expensive child care, or being stuck by The Man

[jrtom]

Look, I know that Megan and I are fairly well off, as two-earner families (one of whom is a graduate student) go. And we're lucky to live in a state where Megan can take 3 months off work and still get some kind of pay (counting disability and family leave). Moreover, I do recognize, having been doing it (retail, not wholesale) for the past 6 weeks, that day care for infants is not an easy job, and deserves to be compensated.

But fer cryin' out loud, $900+ a month? Thanks, but we'd rather pay rent.

This is the non-subsidized cost for the UCI campus-provided full-time (10 hours/day) infant/toddler day care. The state of California does provide subsidies, but only if your household income is < ~$3000/month. Yes, that's right, they expect you to (be able to) pay as much as a third of your salary for child care.

(No options for part-time or occasional care, either--we asked. And in fact this is really what we wanted to have available. Guess it's time to check out the free-lancers.)

*sigh*

Comments

[darcydodo]

UC child care has always sucked shit, in terms of prcie. Now that it exists in the first place. When I was a baby, my parents simply took me into work with them; once I was more toddler-sized, my mom turned a room in her lab into a nursery and paid graduate students to take care of me. Admittedly, my parents were professors, not grad students, but still.