]As to the entire bolded paragraph, I don't know one single household that functions like that. I'm sure they exist, but of my small sample of IRL friends, the people I work with, and the people on this forum, I don't know anybody that jokes about that or expects their H to do the bare minimum.
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You're lucky. I know several. IRL and on my local message board.
First time I went out of town and MH was flying solo with Shorti friends were taking bets on whether he'd end up taking them to his parent's house. He was legit offended.
The phrase "OH, who has the kids?" comes out of more people's mouths than you'd believe when I'm out and about without them. My standard answer is "their other parent."
I actually take issue with your referring to 4-6 weeks of leave as "the standard." There is no standard in this country for paid leave.
Precisely. Instarted a new job in October and had to negotiate a maternity leave. I'm taking 4 weeks, unpaid. FOUR WEEKS. I will still likely be bleeding when I return to work. I'm the executive director of a non profit. I'm the only employee. My Board d was stuck between a rock and a hard place. So when I go back at 4 weeks "at least" I get to bring the baby with me. Huh?
FMLA online applies IF an employee has been with a company for a year and IF that company has more than 50 employees. In that regard, small businesses are bad for women employees.
I was going to "like" this post but it felt wrong. FMLA does absolutely nothing for millions of women (and men, but mostly women).
I actually take issue with your referring to 4-6 weeks of leave as "the standard." There is no standard in this country for paid leave.
Precisely. Instarted a new job in October and had to negotiate a maternity leave. I'm taking 4 weeks, unpaid. FOUR WEEKS. I will still likely be bleeding when I return to work. I'm the executive director of a non profit. I'm the only employee. My Board d was stuck between a rock and a hard place. So when I go back at 4 weeks "at least" I get to bring the baby with me. Huh?
FMLA online applies IF an employee has been with a company for a year and IF that company has more than 50 employees. In that regard, small businesses are bad for women employees.
This is something else that should be addressed. FMLA only applying to the bigger companies - why not expand it to ALL workers? I realize it will be harder for smaller companies to find coverage, but I'm sure there's something that can be done.
Post by curbsideprophet on Feb 11, 2016 10:49:31 GMT -5
I think people are surprisingly uneducated on this topic. I had a female coworker who did not realize there was zero paid maternity leave at our office. Sure I can use my sick leave or annual leave but that is not the same thing. She also mentioned it not being fair to everyone else who chooses not to have kids. They should get six weeks paid leave as well.
I was able to go negative on my sick leave. It took me over a year and half to get back into the positive. It is ridiculous.
Probably because for so many households it makes more financial sense to have the wife stop working vs paying for daycare.
But, I guess that depends on your personal goals too. I mean, if you take time out of your career to stay home with the kids, it's going to set you back further than if you didn't take that time off.
When I was first pregnant, I looked into daycare in/near my old office (Deerfield IL) it was going to be $1700 a month for an infant. I only made $3k a month and I had been there for a while so I made more than a lot of the newer 'lower tier' employees. I can't imagine being at my first job making $1500 a month trying to keep working and pay for my kid to be in daycare.
Holy crap, that is highway robbery childcare! In the DC area, we only would have had to pay around $1300 a month for an infant in full time care (she went part time as an infant).
I thought the part about the Lanham Act and being able to have state funded childcare was really enlightening and disheartening that we no longer do it.
thatgirl2478 isn't joking. DS is in daycare in Wilmette IL (right next door to Deerfield) and his rate is $1400 a month in the 2's class. For the baby class it was around $1600, and that's "inexpensive" compared to some of the other areas around us - the DC centers next to my office are $1900 and $2200 a month for infant care.
I feel like we're going backwards in society in a lot of ways and this is certainly contributing.
I feel like the "we" in this title is speaking to a certain well-off part of the population. Like the modern day leave it to beaver household that's evolved to a married man and woman both working and taking home a middle/upper middle class sort of income. At some point between leave it to beaver and the present, women contributing financially became more of a necessity to keep up a certain standard of living.
