high -- excluding I guess things like extra-filtering for background. And as far as I can think of, there's no substantial upfront costs outside of the normal elements -- building, room setup, initial training, etc. It also strikes me as something that can be done with some scalability -- a decent sized group of children can presumably be supported by relatively few adults. At least proven by schools, which can have like a 1:16 - 1:24 teacher:child ratio. So it seems strange to me that each child would cost ~$15/hr -- the full cost of a single low-skill resource, 1:1 with children; You're not seeing the scalability of groups kick in. Unless there's some overhead per-child I don't understand, it seems clear this isn't simply supply/demand. There are many who want childcare, but there are many more who should be capable of supporting it. There are also of course difference in popularity/quality which will contribute to a price gradient, but if you're seeing $2k/mo/child as your "basic daycare" costs, there's something up -- there's no inherent reason to the job that I can think of that would stop someone from undercutting that price point.
colinmhayes 4y ago
Unbelievable that Manchin blocked the universal childcare provisions in BBB.
mariojv 4y ago
Yes. Even in my relatively low cost of living city (San Antonio, TX) some friends of mine about to have a kid are having to get on a wait list before birth for something near them. I don't really understand why this price spiral occurred but it is so hard for parents nowadays.
- conductr 4y ago
  I'm up in Dallas but probably directionally same as down in SA. As you know, basically nobody makes the legal minimum wage in Texas. The market is higher. Caregivers are usually near whatever that "effective minimum wage" is. They might get paid $1 an hour more than someone working at Chipotle or similar. Up here, this wage band has gone from ~$10-$12/hr to $15-$20/hr in a short period of time. This is core inflation.
foobarian 4y ago
I can't wrap my head around this insane US model that takes grandparents out of the picture. Maybe it's because moving is so easy? But grandparents love grandkids and they do it for free - it's a win-win.
- orzig 4y ago
  Good thing all grandparents are the same, or else our models of how the world should work would have to be a lot more complex
- matthewowen 4y ago
  I would suggest that most grandparents don't want to look after their grandkids for 40 hours a week. And for that matter, many grandparents have jobs of their own – the average age of a first time grandparent in the USA is 50.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Their parents looked after their kids, it's just the most recent crop of grandparents that decided that it isn't their role anymore. They'll nag you endlessly about when you'll be having more kids though.
  - foobarian 4y ago
    Maybe the separate housing is the root of the problem. In more traditional EU societies, grandparents and parents live in the same house. This means one less set of people needs to generate income to pay for housing.
    - matthewowen 4y ago
      IME, that is quite unusual in Europe.
- crysin 4y ago
  Given that every grandparent I know who is in their 50s or 60s are also still working full-time in the US midwest, grandparents aren't always an easy win. My mother would love to spend more time with my son but her job and her health make that an impossibility unfortunately.
vineyardmike 4y ago
> people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Shit I have to do this too? I’ve already started saving for the unreasonable cost of college, and the cost of childbirth, and the unreasonable cost of a large (enough) house in my metro. But now this?!
- conductr 4y ago
  Tip of the iceberg. It was going on before Covid (where I live) and has only worsened with labor shortages and the fact day caregivers are in that band of labor that has inflated a lot in recent years. Also, daycares are hard to shop. If you send your kid to A, you likely will recommend A but you have no idea if B is better or worse. Staff and leadership tenure is the best correlation we found after having to change centers 4 times, you really don't want to have to go through that and it's tough on the kid too. Unfortunately, tenure is a weird metric with everyone changing jobs so much lately. Glad to be out of it but having them go on an academic calendar is a challenge too.
- bombcar 4y ago
  You can - you don't have to. But there's a reason people pay so much attention to schools when buying houses - a good school district will almost certainly have good daycares, and it can be totally worth moving to get those. Check if your state's 529 covers daycare or preschool, it can be useful.
- chasd00 4y ago
  yes, but take a breath because you'll figure it out. New parents and parents-to-be are probably the most taken advantage of people on the face of the earth. You'll get it figured out, don't let the horror stories on the inet keep you up at night and, no, using a generic brand of diapers won't turn your baby into a serial killer like the ads want you to believe. /parent of two and went through it all
time_to_smile 4y ago
What's really insane is that the actual people providing childcare get paid pretty horrendously given that they are the ones that are going to be taking care of your kid potentially 8 hours a day (and it is a really challenging job). This also means that there is concerningly high variance in the quality of individual care providers, since it's a difficult job and pays awful you get the usual mix of "passionate about kids" and "I can't find any other work". Even the best facilities you have to be very observant to make sure your kid doesn't end up in a bad situation. I recall one care provider fondly telling me how much she loves riding her bike to work only to later find out she had her license taken away by repeated DUIs and another that fled the country after too many parents complained about situations that looked a lot like abuse. Ultimately they're very much like nursing homes for small children. Very frustrating to pay so much only to have to remain vigilant that you don't pick up your kid only to find they've been sitting in some other kid's pee for an hour.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  On my street about 10 years ago there was a house where childcare was being offered, but at some point the kids were just out wandering around. Turns out the lady running the daycare had taken to drinking and was drunk much of the day. Fortunately they shut her operation down pretty quickly after that.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
The average is going to be skewed up because the people who take their kids to the cash only daycare where the toddlers learn a second language for free have long since realized that mentioning such an arrangement except to hand wring about it's existence is not the kind of commentary welcome on places like Reddit. But yes, above the table daycare is ungodly expensive.
w0m 4y ago
our (employer administered no less) daycare has ~24mo wait list and a costs ~2400usd/mo per kid. It's legitimately insane; expensive-private-school pricing.
hirvi74 4y ago
Think about the bank you could roll in if you opened a childcare facility. I understand it's not as simple as printing money as there are obvious risks, liabilities, etc.. I imagine it wouldn't be too expensive to get up and running or maintain compared to something like a restaurant.

