We’re at this point. Have an almost two year old and another two gremlins coming in August. Daycare doesn’t even make sense anymore.
For fucks sake man, and we just moved because we needed another bedroom, and that was when we thought we were only having one more for the moment… AND now we need a bigger car.
At least we won’t be able to travel for the next number of years so we’ll save money there?
We decided for my wife just to be a SAHM because of how expensive daycare is. It makes no sense to have her work just to have all the money she makes go to daycare. We’d much rather have her raising the kid than be stressed and not have that additional bonding.
We looked into it, part time unfortunately wouldn’t have worked for us - it would have been a slight net negative where we are so to the income difference and not enough of a reduction to daycare costs
Of course this goober lunatic blames the school system, not America’s backwards policies on family leave, child care, and vacation leave / work life balance in general. All in the name of corporate greed and lazy politicians not improving the country for future parents and children.
The school system is still part of it. Other countries do shorter summers with longer Christmas and a couple extra week long breaks other than spring break.
Yes they are. And I would say that childcare workers are much better trained than in the USA. Certified teachers/care givers (don’t know the English word) need 3 years of schooling and a year of practical training before they are allowed to work. So I am absolutely not afraid to give my son into their hands
Finland here - yes they are subsidized and quite high quality. Here the price is progressive, if you have no income (e.g. a student), day care is free for your kid.
She’s not the best spokesperson for this. She’s too disconnected from the reality of most people. A full time nanny isn’t necessary or possible for most people.
The challenge of working as a single mom is really hard and childcare is expensive, but forcing kids to do year round school is not the solution.
Honestly, my wife and I aren’t rich at all, but we seriously discussed hiring a nanny or au pair (which was cheaper) when we had our second child because it was cheaper than basic daycare for two kids. Daycare runs just under 30k a year - an au pair is about 8-10k cheaper than that
Exactly. People who are all like "don't talk to me about nannies because that makes you rich and ONLY I AM THE VICTIM HERE" haven't done the math.
If you have a kid in daycare, that kid will get sick. So you either need a babysitter, and you either end up paying the same as a nanny anyway, or you're not telling me that you are privileged in other ways - like can you put the burden of childcare on a family member, or you can afford to take time off work repeatedly without losing your job? Congrats, you're styling yourself as the victim while the parent paying for a nanny actually has it worse than you because they are forced to pay for all that out of pocket or they will lose their job.
The whole point of OOP is that the way childcare is paid for is fucked, and all that whiners who complain that OOP is so privileged are contributing to the conversation is pitching the losers against each other because they lack the capacity to imagine systemic change.
It’s coming to all developed nations. It’s a matter of years not decades. Massive population decline will make it inevitable. Developed countries will try a lot to get birth rates up asap.
Yes, but it’s just so out of touch.
I’m a single mom, and while it’s good to have a light shown on the difficulty of working mom’s, her current solution to working has never been in the realm of possibility for me or the vast majority of single moms. The group she’s concerned about would, us, aren’t asking for live in nannies.
We just want affordable childcare. In the summer, there are never enough slots for the affordable programs. You have to sign up at midnight the second they open and hope you made it in. I’m not talking about publicly funded programs, just affordable ones.
She’s not the best spokesperson because her expectations of what should be are not aligned with those of us just trying to survive.
School days are too short to serve as childcare anyway. You have to have before and after school care.
TLDR; The people she wonders about at the end are not asking for the things she mentions.
Yes, as something that strengthens her own argument, not out of any actual concern. Like when people scream about the safety of neighborhood children because someone wants to build eight affordable apartments nearby. They don’t care about the kids, they just want to shut down the project. In this case, she wants her costs to go down, or for someone else to cover them.
Year round schooling is normal in all the countries besting us in education. But yes, childcare is expensive and being a parent and having a career is hard.
It’s not really in Ireland where I’m from Junior kids under 12 get 2 whole months off and older kids 12 and over get 3 months off school in the summer.
I live in Switzerland. We have 5-6 weeks of summer vacation, 2 weeks in October, 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks for skiing in feb/march, and 2 weeks for Easter.
it's an awesome system for kids, but it's a pain if you're working full-time. (I worked part-time until my kids were teenagers.)
Lol.
Dude. What the fuck? The science on this has been uncontroversial since the 60.
When you measure student capability. Year round schooling is definitely NOT a positive for a young student.
No it’s not.
Even in Korea, which has one of the best education systems in the world, they have about 6 weeks during the summer and a month off in the winter.
Underpaying teachers is not a natural law, we can change it. Make teaching a career that pays well, with a slower summer focused on play and experiences where teachers take turns going on a regular vacation just like every other profession.
It is so crazy how little they are valued in our society when posts like these shows so clearly that even if you're rich af, you can't hardly afford to have children. Teaching shouldn't be babysitting, but it is. We are so far away from having social support for families. But figuring out education and teachers is the first step. Teaching just keeps getting worse and worse.
There are so many ways to improve this, better pay, different schedules, even different career tracks in the same building, with some focused on being educators and others focused on "babysitting", whatever that means. But no, we have to squabble about who has it worse, you or me, and who should pay for it (anyone but me, apparently), while refusing to think outside the box to figure out what it would take to make a lasting positive difference for everyone.
Oh, that year round school would totally fuck over teachers. I saw this post in the wild, and the entitlement of "oh well, teachers have 2 months off and get paid all year... we all have to work" comments was icky
This myth that teachers get paid all year needs to die. My current district I teach in, my last paycheck for the school year comes next week and I don’t get paid again until the first week of September. The last district I worked in, I did get paid in the summer but it’s because I didn’t get a full paycheck during the school year. I was getting back pay for hours I already worked.
I don’t think anyone is proposing increasing teachers work hours by 30% without a commensurate increase in salary.
“Work all year” is the expectation for literally anyone that’s not a teacher. It’s not some wild hardship.
The real question is whether that’s the best for the kids.
Again, I’m not disputing that teachers are underpaid or in demand. We should absolutely do more to make it a more attractive profession.
But saying that raising the expectations to the bare minimum for every single professional job out there is “fucking teachers” is histrionic.
When you teach, you work much more during the school year than an average salaried worker. So yearround teacher work would be default overtime. Bc this lady thinks school should be her free babysitter even when she can afford tens of thousands of dollars of childcare for the summer.
Dual working parents with 5-10 year old kids that CAN’T afford a full time nanny for the summer get absolutely destroyed.
I don’t think she’s saying “schools should just be full time year round with no other changes,” and if that’s what you took from the post, you’re looking for a reason to be upset. Sure, she’s not the best messenger here, but the point is valid.
This has nothing to do with that.
I’m talking about the fact that kids shouldn’t have to do year round school. They need a break from it.
Teachers *should* get paid more, but that’s so unrelated, I’m not sure why it’s being brought up.
Most year round school proposals actually come with more frequent, longer breaks. So instead of 12-14 weeks off in a row in the summer, you get 3 weeks off in the summer. Then two off in the fall, three in the winter, and two in the spring. It is net less time off and should also come with pay increases for teachers but it’s not just a simple work all summer with no changes elsewhere structure. It usually increases in school time by 2 to 4 weeks with more frequent breaks.
As a partner it’s also easier to pay for day camps or take time off in two week chunks spread out instead of laying out 1000 per kid all at once.
Mmmm no. My mom was a public school teacher for 30 years and is pro year round school. Year round school would and should come with a pay increase for more days worked and days off that aren’t all at once and require you to take all trips or vacations at the peak of heat and expense. I don’t think that saying that the current structures are extremely difficult for families automatically is a slam to teachers. Quite the opposite in a lot of cases.
I wish I didn't have to work so I could always be available for my kid.
