What comes first, my job or my kid? (Should government subsidize daycare?)

honestly no, i am a stay at home mother only becuase i got laid off andi havent found a good enough job. me staying at home would save some money but i want to go back to work. as for the government subsidizing daycare, if it will help then i am for it. when they provide government assistance they normally base it on your income. so if they feel that the amount of income allows you to be able to afford daycare. i even tried myself to get help with daycare but i couldnt. it got so bad i even tried to shorten moy hours at work one week so that my pay stub would qualify me for government assistance. it still didnt help.

I don't think the govt should have to pay for it. IT could so easily be taken advantage of and people would abuse it to the point of it costing more in the long run. But although they currently have a little tax deduction for day care - I think they could do more with that. I used it back when My kids were in day care - I forget how much or what percent was allowed to be deducted, but even if they did 100% deductible, you still have to have a official IRS form filled out by the day care place with their TIN number so there is a way to police it, and for those that hae phoney TIN numbers, it could easily be verified by licenseses and cross referenced between the day cares 1040's or whatever they file for validity. There is certainly something they could do to help since day care is terribly expensive. I was so lucky that i got a fantastic church day care for $50 a week and $35 of half day with kindergarten. IT was the best daycare not counting my self! But these days - it is several hundred dollars and from the things I have seen...the care in "day care" is not all that great. I keep my grand kids but if I didn't, my kids couldn't afford to go to work, it'd be nearly half their salary just for day care!

The cost of daycare was part of the reason that we decided that I would be a stay at home mom. I worked for a while after my son was born. My husband and I worked opposite shifts, but then we didn't get to spend much time together, so that wasn't really an ideal solution. And then they switched his shift at work. One of our friends watched our toddler for the 4 hours or so that we were both at work each day (my husband got off at 4 pm, and I went in at noon), three days a week. It worked out ok, but she didn't charge us anywhere near what the going rate was. When she told us she was moving, we decided that it was time for me to quit my job to stay at home. We called around for prices at daycares around here, and they were all outrageously priced! The base daycare goes by how much money you make, and even though my husband was only an Airmen at the time, because I had a pretty good job, it was going to cost us over ONE THOUSAND dollars per month!! Our child would have only been there for about 15 hours each week, tops. I was working part time, and bringing in an average of $1500-1600 a month. I had to supply all my own combs, clippers, scissors, etc. Daycare was going to cost right around $1200, and if for some reason my husband had to work a different shift for some reason, we would have had to have arranged for someone else to get our child, or we would have paid $1 per minute that he was there past 6 pm, and I didn't get off work until around 6 most days, so it would have cost us an additional $15-20 each time that happened. We called some home daycares, and most of them wanted $250 or more per week, or $25 per hour for part time, even though he would have been there during regular working hours.

I don't think that it would hurt the government in any way to help with the betterment with the American family and the American home.. But, in all honesty, the government doesn't care.. It would be great to have the best affordable or free daycare for all children so the parents could work and make a living, after all, in this day with the prohibitive cost of living, it does take both parents to make a living and raise their children.. But I do believe the government is too busy buying toilet seats, and sending outrageous amounts of money to other countries, where it probably doesn't go where it is intended anyway, to be able to help in our own country..

Instead the government should try to come up with more jobs that stay at home moms can do from home or help out stay at home moms since day care would cost money as well and its not the safest place for a child these days. No one will care for your child the way a parent would. Besides if the government would provide daycare I can only picture the center, I would not find my self placing my child there.

I am a proud stay at home mom. I am not ready to leave my child's care in the hands of strangers. Nowadays, with many single parents raising children, daycare is not an option. It's a "can't do without". I would like to see more businesses offering child care at work. Don't a lot of government employees already have that luxury? I think that as an incentive for business owners, give them a tax break. If they offer discounted or free day care for employees while working, it would benefit both the employer and the employee.

I don't recall where in the constitution it states that government is responsible for child care. I don't remember where it is stated that any entitlement program is owed to us. I do recall that we have a right to free speech, no taxation with representation, right to bear arms, to assemble. Well jeez just lots of things but nothing about day care. "Ask not what your country can do for you........."

Yes, I do agree that the U.S. should expand the subsidized daycare program, for the reasons you mention but also because this would cause daycare to become more regulated. Licensed daycare centers are expensive and often have no openings so parents are forced to turn to home based daycare. There are laws on the books that dictate how many children an individual can look after without needing a license. After that the state/county can monitor the home to ensure the safety and quality of care the children receive. But, generally home based daycare is a cash business, with desperate parents so thankful for any available space, so why go to the trouble and expense of the licensing process when no one is going to say anything? This can put children in risk. If subsidized daycare was available to more parents more home based daycare providers would be forced to become licensed in order to continue to be paid. I'm in no way suggesting that all home based daycare providers do not provide the best possible care for the children they are responsible for but we all know that there are those who don't. So, that's my take on the subject.

it is difficuilt to say you need your earnings to take care of your family. It is better if you managed it by balancing them.

Hola amigos, una vbez mas, estaba leyendo atentamente el comentario sobre este tema, que no es menor sino imortanticimos, si me permiten, una critica constructiva como debe ser toda critica, Aqui en Argentina, hay guarderias del estado y guarderias pagadas, obviamente, las pagas son mejor casi siempre que las del estado, pero en el caso de que uno mande a un hijo a una guarderia paga, la mayoria de las empresas les pagan a los pareds que tiene que acceder a ese servicio, por que no tiene con quien deja r a sus hijos, gran parte del costo o la totalidad en muchos casos de ese costo, creo que no solo EEUU se debe un debate sobre en torno al sistema de salud y al sistema de educaciòn,es decir siempre estemos en el Paìs que estemos tenemos que tenes la capacidad de elegir lo qeu deseams hacer en estos casos, y no podemos estar desprotegidos ante la pequeña eventualidad de ser padres, no solo por una cuestion de economia, uno no puede criar a un hijo trabajando 12 horas diarias como pasa enmuchos lugares, casi no lo ve mas que para darle un beso a lanoche al dormirse èl/ èlla, eso no es lògico. La capacidad de un Pais realemente se mide en esas cuestiones, a la hora de solucionar problemas basicos, en lo que respecta en a las licencias por maternidad, estas existen en muchos paises, casi todas esas cuestiones se fueron implementando em la post guerra, y se siguen mejorando dia a dia, dato al margen, el termino " kindergarden " proviene de la creacon de horagres para madres solteras hacia el año de 1940 en la Alemania Nazi, que curioso! verdad. saludos a todos hasta la proxima!!!