So, it seems, have our policy makers.
Big Cuter waxed eloquent on the subject last night at the dinner table. As he laid it out, for a short period of time, the financial crunch of acceptable child care puts an extra burden on all ready overwhelmed new parents.
You can't take the baby to work. You can't leave the baby alone. At the most critical, stressful, hormonal time in a young family's life, a crushing financial burden is added.
"I don't know how single parents do it."
I do know that there's a reason you don't become a parent in your 70's. It's exhausting.
As the parent of an infant you need the ability to stay awake and be reasonably functional at odd hours. Sleep is a fond memory. Your back reminds you that sitting on the floor while amusing an adorable blob of protoplasm for 20 or 30 or 40 minutes has ongoing consequences.
But the absence of reliable, available, affordable child care is a problem that could be resolved by a national effort, resolved just like building roads and monitoring air traffic and providing financial assistance to the elderly.... who were once infants themselves.
If only our policies weren't written by mostly white, mostly rich, mostly married with stay at home moms, men.
Do you think Mitch McConnell ever changed a diaper?
There is always talk about "family values" during campaigns. What exactly that means is hard to determine. The mother of nine can be shot dead for displaying a rainbow flag. Children are not safe in schools. Still, some children are at their safest and most well-fed only at school. What exactly are the priorities?
ReplyDeleteI was a corporate pilot when my two were little, talk about a guy with a really messed up sleep schedule, but we all survived and I never had an accident. Looking back on it I shudder sometimes.
ReplyDeleteNo he didn't and neither did Donald Trump.
Your post pretty much sums up the reason we only have one child. Child care was very difficult. We made it work, somehow, and thank god for my mother who was 64 when our daughter was born. I don't think she could have managed to care for two sick children at a time, though, so a second child never appeared.
ReplyDeleteI had the ability and means to stay at home when my two were little, and then could work on their school schedules, but we ran out of money by the end of every month. It was tight. Now it seems to be impossible for many. Yes, we need a national childcare plan.
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