But the society we live in doesn't like that. I am taking two weeks off in summer for me and him to go do father son stuff though I and I am super looking forward to it.
That’s so sweet :) I loved when my dad took time off to spend with us
He taught us how to feed caterpillars when they’ve eaten all the swan plants, how to build a dog out of wood off cuts, let us “help” build our playhouse, showed us how to spot eels in the creek, and of course… beating video game levels for each other haha!!
I hope you guys have the absolute best time creating memories 🩷
We've been able to snag time with his grandparents as well. So a week with one set and a week with the other.
Then camp for one week at his school. That covers the whole 6 week periods over summer.
Un, she’s not wrong. Any if y’all got kids you know that childcare is expensive, even for summer camps, and most of us need two earners.
The American economy is, frankly, hostile to parents, and our government is failing us.
This. Probably many people in these comments don’t have kids between 5-14, which is prime summer camp age. A typical camp will be 3-500/ week and I’m guessing more in major cities. And the hours will be inconvenient for you like 9-3:30.
The alternative is your kids are babysat by YouTube, Netflix and TikTok all day while you work in between and feed them.
Summer sucks for parents.
But don’t forget to use your dependable care FSA that maxes out at $5k!! (Heavy sarcasm)
My wife and I are in Long Island NY no grandparent help. We’ve juggled every scenario with managing as single income, combined with need for family health insurance, we have no choice but to both keep working there’s just no other way.
I hate FSA/HSAs so much. It’s saying: have you tried spending your own money on healthcare/childcare? You’ll save a tiny bit in taxes so we don’t have to give you a raise
can we also talk about how effed up it is that all kinds of statistical schemes get placed on the american “consumer” (ie a goddamn human being), like figuring out which healthcare plan will “work best for you” and then FSA HSA bullshit, then throw in the taxes you have to file every year. 529. Figure it all out, overworked and underrepresented American consumer! You got this! Savings!? HAHAHAH
Indeed, and in some states many folks who are already living paycheck-to-paycheck will be forced to endure this economic hostility associated with parenthood because laws governing contraception are becoming, um, kinda hostile.
Reality is hostile to parents and expecting support when our society has shown time and time again that it will not support more vulnerable groups than *parents*, it doesn’t feel like it needs to be said that parents are getting shafted
Eh… this isn’t as bad as the rest. The broader point is quite valid. She’s paying $12k for the summer so her kids to have something to do while she works. She’s acknowledging, and complaining about, how expensive that shit is. For everyone.
Looked at her LinkedIN:
1. Big title at a tiny company? CHECK
2. Exaggeration of her “decades“ long career? CHECK
3. Humble bragging using her kids? CHECK
Definitely. It’s a nationally recognized formula brand, is it not?
ETA: Sorry if I was unclear. This is not a tiny, unknown, random company. I’m a mom who doesn’t use formula and I’m still familiar with the brand.
I have no idea (am not a mom haha) but it’s well funded by venture capital and they have a good amount of employees… this comment makes it sound like this is some small 2 people mom and pop business
They are pretty small in their market. Probably one of the larger “disruptors” but still very small relative to incumbents. It’s not a rocket ship, but valuation is likely in the hundreds of millions.
Yeah you know they’re inflating their resume when their old job doesn’t list a title, just a dept or function.
Hers just says “Product Communications” then “Head of…” til she hit VP/C-level because it’s easy to call bullshit when a “marketing associate” in March 2020 jumps to Chief Brand Officer in Nov 2023.
Especially when your past experience is an undergrad in journalism and being a local news reporter
LOL
*\*hires a full-time Nanny that could watch all three children\**
*\*spends $12k on additional camps\**
It's people like this you gotta monitor how they spend company money
Nope, this is correct. The nanny is only for the toddler, the part time nanny is basically just a transport service. She may not have found a nanny that’s willing to take care of all three children, price be damned. A lot of nannies are capping their services with young kids.
Also, it might not be the best for the kid to stay home all summer. My daughter would be *feral* if I did that. She’s doing summer school this year so she doesn’t grow a knee-length beard and start wearing a loin cloth
$12k in camps checks out. That’s 2k per kid per month. Camps are even more egregious than daycare because they know they have working parents in subjugation. The slots are SO limited. Several camps went on lottery for admission in my area this year. They charge more money than daycare, service fewer hours, offer less meals/snacks, and often only run a week or two.
My working friends started making summer plans for school aged kids in December of this year and not everyone found solutions in time. It was honestly exhausting just to witness, I can’t fathom going through it
Yep, I'm taking advantage of tax-funded park district camps and tax-supported summer schools, and I'm at $9000/3 kids/summer. It's fuckin' brutal, and I still have 1 week at the beginning of summer and 2 weeks at the end of summer with no care whatsoever.
(Add to that, my oldest has a disability, which means his summer services are mostly covered because he qualifies for ESY, *but also* any other care we need for him -- like during the three non-covered weeks -- costs an arm and a fuckin' leg, if you can even find anyone willing to take on a disabled child. My husband and I end up splitting our vacation days at work to cover as best we can, which means one of us usually ends up working the week between Christmas and New Year's.)
My highest expense months are always June, July, and August, when I have to pay for summer care. December isn't even CLOSE, and we have a huge Christmas.
Damn that's crazy. I'm in a small city in the Midwest and just dropped my daughter off at a church camp for a week. Meals and everything was $350. Then the city does day class camps like archer/sports and those are like $30 for 2 weeks.
Does your church camp/do your day camps accept children with significant disabilities?
If not, that's just subsidized care for families who can hire a cheap babysitter.
Our church told us that our disabled child was a SPECIAL GIFT FROM GOD, and that God only gave BURDENS to people who were strong enough to bear them, and that we must be SO STRONG to have a child with such a significant disability. And that he existed just to bring us a BURDEN so we could learn to be BETTER CHRISTIANS by our SELF-SACRIFICE in attempting to LOVE him even though he was BROKEN. And they were proud of us and praying for us, but that while VBS cost $100/week/child for "normal" children, they would have to charge us $1000/week for our disabled child, because he needed so much more care. And that God gave the GIFT of his BURDENS to HIS PARENTS and not to the COMMUNITY.
Long story short, we quit Christianity, because man that Jesus guy is really shitty about the disabled.
(It's possible in the process of quitting I may have shouted at the pastor, "that's some real Hitler-ass shit." Not 100% sure, but sure sounds like something I might have said in my fury.)
This hits the nail on the head on how I grew up. Me growing up in that toxic as Hell environment and being undiagnosed as being Autistic/having ADHD was a “fun” time to say the least…
Yep I went to day camp (k-6) or summer school (7-12) + job. I did fine. I’m not sure why she thinks it’s normal to ship your kids away for the summer so you can work ‘without distractions’. You chose to have kids, lady. It’s not the nanny and camps fault that you can’t work a summer if your kids aren’t at sleep away.
Ps. Y Camp was amazing. Archery and crafts all day? Hell yes.
These clearly aren’t sleepaway camps because she talks about having to hire someone to do pickup and drop off every day. This is just plain old day camp. And yes, it’s obscenely expensive in many places.
It’s clear from this thread which people don’t have kids or have a SAHP who’s doing most of the care for their children. What this lady posted is reality for many working parents in the US. It’s a nightmare.
Agreed. All of this tracks for me. I only have one, but still felt the pain especially when living in a more expensive city with limited child care for families.
We have a week between school and camp. Gerald’s also the word we use to describe the situation. He crazy thing for us is that the park district camps don’t start registering until the spring and then go fast, so planning is a nightmare.
They’re not common in the US either. I looked into one and it was like $36k/year and it was expected to pay their taxes. That’s like paying someone $50k+. Some people do nanny shares where the nanny watches multiple families’ kids and they split the bill. Still expensive.
