Day Care Decline
Posted on February 13th, 2009 – 9:23 AMBy Kay Krhin
Last month I walked in the door at my day care providers house - she blurted out worriedly “Do you still have a job!?” she had just heard the news of layoffs and Chapter 11 at my place of employment. She was in the kitchen talking with other mothers about layoffs at their companies. I nodded yes. “Oh good, I worry about you guys, and myself. When the parents lose jobs I lose kids.”
On the front page of today’s Star Tribune Jean Hopfensperger reports that exact situation going on all across the metro area. Day Cares Take Hit
How about you Cribsheeters. Anyone affected by layoffs and pulling kids from day care? Or what is your Plan B for childcare if you were to lose your job?
17 Responses to "Day Care Decline"
We haven’t been affected by layoffs, but we would obviously pull our son out of daycare if we needed to due to job loss. I am a teacher, so if I lose my job I just get a pink slip and would more than likely be rehired. My husband works for himself and is still going strong, so we don’t anticipate decline in his area. But, like I said, we would take our son out if necessary. He would be upset, he loves it there, but at $950/month there really wouldn’t be a discussion about it!
We would have to take our son out as well. It would be tough because he’s a very routine loving toddler so getting him back into daycare at some point would be a horrible adjustment. I do believe our daycare center is having a tough time staying filled because they have started offering part-time infant care which would have been unheard of a year ago.
Seeing the recent layoffs, I was wondering about this the other day. That’s interesting to hear but not surprising. A part of me is secretly hoping that this issue will make daycares rethink their setup. There has got to be some way for them to be a bit less expensive. I understand the cost of running a daycare must be really high, but when I was looking at them for my baby they ran from $1200-$1400 a month at the low end. Just not affordable. We have the baby at a licensed in-home daycare because of that.
But like Erin and Stacee said, we would have to pull our little one out of daycare if something happened to one of our jobs. And that would really hurt our in-home daycare provider personally I’m sure. But we just wouldn’t be able to afford the cost if something happened to one of our jobs. We’re just continuing to work hard and keeping our fingers crossed that the economy starts strengthening up soon!
No question that we would have to remove our son from day care if one of us were laid off. At $1,300/month, there’s not way we could afford it. We’re thinking about investigating other centers regardless because even though the care is great, the cost is so high.
Not exactly the question but related:
Our daughters are in a private Montessori school pre-school where they *can* (and it’s highly encouraged) do their kindergarten year if the parents choose. This means you’re paying for a year of private kindergarten when you have the option to go to public school. Most of the families do choose this and then go to public school in 1st grade.
I was talking to the director and she was acknowledging that she might ‘lose’ more children than normal next year due to families opting to save the tuition and go to public school for kindergarten. Either due to the parents not knowing yet or their reluctance to tell her, she realizes she probably won’t know until well into the summer who’s returning.
We would definitely pull our girls from daycare if one of us lost a job. We also have a a backup plan for my husband to switch his shift at work so we can drop to half days instead of full days to save money if necessary.
At our center my daughter was recently moved up to the next group a month earlier than expected because they needed to shift some kids around in order to help with staffing. It seems like they’ve lost some kids recently so I’m sure the reorganizing had a lot to do with that.
We would pull my daughter from daycare, but hope that it wouldn’t be for long. I know my center would be willing to hold her spot for a few weeks, but eventually would have to give it up. They have remained full, but they are high demand (downtown location and good prices). They actually hired more people recently.
We would remove our son from daycare if one of us lost our jobs, but so far we both seem to be OK. Our son is in a licensed home daycare, and they have lost two kids in the past few months due to parents losing jobs. They haven’t been able to fill those slots with new kids, either. It’s sad because I know it’s hard on the provider, and also my son misses his friends!
I lost my job in October, 3 weeks after my husband lost his. We’d been thinking about pulling the girls out when he lost his, but they were only part time anyway. But when I lost my job, we had to pull them out right away. The good news is that our home daycare provider is not looking to fill their spots - she had a baby in November, and is enjoying having fewer children to care for right now. And my husband’s new job means that, when I get a job, depending on the schedule, we can keep them at part-time or even possibly keep them out of daycare entirely, which would be so nice.
My husband lost his job just after Thanksgiving and we decided we needed to cut back for our 2 year old at his babysitter’s. But, we were concerned for our wonderful woman who has been SO flexible for us and kept her costs for us as low as possible. So, we decided to cut back to two days a week, giving my husband two days a week to concentrate on looking for a new job. We actually like our new schedule so much, we are trying to see if we can afford to have my husband stay home long term!