Also, the people working in day cares are people, too. Extended hours would probably require more staff and more shifts. How can we complain about infant care being $2k per month? That shit is hard work. It's physically and mentally exhausting. Can those child care workers even afford themselves?
I'd feel happier about paying for daycare if I knew more of it went to the employees. I hate the corporate structure so much.
We absolutely need subsidized daycares. Make them like public schools!
Or what about even doing public K3 and K4 as a middle ground.
yes parents will still be on the hook for years 1 and 2 but then at 3 kiddo would be cared for for free AND getting a solid early education. It's a place to start that has very solid science backing it, we know kids who go to Pre-K do better long term so if we funded early childhood ed then kids get the education they need, parents get a break financially and everyone does better.
Also - just because it just popped into my head - my rather conservative, libertarian leaning, occasionally assholish bootstrap waving husband totally supports heavily subsidized daycare.
He doesn't even support government funded HEALTH care, but he's all for free daycare for poor people and reduced price for middle-class.
It seems so obvious to me that this is something we should have as a civilized people. But NOPE.
I think most places have subsidized daycare. I mean I lived in AZ and there was subsidized daycare. I mean not for me, but for people below a certain income. My coworker made like 25K and maybe $10 a week for full time daycare, due to subsidies. That was AZ, so imagine it can't be that unusual if AZ did it. That being said, I am not sure how it all works (I think she got vouchers she could use wherever) and I think the income cut off is pretty low.
Holy crap, that is highway robbery childcare! In the DC area, we only would have had to pay around $1300 a month for an infant in full time care (she went part time as an infant).
I thought the part about the Lanham Act and being able to have state funded childcare was really enlightening and disheartening that we no longer do it.
Really? That seems crazy low for DC. Here (Seattle) most centers are $2k+ for infants.
I'm due next week and when we have DS in aftercare and Baby #2 in full time infant care we'll be paying over $2k a month. I'm not in an inner suburb like Arlington either. The daycare prices here are absolutely insane.
Holy crap, that is highway robbery childcare! In the DC area, we only would have had to pay around $1300 a month for an infant in full time care (she went part time as an infant).
I thought the part about the Lanham Act and being able to have state funded childcare was really enlightening and disheartening that we no longer do it.
thatgirl2478 isn't joking. DS is in daycare in Wilmette IL (right next door to Deerfield) and his rate is $1400 a month in the 2's class. For the baby class it was around $1600, and that's "inexpensive" compared to some of the other areas around us - the DC centers next to my office are $1900 and $2200 a month for infant care.
I feel like we're going backwards in society in a lot of ways and this is certainly contributing.
One of my coworkers had both her boys in a center near Deerfield, it seriously cost $3k AFTER the multiple child discount. It was ridiculous.
Also - just because it just popped into my head - my rather conservative, libertarian leaning, occasionally assholish bootstrap waving husband totally supports heavily subsidized daycare.
He doesn't even support government funded HEALTH care, but he's all for free daycare for poor people and reduced price for middle-class.
It seems so obvious to me that this is something we should have as a civilized people. But NOPE.
I think most places have subsidized daycare. I mean I lived in AZ and there was subsidized daycare. I mean not for me, but for people below a certain income. My coworker made like 25K and maybe $10 a week for full time daycare, due to subsidies. That was AZ, so imagine it can't be that unusual if AZ did it. That being said, I am not sure how it all works (I think she got vouchers she could use wherever) and I think the income cut off is pretty low.
We looked into subsidized daycare a few years ago. The threshold was ridiculously low. Like, you could earn less than daycare cost in NYC and still not qualify for daycare. H and I each individually took home less than daycare for one child, but our combined incomes still set us way above the threshold for a subsidy.
thatgirl2478 isn't joking. DS is in daycare in Wilmette IL (right next door to Deerfield) and his rate is $1400 a month in the 2's class. For the baby class it was around $1600, and that's "inexpensive" compared to some of the other areas around us - the DC centers next to my office are $1900 and $2200 a month for infant care.