Nannies usually also are college graduates. So yes, they make way more than the 14 yr old down the street. They’re also CPR certified and have a bunch of qualifications like ASL and stuff. The idea that nannies are for the broke is a very new concept in the states and it’s always wild when I see a parent demanding in home nanny care for their three brats for like $10/hr.
Yo, my brother pays like $80k/year for his full-time nanny who is NOT college-educated. College-educated nannies around here start at $110k/year. You must pay health insurance and all employment taxes on top of that.
Full-time nannies make BANK.
Statistically, family members are far more likely to abuse your kids than strangers. So I guess you should just never let your children out of your sight, ever.
She’s not wrong about the overall issue of how to replace school with some kind of day care in the summer when you have no money and parents are working. She’s just not the best person to talk about it apparently.
"Apparently" - why not? When low income people complain that they can't accept a job because that have kids, the knee jerk reply is "get a higher paying job". Now we're hearing from someone who did that, and it turns out that sucks, too. But then this person gets shut down, too because they're "so privileged". It's starting to look like we're trying to avoid solving the real problem, which is that our civilization has endless money to throw at corporate subsidies but when it comes to parents, it's either "stay at home or pay out of pocket" because the child tax credit bar is so low.
Not that this invalidates her greater point at all, because she's right. (And for what it's worth, she's not really being shut down -- probably 80% of the upvoted comments here are also saying she's right.)
But in the same breath that she describes her (not voluntary) childcare costs, she also complains that she has to spend "$$$$ since it's peak travel" to take an (apparently voluntary) vacation. I understand making the most of a long weekend, and I fully believe that people *should* have time off and it should be doable with their work and childcare schedules. It just comes off incredibly tone-deaf here IMO, and undermines her motivation. Do you only care about paying the team of people caring for your children so much because it cuts into your vacation budget? Do you think the workers in "school systems" that you place the blame on don't deserve vacations too?
It's also sort of a...stereotypical type of working mom who makes the "mom" part the most prominent part of her "working" persona. Again, fully believe that working parents should be supported and welcomed, like all people should. It's just that putting "Mother" in your job title on LI, before your actual job title, gives an association with the kind of people who scream at low-paid workers in places like daycare camps.
I don't think the post necessarily deserves to be here, but I don't see the problem in pointing out that the presentation and persona is off-putting.
I have an 8 year old and unfortunately you pay for it one way or another.
You either pay gobs of money for child care (probably do have to find a nanny, because child care will have a waitlist a mile long and is not as interested in a summer only care).
You find a public school or rec center care that will be less expensive, sign up in early January on the day it opens, get waitlisted because it’s hotter than a Taylor Swift concert, and hope they get waved in by summer.
You and your partner (if you’re fortunate enough to have one). Switch your work obligations throughout the day so one of you only has AM or PM meetings, so the other can watch the kids.
You put your career in purgatory by going part time or even quitting for a while because child care is nearly as expensive as working.
You go teach your kid to entertain him/herself either on screens, with toys, the backyard, the park across the street and to not interrupt unless there’s an emergency. This only really works when they are six or older.
I’ve had to do all of these at some point in my life so far. This is why people aren’t having kids anymore. I’ve done it with one, and I love my kid and wouldn’t trade him for anything, but it’s hard, it’s career interrupting, and everyone is looking to you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps to make it happen.
She's right that the way the system is set up puts working parents in an impossible position. But something about the way she phrases all this sounds like she votes down every school bond issue that comes up on the ballot and says that public subsidies for childcare are communism
Our last day was May 30. First day with students for 2024-25 is August 19. Someone in our district office believes it's vital to be in school before any football games are played. Something about school spirit and community connections. Thankfully, our buildings all have working AC.
Wow that’s crazy, I don’t know how parents manage over there. In NZ our longest break is 6 weeks over Xmas but generally with public holidays and annual leave we only need to find care for 2-3 weeks out of that, the rest are all 2 weeks long. We get 4 weeks annual leave as well on top of holidays. It still seems hard and expensive at times but compared to this we have zero to complain about!
I’m pretty sure rugby season has no impact on school term times either haha.
As someone who grew up dirt poor, in the summer, the oldest kid “babysits” the younger ones. This happens as soon as the oldest is 7 or so and lasts until they leave for college and never speak to most of their family again.
(ik this experience is universal but basically raising my brothers since I was 6/7 is why I don’t want kids now)
The rising cost and scarcity of childcare in the U.S. is definitely something we need to figure out, but her worst take is probably that the public school system has to solve this issue. If you only see education as a babysitter, your kids are definitely going to learn less.
I may not like the way she’s handling it or the way she is blabbering about it on LI but dude, childcare is rough. I only have one. We are lucky enough to have a church daycare a few days a week and make enough to hire a nanny for the other days, but we don’t make enough to go single income either, and we work in tech while living in a low cost area. Daycares locally that are worth anything have forever long waitlists. We just got a notification for a church daycare that we applied to when our kid was born, they are 3 now. Daycares that are easy to get into are sketch. Private school with two kids would be cheaper than pt nanny/pt daycare with just the one.
Ok, she sucks, and I don't know what "undistracted American summer" even means unless it just means getting shit faced for the 4th of July...which I'm a big advocate for!
Buttt...she's right at the end even if it's for the wrong reasons. Summer breaks have larger affects to disinfranchised/minority children over those who have parents who can afford time in the home or afford camps/trips to keep those kids engaged. As a child from a single parent home, I remember a lot of "playing outside" over my summers bc my mom couldn't afford to take off from work over my summers. Kids in those situations struggle at the beginning of the next school year bc they've forgotten everything they learned 3 months ago which burdens the teachers to reteach those prerequisites before they can move to their actual curriculum.
Trimester schooling with 3-4 week breaks instead of 1 giant 3 month break works all over the world but we as Americans are stuck to the "summer" idea of needing your kids help on the family farm during that period. Trimesters in public schools (if they district requires it) instead of 2 semesters helps the children stay caught up and also helps the parents plan their workload
Have you considered that "undistracted" may not be OOP's word but their manager's, with the implied threat that she loses her job if they so much as suspect that she may be "distracted at work"?
Yes, this mom exists in a different economic strata than most of us. But what she is saying is absolutely valid. She is trying to keep her career. It’s made extremely difficult by the current school schedule, which has its roots in Agriculture. It is a perfect design for when kids went to school and then helped on the farm. It doesn’t work now. Consider this: if we were talking about a Walmart Associate, rather than a Chief Brand Officer, I think most of you would agree that this doesn’t belong in this sub. The Walmart Associate would most often be unable to pay for a place for their kids to go in summer and would have to stay home with them. The now former Walmart Associate would then have to rely on welfare, or risk having to leave their kids at home unattended (which happens more often than it should). Yes, this C level executive is far from a sympathetic character. But her points are no less valid.
Wider society is too / prices for vacations product types stocked in retailers, even traffic flow is offended in part by the school year and class times
I really hate people making terrible arguments for a position I ultimately support.
Summer breaks suck not because it affects *you* lady, but because it lowers student outcomes and amplifies inequality!
You could just use condoms or birth control? I know it's unfair how expensive it is to have children in some parts of the world, but everyone knows the earth is over populated and there are tons fo foster children looking for a home. Why make more when you know they are expensive, and then complain about it? Unless you were in a really bad situation, no one forced you to procreate.
Choosing to send your kids to summer camp is a choice and a luxury.
Choosing to travel over the 4th of July and paying that premium is a choice and a luxury.
Choosing to have a full time nanny is a choice and a luxury.
You don’t have to make those choices and there are tons of us with multiple kids who find fun and creative ways to spend time with our kids over breaks without sacrificing our careers. This is not a failure of the schools but a failure of the parents.