cutthegrass2 4y ago

this is the same in the UK. Childcare costs are abhorrent. As a sample of one, I have twins at ~2yrs old. We pay ~£3,000 per month between private nanny and private nursery. It's literally 2x our mortgage cost.

b800h 4y ago
We were in exactly the same position in the UK, putting our twins into nursery from a very early age so my wife and I could continue our careers. In retrospect we regret it somewhat, as it clearly affected them negatively. But it has been positive financially downstream. At least you know you can afford to privately school them later on to make up for it.
- cutthegrass2 4y ago
  Curious to know how you thought it effected them negatively. Wondering whether I can see any similar signs…
  - b800h 4y ago
    I was going to put it on here but thought better of it, tbh. Buzz me on Twitter? I'll leave my username in my profile for a while or until I hear from you.

idontpost 4y ago

ch4s3 4y ago

Yeah its really insane. The child care space has been legislated into un-affordability. Between licensing requirements, staffing ratios, building codes, and a litany of other requirements its a service that can basically only be provided to upper middle class families if not HEAVILY subsidized.

jmole 4y ago
Legislation has nothing to do with it. Staffing ratio minimums are 6:1 in California, which means $2000/child can get you pretty far. The costs are the same as any other service industry - you have to pay more for higher quality teachers and you have to pay more for a location in more expensive areas.
- lupire 4y ago
  You think $2000/month after taxes is a good price?
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    There is no such thing as a “good” price. It might just be that the supply of labor to enable the price that people desire for childcare does not exist.
    - setr 4y ago
      Childcare (specifically thinking of daycare) strikes me as a low-skill job, so labor volume should be fairly high -- excluding I guess things like extra-filtering for background. And as far as I can think of, there's no substantial upfront costs outside of the normal elements -- building, room setup, initial training, etc. It also strikes me as something that can be done with some scalability -- a decent sized group of children can presumably be supported by relatively few adults. At least proven by schools, which can have like a 1:16 - 1:24 teacher:child ratio. So it seems strange to me that each child would cost ~$15/hr -- the full cost of a single low-skill resource, 1:1 with children; You're not seeing the scalability of groups kick in. Unless there's some overhead per-child I don't understand, it seems clear this isn't simply supply/demand. There are many who want childcare, but there are many more who should be capable of supporting it. There are also of course difference in popularity/quality which will contribute to a price gradient, but if you're seeing $2k/mo/child as your "basic daycare" costs, there's something up -- there's no inherent reason to the job that I can think of that would stop someone from undercutting that price point.

colinmhayes 4y ago

Unbelievable that Manchin blocked the universal childcare provisions in BBB.

mariojv 4y ago

Yes. Even in my relatively low cost of living city (San Antonio, TX) some friends of mine about to have a kid are having to get on a wait list before birth for something near them. I don't really understand why this price spiral occurred but it is so hard for parents nowadays.

conductr 4y ago
I'm up in Dallas but probably directionally same as down in SA. As you know, basically nobody makes the legal minimum wage in Texas. The market is higher. Caregivers are usually near whatever that "effective minimum wage" is. They might get paid $1 an hour more than someone working at Chipotle or similar. Up here, this wage band has gone from ~$10-$12/hr to $15-$20/hr in a short period of time. This is core inflation.