I feel like we're going backwards in society in a lot of ways and this is certainly contributing.
One of my coworkers had both her boys in a center near Deerfield, it seriously cost $3k AFTER the multiple child discount. It was ridiculous.
Ugh, awful. It's playing a huge role in timing on if/when we try for a second child - there's no way we can do $3k/month in childcare expenses so we're going to wait til DS is in kindergarten.
Post by 2curlydogs on Feb 11, 2016 11:00:34 GMT -5
So, is this the post where I drop the anecdote that, a week after I had B, my dad asked me "What are your plans for this child?" and then, when I informed them that we had a daycare all lined up and that I was going back to work after 12 weeks, 3 of which were unpaid, he said he would pay me to be a SAHM. I asked how much and then laughed at his response, as it was about half of what I was making at the time and was even less than my salary would be deducting childcare from it.
Or the time when my mom dropped the anecdotal story about when they lived in the apartment the women across the hall ran a daycare and she'd see children crying when they were leaving "because they didn't recognize their parents".
They see my kids now. How happy and well-adjusted and ahead of their peers (and even some of their older cousins) in terms of both intellectual and social skills. And there isn't a single goddayum comment about me staying at home.
Affordable quality childcare MUST be a priority for this country. It's no wonder we're so fucking behind the rest of the world when we can't be bothered to pay attention to children's development until they're 6.
I have more to say, but I've got 8 million fucking fires to put out around here.
Also - just because it just popped into my head - my rather conservative, libertarian leaning, occasionally assholish bootstrap waving husband totally supports heavily subsidized daycare.
He doesn't even support government funded HEALTH care, but he's all for free daycare for poor people and reduced price for middle-class.
It seems so obvious to me that this is something we should have as a civilized people. But NOPE.
I think most places have subsidized daycare. I mean I lived in AZ and there was subsidized daycare. I mean not for me, but for people below a certain income. My coworker made like 25K and maybe $10 a week for full time daycare, due to subsidies. That was AZ, so imagine it can't be that unusual if AZ did it. That being said, I am not sure how it all works (I think she got vouchers she could use wherever) and I think the income cut off is pretty low.
It definitely exists. But it suffers from many of the same issues as all our other "welfare" systems. the income cutoff is VERY low considering the cost of full-time care, finding a place with an opening that accepts the vouchers is hard, and I'm pretty sure it has those shitty perverse incentives where you lose more in your benefit than you gain in increased income if you start making more money.
It should be SO MUCH EASIER. I want the single payer version of daycare.
I really hope I'm not derailing this thread, but I do wish low-cost, high-quality childcare and preschool for all was Bernie's drum rather than free college.
It would make so much more sense! We already have too many high school kids that 'graduate' and are in no way prepared for the 'real world' let alone the expectations of college!
But this topic isn't going to get him the under 25 vote. When I was 19 I would have been much more concerned about free college than subsidized daycare or paid family leave. That wasn't even close to being on my radar.
Also - just because it just popped into my head - my rather conservative, libertarian leaning, occasionally assholish bootstrap waving husband totally supports heavily subsidized daycare.
He doesn't even support government funded HEALTH care, but he's all for free daycare for poor people and reduced price for middle-class.
It seems so obvious to me that this is something we should have as a civilized people. But NOPE.
I think most places have subsidized daycare. I mean I lived in AZ and there was subsidized daycare. I mean not for me, but for people below a certain income. My coworker made like 25K and maybe $10 a week for full time daycare, due to subsidies. That was AZ, so imagine it can't be that unusual if AZ did it. That being said, I am not sure how it all works (I think she got vouchers she could use wherever) and I think the income cut off is pretty low.
Even aside from the income requirements, I know around here, many DCPs won't accept child care assistance, because its a huge burden as far as submitting for reimbursement and record keeping, etc. So that narrows the field even more. On top of that, then many low income people do shift work, so good luck finding a DCP who accepts DHS payment and will take kids in the evening and overnight.