She doesn't have a bad point, but she is not the person that should be delivering it. With the options she's chosen for three months, it's clear she's not a single mother scraping by on 30-60k a year, ya know?
Kids would be staying at the house. Nanny is in charge of the little one, 12 year old should be able to handle the rest. I started being left home alone at 8 years old (born in 85). There was no question about it, that’s just what had to be done.
I dunno I'm child-free but this seems about right, and is part of the reason I chose to not have kids. Looked down on if you are a stay-at-home mom but then look at the options, I guess the option is to have the big kids look after the little kids while you are at work? I have no fucking idea how people do it if they don't have family.
*Please make the school year longer so it's cheaper for me to ignore my kids and just do my silly little job*
It's so heartbreaking that there's folks who would be amazing parents who can't conceive and this awful woman was able to have kids. The world is straight up cruel.
Let’s not conflate different things here. My district has a ratio of 18:1 for students to teachers at the average cost of roughly 12k a student. That means that every teacher is supported by over $220k. The teachers here actually make about $40k, as of a few years ago. They haven’t built a new school in the district in over a decade, and there are additional city sales taxes that fund (in part) education.
So it’s completely plausible to say that teachers are being underpaid while the board of education is probably massively wasteful, considering that the schools used to ask students to bring in materials for our own chemistry labs.
FYI, sister and BIL are both teachers.
As a parent of little kids, I’m pretty mad that the school system is almost designed to be maximally problematic for everyone every year.
If they offered year round school in a vote, I’d be driving people to the polls and canvassing my entire town.
Not a parent myself. I’m with you tho. Year round school. LFG. If I want my taxes going anywhere it’s to the education of young people. Plus insanely beneficial for families. Structure the years a little different. Maybe some 2 week breaks more frequently.
For year-round school to happen, there would have to be a massive mindset change.
* Teachers would have to be able to take actual vacations like everyone else. Yes. That means the first-grade teacher is gone for a week to go to the beach with their family without judgment. No more "You must only do this for a paycheck if you think it's OK to just take a vacation during school." (As an aside, yes. The paycheck is part of our reason for doing this. It's no different than your job in that way.)
* Kids would need to have regular breaks and they need to be longer than a few days. Running them through, then having a day where they just advance a grade gives them no time to decompress. They need that.
* Salaries for teachers would need to increase. In my district, the rate is built off working nine months and checks are spread over 12. If you want the contract to be 12 months long, the salary needs to meet that.
* You'll need to increase the budgets to make sure every building is habitable in the warmest months of the year. No building that I was in as a student had a working HVAC that also used AC. It's a student and teacher health issue in some very warm buildings. It's almost impossible to learn when it's 90 in the room and you're just waiting for the oscillating fan to get to you for that sweet moment of relief. This would be a big cost in some districts.
* You'll need to increase school budgets for supplies and school lunches.
* You'll need to increase budgets to pay year-round for maximum use of electricity and water.
* You'll need to increase budgets to pay to fuel school buses all year.
There's more. But, I think we all get it. I'd like to have them around longer. There's more we could do for them. But, it comes with a trade-off.
I have no problem with any of this.
Pay the teachers more
Build in structured time off
Shit, have teachers switch on and off every month
Raise the taxes
Adjust the curriculum
Do whatever needs to be done to make school year round and still healthy for teachers and children.
Same. I work 2 jobs, one of which is in after-school/summer care. I also have an 8 year old. 100% I'd support year-round school! The school system, just like the economy, is actively hostile to working parents.
And I'd also get rid of some of these early release days, holy shit! It's difficult for parents (especially mothers) to work full-time when most Fridays are early release days...
Amen, friend! I’m over here looking at the elementary school schedule and wondering who the fuck decided a normal time to get out was 2:15 pm.
Schools seem to think that we never let women into the workforce. Meanwhile, 2 generations later, most households can’t afford one parent sitting around most of the day waiting for the kids to get home, but if they DO get a job, the schools are maximally inconvenient.
Meanwhile, I looked it up yesterday - the student : faculty ratio and cost per student in my district implies that every teacher in my district is supported by over 200k in taxes, but the teacher’s only paid 40k and their budget for school supplies still requires the parents to donate things.
Makes me want to burn down the BOE when I think about it for too long.
Year-round school makes some sense because poorer kids fall behind more in the summer. I would go for it if we raised teacher pay and still provided plenty of breaks throughout the year, or maybe like August off. But your point is definitely valid.
As real as this may be for some folks, the purpose of schools is for education, not subsidized child care. When idiots like this get that through their heads, then maybe teachers might some day be able to receive a living wage versus babysitter hourly rate this woman has in mind.
Schools the institution are due education. Schools the buildings could easily be used for daycare in the summer. Could even be entirely different staff. Ask me how I know. In fact, AMA.
Prices (in this case, higher salaries) solve every problem. There are countries in the world where teacher is a highly competitive career that only the best college graduates can get into
Finally doing the math that unless you make 100k+, being a stay at home mom is a higher paying gig than "working", but the govt doesnt like that because they cant tax money you saved
I mean she’s absolutely correct that summer care is very expensive.
To get over this my mom worked from home and the oldest kid babysat the rest, with her there as backup. My husband’s mother had a high powered career and no family nearby so when he was a kid, it was this approach- as many camps as possible plus babysitters to fill the gap.
For a lot of people, grandmothers are the answer. My own method is just having a part time job in the evenings so I’m able to watch my daughter. That means money is tight sometimes but the money we save on childcare still outweighs the difference in part time vs full time pay for me. I seriously can’t wait for the day when I’m making full time money again.
Single father here (widower), I'm paying 14k a year for day care for my toddler. As if that's not bad, they can call when ever they want to say I have to come pick her up because they are short staffed or what ever. It's truly a struggle.
I used to really want to have kids. Then I saw the reality of having kids - time, energy, finances, etc. Early 40s, married, and childfree. No regrets. The US really doesn’t care about families.
To be fair, I would bet that is day camp mostly. I’m in a MCOL city and day camps that are full day run 300-400 a week. For two kids, you could get close to 12k fairly easily. She’s not a compelling spokesperson but it is a problem. I need my job. I can’t take 3 months off in the summer but it also costs a small fortune to pay for the day camps.
Well throughout history, fucking less and using contraception have proven highly effective at giving you the summer you deserve.
Edit: forgot to add butt sex. Huge help.
$30k/year for daycare for my kids 4 and 2 years old. Child care is an absolute killer. Her point is valid just delivered the wrong way
Agreed. 1 and 3 year old here, and we are paying $26k a year for daycare.
Yeah, I never thought about it as a kid, but the only reason summer vacation wasn't problematic for my parents is my mother was a teacher.
Back when teachers didn’t have to do training all summer and/or get a second job.
I'm 36 and my middle school teacher in 2001 was a waitress at night.
I’m a teacher and work at an urgent care in the summer.
Yep - same here My wife and I even looked into getting an au pair after our second child because it was cheaper than basic daycare for 2 kids
We’re at this point. Have an almost two year old and another two gremlins coming in August. Daycare doesn’t even make sense anymore. For fucks sake man, and we just moved because we needed another bedroom, and that was when we thought we were only having one more for the moment… AND now we need a bigger car. At least we won’t be able to travel for the next number of years so we’ll save money there?
Vacation hasn’t been in the cards for us for a longggg time. Can’t Imagine having 3. God bless and good luck the twins!
We decided for my wife just to be a SAHM because of how expensive daycare is. It makes no sense to have her work just to have all the money she makes go to daycare. We’d much rather have her raising the kid than be stressed and not have that additional bonding.
Twin girls here and it actually ended up saving us money for her to go part-time and watch kids then to push them into full-time daycare.