I have been a licensed daycare provider for almost 10 years and unfortunately I may be forced to close my doors soon. I lost two children in November due to their father’s job being reduced to part time and now in May i will be losing one more child. I have been unable to fill their spots and may be forced to find an alternative career and put my own children in at least part time care. It makes me very sad as I love being an at home daycare provider.
To me this points out one of the obvious ways we do such a poor job supporting new parents in this country. As the sole breadwinner in our family, if I lost my job I’d have to pull my kids out of daycare (well, daycare for my little one, Montessori K program that Sherry referred to for my older one).
But in many countries that have a similar standard of living as we have (or at least used to have )in this country — like Canada, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, and probably many others — daycare centers and home-based providers receive much more support from the gov’t. That way, every child gets a more equitable shot at early education and early social skill building (those are the same countries, by the way, that have much longer and more generous paternity leaves and benefits for parents with newborns, so that kids are not having to go to daycare at 6 weeks old!).
Daycare shouldn’t just be the cheapest place to park your kid while you go off to work to pay the mortgage/rent or buy food; it should be a nurturing, safe place so that children whose parents choose to or have to work outside the home can have the peace of mind of knowing that their child is loved and is learning. But for so many people it is extremely difficult to afford quality daycare even when we are holding down full-time (or part-time) jobs.
And daycare providers (whether in-home or center-based) shouldn’t have to walk such a fine financial line that losing just one kid will cause them to shut down. (See how it spirals? Daycare shuts down (or raises their prices significantly to stay open), parents either need to stay home until they find a replacement - not easy and very stressful - or have to fork over money they probably don’t have, then maybe need to leave their jobs to take care of the kids . . . )
The good providers are so wonderful and so important. Where is the money in the stimulus package to support THESE people??!?
I know that my job is very secure and if my husband lost his job I would still find a way to keep my daughter at her current daycare at least part time. Our daycare provider does sooo many educational activities. He runs it like a preschool at the home. My husband could never be creative enough to come up with all those lesson plans. She would have lots of fun but not alot of learning. I know that we are both secure in our jobs. We are having twins and will be paying my daycare provider for all three!
My husband lost his job in December and is a stay-at-home father while he finds new work. We had to pull our kids out of daycare. While I regret taking work away from someone else, there wasn’t a choice.
Tobi, I just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you said on here. I really hope that the situation gets better in our country for future generations.
This frustrates me personally as I have my daughter in an in-home daycare that is good, but it is not great. They take care of her needs but do not do much more than that. And the daycare centers where I want her to go are so expensive. Because of this article though, I am in the process of calling the centers around us to see if their rates have changed or if they’re allowing part-time as well. I’m thinking maybe we can get our little one in there for 2 days a week or so at least, so she can learn and benefit from them. We’ll see what happens.
In October we had to reduce our hours from full-time to part-time care for our son because my husband was not getting many hours at work. Then in December we had to pull him out entirely. It was not something we wanted to do but rather something we had to do.
Luckily after the new year my husband finally received a job offer that he had been waiting on for six months and our daycare provider still had an opening available to take our son back.
Cultural Care Au Pair is an alternative to day care, more affordable and flexible than most child care centers and homes and as an agency we have committed ourselves to supporting families during difficult times. We did not raise our program rates in 2009 due to the economy and also, in response to the job market we now have our Peace of Mind Guarantee: Price guarantee - we know that families are concerned about affordability in this economic climate and so we have committed to keeping our prices stable for the entirety of 2009. While other au pair agencies are increasing prices, you know that with Cultural Care you have a price guarantee.
Program continuation guarantee - we understand that if a parent suffers a job loss, the main focus of that parent will be finding a new job. In addition, Cultural Care’s goal is always to nurture the close relationship that develops between a family and an au pair. For this reason, we will offer those families who suffer an involuntary job loss the opportunity to receive a refund and keep their au pair until the end of her program year.
Financial safeguard guarantee - in the event that a family is forced to make the decision to withdraw from the program as a result of an involuntary job loss, Cultural Care will refund the unused portion of their program fees. In this event, Cultural Care Au Pair will make every reasonable effort to replace the au pair with a new family so she may continue her program year.
What could be a better child care option?