So, is this the post where I drop the anecdote that, a week after I had B, my dad asked me "What are your plans for this child?" and then, when I informed them that we had a daycare all lined up and that I was going back to work after 12 weeks, 3 of which were unpaid, he said he would pay me to be a SAHM. I asked how much and then laughed at his response, as it was about half of what I was making at the time and was even less than my salary would be deducting childcare from it.
Or the time when my mom dropped the anecdotal story about when they lived in the apartment the women across the hall ran a daycare and she'd see children crying when they were leaving "because they didn't recognize their parents".
They see my kids now. How happy and well-adjusted and ahead of their peers (and even some of their older cousins) in terms of both intellectual and social skills. And there isn't a single goddayum comment about me staying at home.
Affordable quality childcare MUST be a priority for this country. It's no wonder we're so fucking behind the rest of the world when we can't be bothered to pay attention to children's development until they're 6.
I have more to say, but I've got 8 million fucking fires to put out around here.
Fuck your mother. I mean...sorry. BUT GODDAMN IT.
signed, My child has a meltdown at pickup at least once a week
Post by curbsideprophet on Feb 11, 2016 11:09:38 GMT -5
I forgot to add, I have no idea what we will do for childcare for DD next summer. I am excited for her to start kindergarten this fall but I fully expect it to make our life more difficult in terms of work missed due to early dismissal/snow days etc. schools seem to close more often then our daycare.
I forgot to add, I have no idea what we will do for childcare for DD next summer. I am excited for her to start kindergarten this fall but I fully expect it to make our life more difficult in terms of work missed due to early dismissal/snow days etc. schools seem to close more often then our daycare.
Will your daycare still take her on snow days on an as needed basis? That is what we have had DS do for snow days. Summers are a huge PITA though for school aged kids. Especially when they are at that age where they are a bit too old for daycare, but too young to spend any time at home alone.
I think most places have subsidized daycare. I mean I lived in AZ and there was subsidized daycare. I mean not for me, but for people below a certain income. My coworker made like 25K and maybe $10 a week for full time daycare, due to subsidies. That was AZ, so imagine it can't be that unusual if AZ did it. That being said, I am not sure how it all works (I think she got vouchers she could use wherever) and I think the income cut off is pretty low.
It definitely exists. But it suffers from many of the same issues as all our other "welfare" systems. the income cutoff is VERY low considering the cost of full-time care, finding a place with an opening that accepts the vouchers is hard, and I'm pretty sure it has those shitty perverse incentives where you lose more in your benefit than you gain in increased income if you start making more money.
It should be SO MUCH EASIER. I want the single payer version of daycare.
Yes, my coworker could only work a certain number of hours a week or she would be cut off from the daycare subsidies. It sucked, she was a single mom with 2 kids.
I forgot to add, I have no idea what we will do for childcare for DD next summer. I am excited for her to start kindergarten this fall but I fully expect it to make our life more difficult in terms of work missed due to early dismissal/snow days etc. schools seem to close more often then our daycare.
Will your daycare still take her on snow days on an as needed basis? That is what we have had DS do for snow days. Summers are a huge PITA though for school aged kids. Especially when they are at that age where they are a bit too old for daycare, but too young to spend any time at home alone.
This is when you spend a million dollars for various camps throughout the summer. If you can actually get in.
I forgot to add, I have no idea what we will do for childcare for DD next summer. I am excited for her to start kindergarten this fall but I fully expect it to make our life more difficult in terms of work missed due to early dismissal/snow days etc. schools seem to close more often then our daycare.
Will your daycare still take her on snow days on an as needed basis? That is what we have had DS do for snow days. Summers are a huge PITA though for school aged kids. Especially when they are at that age where they are a bit too old for daycare, but too young to spend any time at home alone.
I have no idea, I will have to ask. I want to ask if she can come back for next summer since she will still be five for most of the summer.
So, is this the post where I drop the anecdote that, a week after I had B, my dad asked me "What are your plans for this child?" and then, when I informed them that we had a daycare all lined up and that I was going back to work after 12 weeks, 3 of which were unpaid, he said he would pay me to be a SAHM. I asked how much and then laughed at his response, as it was about half of what I was making at the time and was even less than my salary would be deducting childcare from it.