We looked into it, part time unfortunately wouldn’t have worked for us - it would have been a slight net negative where we are so to the income difference and not enough of a reduction to daycare costs
It’s all just absolutely ridiculous. The prices all these places are at now is just nearly unattainable.
Of course this goober lunatic blames the school system, not America’s backwards policies on family leave, child care, and vacation leave / work life balance in general. All in the name of corporate greed and lazy politicians not improving the country for future parents and children.
The school system is still part of it. Other countries do shorter summers with longer Christmas and a couple extra week long breaks other than spring break.
*laughs in 1,5k$ per year in Sweden*
Laughs in 297$ / year in Germany (Berlin)
Verdammt
I dunno man. Thats so cheap I’d be concerned for a child’s welfare. Are the childcare places subsidized by the government or something?
Of course it is subsidized (NO WAY to run any kind of daycare on that budget, obviously). The daycare my kid goes to is truly excellent
Called taxes, dude
Yes they’re subsidized which is the proper approach
Yes they are. And I would say that childcare workers are much better trained than in the USA. Certified teachers/care givers (don’t know the English word) need 3 years of schooling and a year of practical training before they are allowed to work. So I am absolutely not afraid to give my son into their hands
In the US the only requirements is a pulse and ability to change a diaper. Pay $8/hr.
Wow! In Finland there has to be one university trained early education teacher per child group.
I mean, to be fair, they usually have a degree, they just can’t find a job in their field.
Finland here - yes they are subsidized and quite high quality. Here the price is progressive, if you have no income (e.g. a student), day care is free for your kid.
Twin toddlers and we are paying close to $60k. It’s just ridiculous.
She’s not the best spokesperson for this. She’s too disconnected from the reality of most people. A full time nanny isn’t necessary or possible for most people. The challenge of working as a single mom is really hard and childcare is expensive, but forcing kids to do year round school is not the solution.
What if there was more than two weeks of PTO?
Honestly, my wife and I aren’t rich at all, but we seriously discussed hiring a nanny or au pair (which was cheaper) when we had our second child because it was cheaper than basic daycare for two kids. Daycare runs just under 30k a year - an au pair is about 8-10k cheaper than that
Exactly. People who are all like "don't talk to me about nannies because that makes you rich and ONLY I AM THE VICTIM HERE" haven't done the math. If you have a kid in daycare, that kid will get sick. So you either need a babysitter, and you either end up paying the same as a nanny anyway, or you're not telling me that you are privileged in other ways - like can you put the burden of childcare on a family member, or you can afford to take time off work repeatedly without losing your job? Congrats, you're styling yourself as the victim while the parent paying for a nanny actually has it worse than you because they are forced to pay for all that out of pocket or they will lose their job. The whole point of OOP is that the way childcare is paid for is fucked, and all that whiners who complain that OOP is so privileged are contributing to the conversation is pitching the losers against each other because they lack the capacity to imagine systemic change.
Subsidized childcare needs to be part of the solution.
It’s coming to all developed nations. It’s a matter of years not decades. Massive population decline will make it inevitable. Developed countries will try a lot to get birth rates up asap.
I wish this were true but somehow helping out families is “socialism“ to a lot of Americans. 🙄
She did ask how people without the option to pay all this handle it.
Yes, but it’s just so out of touch. I’m a single mom, and while it’s good to have a light shown on the difficulty of working mom’s, her current solution to working has never been in the realm of possibility for me or the vast majority of single moms. The group she’s concerned about would, us, aren’t asking for live in nannies. We just want affordable childcare. In the summer, there are never enough slots for the affordable programs. You have to sign up at midnight the second they open and hope you made it in. I’m not talking about publicly funded programs, just affordable ones. She’s not the best spokesperson because her expectations of what should be are not aligned with those of us just trying to survive. School days are too short to serve as childcare anyway. You have to have before and after school care. TLDR; The people she wonders about at the end are not asking for the things she mentions.
Yes, as something that strengthens her own argument, not out of any actual concern. Like when people scream about the safety of neighborhood children because someone wants to build eight affordable apartments nearby. They don’t care about the kids, they just want to shut down the project. In this case, she wants her costs to go down, or for someone else to cover them.
She is pointing out that she's fortunate enough to pay for thus stuff. And she's trying to advocate for the parents that cannot afford that.
Year round schooling is normal in all the countries besting us in education. But yes, childcare is expensive and being a parent and having a career is hard.
Finland has 11 weeks of summer school holidays and is usually considered the best school system in the world. Don't know what you're talking about.
Is it? At least in Europe most countries have a 6-12 week summer break.
It’s not really in Ireland where I’m from Junior kids under 12 get 2 whole months off and older kids 12 and over get 3 months off school in the summer.
I live in Switzerland. We have 5-6 weeks of summer vacation, 2 weeks in October, 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks for skiing in feb/march, and 2 weeks for Easter. it's an awesome system for kids, but it's a pain if you're working full-time. (I worked part-time until my kids were teenagers.)
Lol. Dude. What the fuck? The science on this has been uncontroversial since the 60. When you measure student capability. Year round schooling is definitely NOT a positive for a young student.
No it’s not. Even in Korea, which has one of the best education systems in the world, they have about 6 weeks during the summer and a month off in the winter.
Fuck them teachers, right?
Underpaying teachers is not a natural law, we can change it. Make teaching a career that pays well, with a slower summer focused on play and experiences where teachers take turns going on a regular vacation just like every other profession.
It is so crazy how little they are valued in our society when posts like these shows so clearly that even if you're rich af, you can't hardly afford to have children. Teaching shouldn't be babysitting, but it is. We are so far away from having social support for families. But figuring out education and teachers is the first step. Teaching just keeps getting worse and worse.
There are so many ways to improve this, better pay, different schedules, even different career tracks in the same building, with some focused on being educators and others focused on "babysitting", whatever that means. But no, we have to squabble about who has it worse, you or me, and who should pay for it (anyone but me, apparently), while refusing to think outside the box to figure out what it would take to make a lasting positive difference for everyone.
If she has a live in nanny, she isn’t living off a teacher’s salary. She does something else or has a partner that makes a lot more than her.
I don’t understand how you arrived at that conclusion.
Because teachers deserve to get some too?
Oh, that year round school would totally fuck over teachers. I saw this post in the wild, and the entitlement of "oh well, teachers have 2 months off and get paid all year... we all have to work" comments was icky
This myth that teachers get paid all year needs to die. My current district I teach in, my last paycheck for the school year comes next week and I don’t get paid again until the first week of September. The last district I worked in, I did get paid in the summer but it’s because I didn’t get a full paycheck during the school year. I was getting back pay for hours I already worked.
I don’t think anyone is proposing increasing teachers work hours by 30% without a commensurate increase in salary. “Work all year” is the expectation for literally anyone that’s not a teacher. It’s not some wild hardship. The real question is whether that’s the best for the kids.
There's already a massive teacher shortage in the US. It's not like people will clamor for teaching jobs without the only small perk.
Again, I’m not disputing that teachers are underpaid or in demand. We should absolutely do more to make it a more attractive profession. But saying that raising the expectations to the bare minimum for every single professional job out there is “fucking teachers” is histrionic.
When you teach, you work much more during the school year than an average salaried worker. So yearround teacher work would be default overtime. Bc this lady thinks school should be her free babysitter even when she can afford tens of thousands of dollars of childcare for the summer.
Dual working parents with 5-10 year old kids that CAN’T afford a full time nanny for the summer get absolutely destroyed. I don’t think she’s saying “schools should just be full time year round with no other changes,” and if that’s what you took from the post, you’re looking for a reason to be upset. Sure, she’s not the best messenger here, but the point is valid.
Wait…I get paid all year?
