Child Care

Seth & I planned for Liam, even though my pregnancy was an unexpected surprise. We knew that for at least the first few years of his life, one of us (whoever made less money) would be staying home with him. Thankfully, Seth's income allows for me to be home with our little guy. I firmly believe that every two parent household should have planned and accommodated for one parent to stay home, or for schedules to be adjusted to minimize the amount of time the child(ren) spends with a child care provider, as least for the time the child is an infant. I prefer my son not bond with a babysitter for the 9 hours I'm at work, and then only spend 3-4 waking hours with me. That seems very backwards. not everyone agrees with me, and some feel that they have no choice but to put their child into a daycare environment. We're all entitled to our views and opinions, but I firmly hold to mine.

I don't need some big house in a snotty subdivision. I don't need a brand new car, or trips, or hundreds of dollars to fund some hobby. I NEED the time I get to spend with my kid. :-)

That being said, our life will require that I go back to work at some point. We really need a second vehicle (which will be explained in another post, as it's seen as a very unfrugal thing to do), but we cannot afford it until I'm bringing in enough income to cover the monthly payment (I'll also discuss why we'll finance instead of buying outright). I've found one position that I'll be applying for, a mile from our home, that is evenings 2-3 nights a week and a couple weekends a month. Seth is able to adjust his schedule a bit to make sure he is home before I have to leave for work. And should he ever have to work late, or on a weekend day, I am willing to have someone come watch Liam. I'm not anti-child care. I'm anti-unparenting.

Additionally, for most jobs that would require us to put Liam in daycare, I'd be barely bringing home enough money to even cover his child care expenses, not to mention the convenience foods because I won't have as much time to cook, the cost of running the clothes dryer because it'll be difficult to devote the time to hanging clothes when I haven't seen my baby all day, and other expenses that would surely creep up.

There ARE instances where full time child care is necessary. Single parents really have no choice. They either put their child into daycare while they work, or their only other option is to utilize the welfare system. A household with a medically fragile child may need to put other children into daycare in order to fully care for their fragile one without being overwhelmed. For me, those are the only two instances where child care is absolutely necessary. If we couldn't have afforded to have one of us stay home and raise our own child, we wouldn't have had a child.

So, what are the options for other SAHP (stay at home parents) who would like to work part time, and not eat up that entire income by paying for child care? One option that I LOVE and hope to utilize is child care bartering. Basically, you trade child care in a system called a babystting cooperative.

A group of parents uses a points system to bank hours of child care. For instance, if I watch a child in my home for 3 hours in a week, I have 3 hours of banked time to use for care for Liam. Another way is finding a parent who you can trade days with. You watch the kids 2 days, they watch the kids 2 days. There are websites devoted to this, but from what I've found while searching is that it's easier to use places like the Childcare section of your local Craigslist site, or local social networking sites geared towards parents. Momslikeme.com has sites for nearly every metropolitan area.

I haven't explored much, but there are sites that help you set up and keep track of your co-op once you have a group established. The one i'll likely use is babysittingbarter.com

Another option is relying on family members to help out. Most grandmas would love an afternoon or two a week with their grandbabies. We don't live close enough for that to be an option, but if we did, that's something I'd love to arrange for Liam and one of his grammies.

So, outside of daycare, there ARE options available for those of us who want to spend as much time as possible with our babies. ;-) We just have to look for them and make changes.