Or the time when my mom dropped the anecdotal story about when they lived in the apartment the women across the hall ran a daycare and she'd see children crying when they were leaving "because they didn't recognize their parents".
They see my kids now. How happy and well-adjusted and ahead of their peers (and even some of their older cousins) in terms of both intellectual and social skills. And there isn't a single goddayum comment about me staying at home.
Affordable quality childcare MUST be a priority for this country. It's no wonder we're so fucking behind the rest of the world when we can't be bothered to pay attention to children's development until they're 6.
I have more to say, but I've got 8 million fucking fires to put out around here.
Fuck your mother. I mean...sorry. BUT GODDAMN IT.
signed, My child has a meltdown at pickup at least once a week
I said "Maybe they're crying because they're having such a great time playing with their friends that they don't want to leave." No response to that.
The last time I posted a similar article on FB, she replied with something about how if taxes weren't so high families wouldn't need to have two incomes. I just don't engage anymore.
Will your daycare still take her on snow days on an as needed basis? That is what we have had DS do for snow days. Summers are a huge PITA though for school aged kids. Especially when they are at that age where they are a bit too old for daycare, but too young to spend any time at home alone.
This is when you spend a million dollars for various camps throughout the summer. If you can actually get in.
and forget it if you have a special needs kid that wouldn't do well in a regular camp. the local special needs program has a summer program it's 8-12.
Daycare is even worse since they can be kicked out at anytime for behaviors and there is nothing a parent can do. A mom friend recently had to quit her job because her ASD son is doing some serious biting and he has been kicked out of his 3rd daycare and she is out of options. They are having to sell their house and downsize because it's the only way to make it work but they have no options left.
While we're doing this, can we talk about the total bullshit that is the one week "exclusion period" for short term disability policies???
two weeks. My current employer is 15 days. Because you know, the standard (for this industry) six week STD is so great already - so obviously only actually paying me for 4 weeks of that should be just fucking dandy.
Hmph.
This is one of those things where I'm all, "wawa. be grateful you get anything. A lot of people get nothing."
But FUCK THAT BECAUSE EVERYBODY SHOULD GET SOMETHING GOOD rather than my being grateful for something shitty.
]As to the entire bolded paragraph, I don't know one single household that functions like that. I'm sure they exist, but of my small sample of IRL friends, the people I work with, and the people on this forum, I don't know anybody that jokes about that or expects their H to do the bare minimum.
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You're lucky. I know several. IRL and on my local message board.
First time I went out of town and MH was flying solo with Shorti friends were taking bets on whether he'd end up taking them to his parent's house. He was legit offended.
The phrase "OH, who has the kids?" comes out of more people's mouths than you'd believe when I'm out and about without them. My standard answer is "their other parent."
It's pervasive.[/quote][/p]
People are shocked that Mr. GT is going to stay at home with the baby for 12 weeks after I go back to work and they are even more shocked that he went to look at daycares solo while I was at work. He had seven days off due to the blizzard and I only had one, why wouldn't I send him to look at centers? Sure he doesn't know a ton about infants, but he is a fucking teacher and the father, so I think he can handle it.
This is when you spend a million dollars for various camps throughout the summer. If you can actually get in.
and forget it if you have a special needs kid that wouldn't do well in a regular camp. the local special needs program has a summer program it's 8-12.
Daycare is even worse since they can be kicked out at anytime for behaviors and there is nothing a parent can do. A mom friend recently had to quit her job because her ASD son is doing some serious biting and he has been kicked out of his 3rd daycare and she is out of options. They are having to sell their house and downsize because it's the only way to make it work but they have no options left.
Ouch. We're on daycare #3. This one finally seems to be the right fit and it helps that we have DS's ABA there with him the three afternoons a week here's there. He won't be able to deal with random camps so I'm not entirely sure what we'll do at that point. No good solutions are there?