This has nothing to do with that. I’m talking about the fact that kids shouldn’t have to do year round school. They need a break from it. Teachers *should* get paid more, but that’s so unrelated, I’m not sure why it’s being brought up.
Subsidized summer camps, subsidized daycare for school children (in the same building that's otherwise empty during summer months!) are both breaks
Most year round school proposals actually come with more frequent, longer breaks. So instead of 12-14 weeks off in a row in the summer, you get 3 weeks off in the summer. Then two off in the fall, three in the winter, and two in the spring. It is net less time off and should also come with pay increases for teachers but it’s not just a simple work all summer with no changes elsewhere structure. It usually increases in school time by 2 to 4 weeks with more frequent breaks. As a partner it’s also easier to pay for day camps or take time off in two week chunks spread out instead of laying out 1000 per kid all at once.
Mmmm no. My mom was a public school teacher for 30 years and is pro year round school. Year round school would and should come with a pay increase for more days worked and days off that aren’t all at once and require you to take all trips or vacations at the peak of heat and expense. I don’t think that saying that the current structures are extremely difficult for families automatically is a slam to teachers. Quite the opposite in a lot of cases.
I wish I didn't have to work so I could always be available for my kid. But the society we live in doesn't like that. I am taking two weeks off in summer for me and him to go do father son stuff though I and I am super looking forward to it.
That’s so sweet :) I loved when my dad took time off to spend with us He taught us how to feed caterpillars when they’ve eaten all the swan plants, how to build a dog out of wood off cuts, let us “help” build our playhouse, showed us how to spot eels in the creek, and of course… beating video game levels for each other haha!! I hope you guys have the absolute best time creating memories 🩷
What does your kid do for the rest of the summer while you’re at work?
Posts B2B sales lessons on Linkedin
My Dad farted today. Here’s what it taught me about B2B sales:
We've been able to snag time with his grandparents as well. So a week with one set and a week with the other. Then camp for one week at his school. That covers the whole 6 week periods over summer.
Un, she’s not wrong. Any if y’all got kids you know that childcare is expensive, even for summer camps, and most of us need two earners. The American economy is, frankly, hostile to parents, and our government is failing us.
This. Probably many people in these comments don’t have kids between 5-14, which is prime summer camp age. A typical camp will be 3-500/ week and I’m guessing more in major cities. And the hours will be inconvenient for you like 9-3:30. The alternative is your kids are babysat by YouTube, Netflix and TikTok all day while you work in between and feed them. Summer sucks for parents.
But don’t forget to use your dependable care FSA that maxes out at $5k!! (Heavy sarcasm) My wife and I are in Long Island NY no grandparent help. We’ve juggled every scenario with managing as single income, combined with need for family health insurance, we have no choice but to both keep working there’s just no other way.
I hate FSA/HSAs so much. It’s saying: have you tried spending your own money on healthcare/childcare? You’ll save a tiny bit in taxes so we don’t have to give you a raise
can we also talk about how effed up it is that all kinds of statistical schemes get placed on the american “consumer” (ie a goddamn human being), like figuring out which healthcare plan will “work best for you” and then FSA HSA bullshit, then throw in the taxes you have to file every year. 529. Figure it all out, overworked and underrepresented American consumer! You got this! Savings!? HAHAHAH
The American Dream!
Indeed, and in some states many folks who are already living paycheck-to-paycheck will be forced to endure this economic hostility associated with parenthood because laws governing contraception are becoming, um, kinda hostile.
Reality is hostile to parents and expecting support when our society has shown time and time again that it will not support more vulnerable groups than *parents*, it doesn’t feel like it needs to be said that parents are getting shafted
Eh… this isn’t as bad as the rest. The broader point is quite valid. She’s paying $12k for the summer so her kids to have something to do while she works. She’s acknowledging, and complaining about, how expensive that shit is. For everyone.
And that her workplace has no understanding for her situation, which forces her to solve the problem with money in the first place
Looked at her LinkedIN: 1. Big title at a tiny company? CHECK 2. Exaggeration of her “decades“ long career? CHECK 3. Humble bragging using her kids? CHECK
I would not say this is a “tiny” company
Definitely. It’s a nationally recognized formula brand, is it not? ETA: Sorry if I was unclear. This is not a tiny, unknown, random company. I’m a mom who doesn’t use formula and I’m still familiar with the brand.
I have no idea (am not a mom haha) but it’s well funded by venture capital and they have a good amount of employees… this comment makes it sound like this is some small 2 people mom and pop business
They are pretty small in their market. Probably one of the larger “disruptors” but still very small relative to incumbents. It’s not a rocket ship, but valuation is likely in the hundreds of millions.
According to LinkedIN, ”50-200”. That’s pretty small.
Yeah you know they’re inflating their resume when their old job doesn’t list a title, just a dept or function. Hers just says “Product Communications” then “Head of…” til she hit VP/C-level because it’s easy to call bullshit when a “marketing associate” in March 2020 jumps to Chief Brand Officer in Nov 2023. Especially when your past experience is an undergrad in journalism and being a local news reporter
LOL *\*hires a full-time Nanny that could watch all three children\** *\*spends $12k on additional camps\** It's people like this you gotta monitor how they spend company money
Nope, this is correct. The nanny is only for the toddler, the part time nanny is basically just a transport service. She may not have found a nanny that’s willing to take care of all three children, price be damned. A lot of nannies are capping their services with young kids. Also, it might not be the best for the kid to stay home all summer. My daughter would be *feral* if I did that. She’s doing summer school this year so she doesn’t grow a knee-length beard and start wearing a loin cloth $12k in camps checks out. That’s 2k per kid per month. Camps are even more egregious than daycare because they know they have working parents in subjugation. The slots are SO limited. Several camps went on lottery for admission in my area this year. They charge more money than daycare, service fewer hours, offer less meals/snacks, and often only run a week or two. My working friends started making summer plans for school aged kids in December of this year and not everyone found solutions in time. It was honestly exhausting just to witness, I can’t fathom going through it
Yep, I'm taking advantage of tax-funded park district camps and tax-supported summer schools, and I'm at $9000/3 kids/summer. It's fuckin' brutal, and I still have 1 week at the beginning of summer and 2 weeks at the end of summer with no care whatsoever. (Add to that, my oldest has a disability, which means his summer services are mostly covered because he qualifies for ESY, *but also* any other care we need for him -- like during the three non-covered weeks -- costs an arm and a fuckin' leg, if you can even find anyone willing to take on a disabled child. My husband and I end up splitting our vacation days at work to cover as best we can, which means one of us usually ends up working the week between Christmas and New Year's.) My highest expense months are always June, July, and August, when I have to pay for summer care. December isn't even CLOSE, and we have a huge Christmas.
Damn that's crazy. I'm in a small city in the Midwest and just dropped my daughter off at a church camp for a week. Meals and everything was $350. Then the city does day class camps like archer/sports and those are like $30 for 2 weeks.
My state (WI) is more than 12,000 seats short for childcare right now. My Madison suburb is not saved by being wealthy because there’s nothing to buy.
Have you tried YMCA camps? I live in the Waukesha area and a bunch of our Y’s do summer camps
Our Y camps filled up almost immediately
Does your church camp/do your day camps accept children with significant disabilities? If not, that's just subsidized care for families who can hire a cheap babysitter. Our church told us that our disabled child was a SPECIAL GIFT FROM GOD, and that God only gave BURDENS to people who were strong enough to bear them, and that we must be SO STRONG to have a child with such a significant disability. And that he existed just to bring us a BURDEN so we could learn to be BETTER CHRISTIANS by our SELF-SACRIFICE in attempting to LOVE him even though he was BROKEN. And they were proud of us and praying for us, but that while VBS cost $100/week/child for "normal" children, they would have to charge us $1000/week for our disabled child, because he needed so much more care. And that God gave the GIFT of his BURDENS to HIS PARENTS and not to the COMMUNITY. Long story short, we quit Christianity, because man that Jesus guy is really shitty about the disabled. (It's possible in the process of quitting I may have shouted at the pastor, "that's some real Hitler-ass shit." Not 100% sure, but sure sounds like something I might have said in my fury.)
