Cost of Childcare
A year ago, I made the decision to go back to school full-time and get my bachelor’s degree, regardless of whether it was the right time to do so or not. I had waited for this moment for 12 years as a military spouse, moving to six different duty stations supporting my spouse’s career. Each time that I worked on my degree, it was put on hold for extenuating circumstances – deployment or cost of childcare. It was never the right time.
12 years later, I still do not have my degree. I still haven’t published my book. I still haven’t accomplished my career goals. I finally decided to stop waiting for the “right time” and to do it. I went back to school full-time a year ago. I took classes during the time I sold my house with a power of attorney, packed up our household goods, and drove across country, all while my husband was deployed. In the fall semester of 2018, I took five classes and started applying for jobs as we unpacked our house at our new duty station. From fall 2018 to spring 2019, I took 12 classes and made it on the Dean’s List for both semesters.
In the spring of 2019, I started working part-time, switching to full-time over the summer. Out of all the transitions that happened over the past year, getting a job was the only decision I doubted myself on. While I did impose on our family budget with my college classes, I took mostly online classes and was able to support the children’s school schedules and sick days with my time. When I started working, we needed to find childcare for our five children to support my work schedule. Instead of simply adjusting our budget like we did when I went back to school, we needed to overhaul the logistics of nearly every aspect of our family schedule, as well as find additional room in our family budget for the cost of childcare.
When I talk to my female friends about their work schedules, I realize I’m not alone. The cost of childcare is the leading reason why they cut back on hours or stop working completely. They tell me their salary did not cover the expense and so it wasn’t worth working. As someone who is fighting for a position in the workplace, this has hit me hard. Is my job worth the cost of childcare?
It is hard for me to justify my job in those discussions, as I don’t feel it is a career yet. “Career” feels like a stretch considering my work experience. I blogged for eight years. I started my current job as a paid intern, moved into a part-time position, and am temporarily full-time over the summer. I will be part-time again in the fall. Even working full-time right now, my salary doesn’t come close to covering childcare expenses for five children. I’m keenly aware of how my job compares to my spouse’s. A recent article I read summed this point up nicely:
The hardest part for me is putting my work second to my husband’s, because he makes many multiples of what I do, and has the health insurance. So if I’m on a business trip, or we’re trying to schedule competing work things, he tries to accommodate me, but the knowledge of which one of our careers is expendable hangs over everything. It’s frustrating, and makes me think that I’m ‘playing’ instead of working, especially since me working from home and being the main caregiver has allowed him to focus completely on his career (Ruiz).
My spouse’s job pays all of our bills – from our mortgage to our groceries. His job provides our insurance and paid for his college degrees and is paying for mine. And now his job pays for childcare, allowing me to work. Childcare takes a huge chunk out of our family budget. The number fills me with dread and is almost a call to action for me: “I should stay home. I should do it myself. I shouldn’t ask so much of our family budget. Is my job really worth it?”
But my answer is yes. Yes, my job is worth it. Yes, my goals are worth it. Yes, my resume is worth it. Yes, I am worth it.
That’s not an easy sentiment to convey to people when they ask about how we make it all work. It’s not my go-to answer when people wonder how we pay for childcare. No, my job does not cover childcare. Even more so: it doesn’t have to.
What tends to be forgotten is that I am 12 years behind my husband in his career. I don’t even have my degree yet. How on earth is my job going to pay enough to cover the cost of five children in childcare 40 hours a week over the summer? Or for five children in after-school-care during the school year? The biggest reason why I stayed home all these years is that my spouse’s career didn’t cover the cost of childcare back then. A recent article in the New York Times discusses how men are more successful in their careers because women stay home to raise their families:
“To maximize the family’s income but still keep the children alive, it’s logical for one parent to take an intensive job and the other to take a less demanding one,” [Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard] said. “It just so happens that in most couples, if there’s a woman and a man, the woman takes the back seat.” Women don’t step back from work because they have rich husbands, she said. They have rich husbands because they step back from work (Miller).
My spouse wouldn’t be where he is at in his career right now if I hadn’t supported him along the way. While the cost of childcare for our children is greater than my salary, I deserve to have a career. I deserve to build my resume. I will not allow a biased system to dictate my career path any longer.
When I look at what I have accomplished in the past year, I do not see the cost of childcare for our family. I see a woman who made the Dean’s List twice in the midst of moving across country with the military and starting a new job. I see a woman who built a resume out of blogging for eight years and got a job because of it. I see woman holding a job successfully while attending school full-time, applying the employable skills I have gained as a military spouse and a stay-at-home parent.
Even more so, I see a woman who is talking about these challenges, working to change the system, so my children will not have to discover that the cost of childcare contributes to gender discrimination in the workplace. Going back to school and work has taught me that it is always the right time for a woman to accomplish her professional goals. I see a woman who is worth it.
Miller, Claire Cain. “Women Did Everything Right. Then Work Got ‘Greedy.’ How America’s Obsession with Long Hours has Widened the Gender Gap.” The Upshot, The New York Times, 26 April 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-greedy-professions.html?fbclid=IwAR0FUoupIn_DAvGOM2QGB-vNWSY3GJ166fT2i7Mg7rWJEQYDLlk1U8WEbNg. Accessed June 2019.
Ruiz, Michelle. “13 Things We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Working Moms.” News, Vogue, 16 April 2019, https://www.vogue.com/article/things-we-dont-talk-about-working-motherhood-parenting?mbid=social_facebook&utm_source=facebook&utm_brand=vogue&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2tC_a4Aw5YrLIMz92yrMMjSJLWdjHpPNhJ-pVZ8KFg0bLZW8zc0HMY8WE&verso=true. Accessed June 2019.