foobarian 4y ago

I can't wrap my head around this insane US model that takes grandparents out of the picture. Maybe it's because moving is so easy? But grandparents love grandkids and they do it for free - it's a win-win.

orzig 4y ago
Good thing all grandparents are the same, or else our models of how the world should work would have to be a lot more complex
matthewowen 4y ago
I would suggest that most grandparents don't want to look after their grandkids for 40 hours a week. And for that matter, many grandparents have jobs of their own – the average age of a first time grandparent in the USA is 50.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Their parents looked after their kids, it's just the most recent crop of grandparents that decided that it isn't their role anymore. They'll nag you endlessly about when you'll be having more kids though.
- foobarian 4y ago
  Maybe the separate housing is the root of the problem. In more traditional EU societies, grandparents and parents live in the same house. This means one less set of people needs to generate income to pay for housing.
  - matthewowen 4y ago
    IME, that is quite unusual in Europe.
crysin 4y ago
Given that every grandparent I know who is in their 50s or 60s are also still working full-time in the US midwest, grandparents aren't always an easy win. My mother would love to spend more time with my son but her job and her health make that an impossibility unfortunately.

vineyardmike 4y ago

> people are pre-registering unborn children for childcare because there are so few slots available. Shit I have to do this too? I’ve already started saving for the unreasonable cost of college, and the cost of childbirth, and the unreasonable cost of a large (enough) house in my metro. But now this?!

conductr 4y ago
Tip of the iceberg. It was going on before Covid (where I live) and has only worsened with labor shortages and the fact day caregivers are in that band of labor that has inflated a lot in recent years. Also, daycares are hard to shop. If you send your kid to A, you likely will recommend A but you have no idea if B is better or worse. Staff and leadership tenure is the best correlation we found after having to change centers 4 times, you really don't want to have to go through that and it's tough on the kid too. Unfortunately, tenure is a weird metric with everyone changing jobs so much lately. Glad to be out of it but having them go on an academic calendar is a challenge too.
bombcar 4y ago
You can - you don't have to. But there's a reason people pay so much attention to schools when buying houses - a good school district will almost certainly have good daycares, and it can be totally worth moving to get those. Check if your state's 529 covers daycare or preschool, it can be useful.
chasd00 4y ago
yes, but take a breath because you'll figure it out. New parents and parents-to-be are probably the most taken advantage of people on the face of the earth. You'll get it figured out, don't let the horror stories on the inet keep you up at night and, no, using a generic brand of diapers won't turn your baby into a serial killer like the ads want you to believe. /parent of two and went through it all

time_to_smile 4y ago

What's really insane is that the actual people providing childcare get paid pretty horrendously given that they are the ones that are going to be taking care of your kid potentially 8 hours a day (and it is a really challenging job). This also means that there is concerningly high variance in the quality of individual care providers, since it's a difficult job and pays awful you get the usual mix of "passionate about kids" and "I can't find any other work". Even the best facilities you have to be very observant to make sure your kid doesn't end up in a bad situation. I recall one care provider fondly telling me how much she loves riding her bike to work only to later find out she had her license taken away by repeated DUIs and another that fled the country after too many parents complained about situations that looked a lot like abuse. Ultimately they're very much like nursing homes for small children. Very frustrating to pay so much only to have to remain vigilant that you don't pick up your kid only to find they've been sitting in some other kid's pee for an hour.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
On my street about 10 years ago there was a house where childcare was being offered, but at some point the kids were just out wandering around. Turns out the lady running the daycare had taken to drinking and was drunk much of the day. Fortunately they shut her operation down pretty quickly after that.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

The average is going to be skewed up because the people who take their kids to the cash only daycare where the toddlers learn a second language for free have long since realized that mentioning such an arrangement except to hand wring about it's existence is not the kind of commentary welcome on places like Reddit. But yes, above the table daycare is ungodly expensive.

w0m 4y ago

our (employer administered no less) daycare has ~24mo wait list and a costs ~2400usd/mo per kid. It's legitimately insane; expensive-private-school pricing.

hirvi74 4y ago

Think about the bank you could roll in if you opened a childcare facility. I understand it's not as simple as printing money as there are obvious risks, liabilities, etc.. I imagine it wouldn't be too expensive to get up and running or maintain compared to something like a restaurant.