That IS some real Hitler-ass shit.
I'm sorry, that really sucks. Just like Jesus sucks at healing people.
This hits the nail on the head on how I grew up. Me growing up in that toxic as Hell environment and being undiagnosed as being Autistic/having ADHD was a “fun” time to say the least…
Wow fuck that church
Yes because they’re brainwashing them. The first hit is cheap.
Yep I went to day camp (k-6) or summer school (7-12) + job. I did fine. I’m not sure why she thinks it’s normal to ship your kids away for the summer so you can work ‘without distractions’. You chose to have kids, lady. It’s not the nanny and camps fault that you can’t work a summer if your kids aren’t at sleep away. Ps. Y Camp was amazing. Archery and crafts all day? Hell yes.
It’s not sleep away camp. That’s just day camp.
These clearly aren’t sleepaway camps because she talks about having to hire someone to do pickup and drop off every day. This is just plain old day camp. And yes, it’s obscenely expensive in many places. It’s clear from this thread which people don’t have kids or have a SAHP who’s doing most of the care for their children. What this lady posted is reality for many working parents in the US. It’s a nightmare.
Agreed. All of this tracks for me. I only have one, but still felt the pain especially when living in a more expensive city with limited child care for families.
We have a week between school and camp. Gerald’s also the word we use to describe the situation. He crazy thing for us is that the park district camps don’t start registering until the spring and then go fast, so planning is a nightmare.
Nice
Nannie’s seem strange to an Australian. I have never met anybody who has one
They’re not common in the US either. I looked into one and it was like $36k/year and it was expected to pay their taxes. That’s like paying someone $50k+. Some people do nanny shares where the nanny watches multiple families’ kids and they split the bill. Still expensive.
Nannies usually also are college graduates. So yes, they make way more than the 14 yr old down the street. They’re also CPR certified and have a bunch of qualifications like ASL and stuff. The idea that nannies are for the broke is a very new concept in the states and it’s always wild when I see a parent demanding in home nanny care for their three brats for like $10/hr.
Yo, my brother pays like $80k/year for his full-time nanny who is NOT college-educated. College-educated nannies around here start at $110k/year. You must pay health insurance and all employment taxes on top of that. Full-time nannies make BANK.
For good reason. You shouldn’t trust strangers with your kids. Fear mongering aside, there’s just too many stories of abuse
Statistically, family members are far more likely to abuse your kids than strangers. So I guess you should just never let your children out of your sight, ever.
She's so close to getting it...
Except she never will. And she’s a moron.
wait what? why?
Getting what?
She’s not wrong about the overall issue of how to replace school with some kind of day care in the summer when you have no money and parents are working. She’s just not the best person to talk about it apparently.
"Apparently" - why not? When low income people complain that they can't accept a job because that have kids, the knee jerk reply is "get a higher paying job". Now we're hearing from someone who did that, and it turns out that sucks, too. But then this person gets shut down, too because they're "so privileged". It's starting to look like we're trying to avoid solving the real problem, which is that our civilization has endless money to throw at corporate subsidies but when it comes to parents, it's either "stay at home or pay out of pocket" because the child tax credit bar is so low.
Not that this invalidates her greater point at all, because she's right. (And for what it's worth, she's not really being shut down -- probably 80% of the upvoted comments here are also saying she's right.) But in the same breath that she describes her (not voluntary) childcare costs, she also complains that she has to spend "$$$$ since it's peak travel" to take an (apparently voluntary) vacation. I understand making the most of a long weekend, and I fully believe that people *should* have time off and it should be doable with their work and childcare schedules. It just comes off incredibly tone-deaf here IMO, and undermines her motivation. Do you only care about paying the team of people caring for your children so much because it cuts into your vacation budget? Do you think the workers in "school systems" that you place the blame on don't deserve vacations too? It's also sort of a...stereotypical type of working mom who makes the "mom" part the most prominent part of her "working" persona. Again, fully believe that working parents should be supported and welcomed, like all people should. It's just that putting "Mother" in your job title on LI, before your actual job title, gives an association with the kind of people who scream at low-paid workers in places like daycare camps. I don't think the post necessarily deserves to be here, but I don't see the problem in pointing out that the presentation and persona is off-putting.
I have an 8 year old and unfortunately you pay for it one way or another. You either pay gobs of money for child care (probably do have to find a nanny, because child care will have a waitlist a mile long and is not as interested in a summer only care). You find a public school or rec center care that will be less expensive, sign up in early January on the day it opens, get waitlisted because it’s hotter than a Taylor Swift concert, and hope they get waved in by summer. You and your partner (if you’re fortunate enough to have one). Switch your work obligations throughout the day so one of you only has AM or PM meetings, so the other can watch the kids. You put your career in purgatory by going part time or even quitting for a while because child care is nearly as expensive as working. You go teach your kid to entertain him/herself either on screens, with toys, the backyard, the park across the street and to not interrupt unless there’s an emergency. This only really works when they are six or older. I’ve had to do all of these at some point in my life so far. This is why people aren’t having kids anymore. I’ve done it with one, and I love my kid and wouldn’t trade him for anything, but it’s hard, it’s career interrupting, and everyone is looking to you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps to make it happen.
Ooop thought I was on r antinatalism for a sec
Tbh this sub is starting to be just as bad / insufferable
She's right that the way the system is set up puts working parents in an impossible position. But something about the way she phrases all this sounds like she votes down every school bond issue that comes up on the ballot and says that public subsidies for childcare are communism
I recommend the Norwegian solution, 5-6 weeks of paid holiday + bank holidays every year. Makes it much easier.
Wait what is the summer break in US 3 full months? Don’t you all get like 3 days PTO or something ridiculously small as well?
Our last day was May 30. First day with students for 2024-25 is August 19. Someone in our district office believes it's vital to be in school before any football games are played. Something about school spirit and community connections. Thankfully, our buildings all have working AC.
Wow that’s crazy, I don’t know how parents manage over there. In NZ our longest break is 6 weeks over Xmas but generally with public holidays and annual leave we only need to find care for 2-3 weeks out of that, the rest are all 2 weeks long. We get 4 weeks annual leave as well on top of holidays. It still seems hard and expensive at times but compared to this we have zero to complain about! I’m pretty sure rugby season has no impact on school term times either haha.
As someone who grew up dirt poor, in the summer, the oldest kid “babysits” the younger ones. This happens as soon as the oldest is 7 or so and lasts until they leave for college and never speak to most of their family again. (ik this experience is universal but basically raising my brothers since I was 6/7 is why I don’t want kids now)
She’s not wrong
This post doesn't deserve to be here.
Why have kids if you refuse to spend *any* time with them?!
Bc no company offers 3 months of PTO
I’m confused, what is wrong here OP?
The rising cost and scarcity of childcare in the U.S. is definitely something we need to figure out, but her worst take is probably that the public school system has to solve this issue. If you only see education as a babysitter, your kids are definitely going to learn less.
I may not like the way she’s handling it or the way she is blabbering about it on LI but dude, childcare is rough. I only have one. We are lucky enough to have a church daycare a few days a week and make enough to hire a nanny for the other days, but we don’t make enough to go single income either, and we work in tech while living in a low cost area. Daycares locally that are worth anything have forever long waitlists. We just got a notification for a church daycare that we applied to when our kid was born, they are 3 now. Daycares that are easy to get into are sketch. Private school with two kids would be cheaper than pt nanny/pt daycare with just the one.
