Blog # 6 - Cost of Child Care

In Chapter two of “Putting Children First”, Chaudry describes a variety of child care options available to mothers. The chapter begins with the story of Brittany and Bethany and the struggle Brittany faced in finding consistent and constructive child care for Bethany. Bethany tried various methods of child care including kin care, work care, and family day care. The stories supplemented by single mothers in this chapter outline the pros and cons of the types of care made available for their children.

Kin care is the type of care where a family member watches the child while the parent works. Some mothers, such as Harriet, prefer kin care because they feel they can have complete trust in the person watching their child. Kin care is cheap and usually convenient. However, kin care is often short term and does not provide the structure and educational opportunities that other types of care provide. Family day care is a day care inside of a person’s home, with one care provider who watches over many different children. This is a licensed and subsidized form of care and consists of wide variations since the providers are all different. A major con of this type of care is that there are no learning opportunities. Center care is preferred by many mothers, even though there are differences as to when it is best to put the child in center care. Center care is beneficial for the child because it offers structure and learning opportunities. However, center care is much harder to arrange than kin or family care. In Edwina’s story, she had to lie to get her child into a center because the centers in her neighborhood had extensive waiting lists of around 500 children. Other care arrangements include father care, special needs care, and mother’s care while working. The Applied Research Center website provides substantial evidence regarding childcare. For instance, the amount of licensed centers has significantly decreased since 2000 while the amount of unlicensed centers has increased. Many mothers would prefer a certain type of childcare but simply cannot afford or attain it due to affordability, long waiting lists, insufficient subsidies, etc. However it appears that the majority of mothers' ideal child care is one in which their children are placed in structured and educational environments.

Many people are striving to improve child care conditions, such as Congresswoman Schroeder, who in her National Family Policy would like to acquire benefits for part-time workers and abolish unfair wages, meaning that men are still getting paid more than women in the same positions. Also, many care centers are created to make affordable care available and provide many opportunities for the children. In the “California Child Care Crisis News Coverage” video, one day care center is interviewed and while it cares for many children, the center remains a positive environment in their lives.