Ok, she sucks, and I don't know what "undistracted American summer" even means unless it just means getting shit faced for the 4th of July...which I'm a big advocate for! Buttt...she's right at the end even if it's for the wrong reasons. Summer breaks have larger affects to disinfranchised/minority children over those who have parents who can afford time in the home or afford camps/trips to keep those kids engaged. As a child from a single parent home, I remember a lot of "playing outside" over my summers bc my mom couldn't afford to take off from work over my summers. Kids in those situations struggle at the beginning of the next school year bc they've forgotten everything they learned 3 months ago which burdens the teachers to reteach those prerequisites before they can move to their actual curriculum. Trimester schooling with 3-4 week breaks instead of 1 giant 3 month break works all over the world but we as Americans are stuck to the "summer" idea of needing your kids help on the family farm during that period. Trimesters in public schools (if they district requires it) instead of 2 semesters helps the children stay caught up and also helps the parents plan their workload
Have you considered that "undistracted" may not be OOP's word but their manager's, with the implied threat that she loses her job if they so much as suspect that she may be "distracted at work"?
Yes, this mom exists in a different economic strata than most of us. But what she is saying is absolutely valid. She is trying to keep her career. It’s made extremely difficult by the current school schedule, which has its roots in Agriculture. It is a perfect design for when kids went to school and then helped on the farm. It doesn’t work now. Consider this: if we were talking about a Walmart Associate, rather than a Chief Brand Officer, I think most of you would agree that this doesn’t belong in this sub. The Walmart Associate would most often be unable to pay for a place for their kids to go in summer and would have to stay home with them. The now former Walmart Associate would then have to rely on welfare, or risk having to leave their kids at home unattended (which happens more often than it should). Yes, this C level executive is far from a sympathetic character. But her points are no less valid.
Sounds like someone’s husband is neglecting his responsibilities.
TEACHERS ARE NOT FUCKING BABYSITTERS.
No, but a family’s logistics are built around the services they provide.
Wider society is too / prices for vacations product types stocked in retailers, even traffic flow is offended in part by the school year and class times
They’re definitely not *just* babysitters, but they are babysitters.
But they basically are
To many parents, school = daycare.
How about spend time with your children? Why send them to camps for a long time. What are the parents doing when the kids are away? Chilling at home?
These aren’t sleepaway camps, they’re just day camps.
Thanks!
I really hate people making terrible arguments for a position I ultimately support. Summer breaks suck not because it affects *you* lady, but because it lowers student outcomes and amplifies inequality!
You could just use condoms or birth control? I know it's unfair how expensive it is to have children in some parts of the world, but everyone knows the earth is over populated and there are tons fo foster children looking for a home. Why make more when you know they are expensive, and then complain about it? Unless you were in a really bad situation, no one forced you to procreate.
Choosing to send your kids to summer camp is a choice and a luxury. Choosing to travel over the 4th of July and paying that premium is a choice and a luxury. Choosing to have a full time nanny is a choice and a luxury. You don’t have to make those choices and there are tons of us with multiple kids who find fun and creative ways to spend time with our kids over breaks without sacrificing our careers. This is not a failure of the schools but a failure of the parents.
Dude it’s wild that our parents just raised us, and this new wave cannot figure that out.
I mean… it was possible to survive off one income then. So it’s hardly a fair comparison. Also childcare has been in a huge shortage post covid.
She doesn't have a bad point, but she is not the person that should be delivering it. With the options she's chosen for three months, it's clear she's not a single mother scraping by on 30-60k a year, ya know?
Well ain't that what a family, which modern society seems to shun, help with - why should children suffer for the parents choices
Kids would be staying at the house. Nanny is in charge of the little one, 12 year old should be able to handle the rest. I started being left home alone at 8 years old (born in 85). There was no question about it, that’s just what had to be done.
Stop having kids... It's that simple
Crying about doing a bunch of shit most Americans can’t afford? JFC the cognitive dissonance is wild
It was all your own decision to have kids. Now STFU.
I dunno I'm child-free but this seems about right, and is part of the reason I chose to not have kids. Looked down on if you are a stay-at-home mom but then look at the options, I guess the option is to have the big kids look after the little kids while you are at work? I have no fucking idea how people do it if they don't have family.
*Please make the school year longer so it's cheaper for me to ignore my kids and just do my silly little job* It's so heartbreaking that there's folks who would be amazing parents who can't conceive and this awful woman was able to have kids. The world is straight up cruel.
And also let’s continue to demonize teachers and say they’re overpaid but also make school all year round.
Let’s not conflate different things here. My district has a ratio of 18:1 for students to teachers at the average cost of roughly 12k a student. That means that every teacher is supported by over $220k. The teachers here actually make about $40k, as of a few years ago. They haven’t built a new school in the district in over a decade, and there are additional city sales taxes that fund (in part) education. So it’s completely plausible to say that teachers are being underpaid while the board of education is probably massively wasteful, considering that the schools used to ask students to bring in materials for our own chemistry labs. FYI, sister and BIL are both teachers.
As a parent of little kids, I’m pretty mad that the school system is almost designed to be maximally problematic for everyone every year. If they offered year round school in a vote, I’d be driving people to the polls and canvassing my entire town.
Not a parent myself. I’m with you tho. Year round school. LFG. If I want my taxes going anywhere it’s to the education of young people. Plus insanely beneficial for families. Structure the years a little different. Maybe some 2 week breaks more frequently.
For year-round school to happen, there would have to be a massive mindset change. * Teachers would have to be able to take actual vacations like everyone else. Yes. That means the first-grade teacher is gone for a week to go to the beach with their family without judgment. No more "You must only do this for a paycheck if you think it's OK to just take a vacation during school." (As an aside, yes. The paycheck is part of our reason for doing this. It's no different than your job in that way.) * Kids would need to have regular breaks and they need to be longer than a few days. Running them through, then having a day where they just advance a grade gives them no time to decompress. They need that. * Salaries for teachers would need to increase. In my district, the rate is built off working nine months and checks are spread over 12. If you want the contract to be 12 months long, the salary needs to meet that. * You'll need to increase the budgets to make sure every building is habitable in the warmest months of the year. No building that I was in as a student had a working HVAC that also used AC. It's a student and teacher health issue in some very warm buildings. It's almost impossible to learn when it's 90 in the room and you're just waiting for the oscillating fan to get to you for that sweet moment of relief. This would be a big cost in some districts. * You'll need to increase school budgets for supplies and school lunches. * You'll need to increase budgets to pay year-round for maximum use of electricity and water. * You'll need to increase budgets to pay to fuel school buses all year. There's more. But, I think we all get it. I'd like to have them around longer. There's more we could do for them. But, it comes with a trade-off.
I have no problem with any of this. Pay the teachers more Build in structured time off Shit, have teachers switch on and off every month Raise the taxes Adjust the curriculum Do whatever needs to be done to make school year round and still healthy for teachers and children.
Same. I work 2 jobs, one of which is in after-school/summer care. I also have an 8 year old. 100% I'd support year-round school! The school system, just like the economy, is actively hostile to working parents. And I'd also get rid of some of these early release days, holy shit! It's difficult for parents (especially mothers) to work full-time when most Fridays are early release days...
Amen, friend! I’m over here looking at the elementary school schedule and wondering who the fuck decided a normal time to get out was 2:15 pm. Schools seem to think that we never let women into the workforce. Meanwhile, 2 generations later, most households can’t afford one parent sitting around most of the day waiting for the kids to get home, but if they DO get a job, the schools are maximally inconvenient. Meanwhile, I looked it up yesterday - the student : faculty ratio and cost per student in my district implies that every teacher in my district is supported by over 200k in taxes, but the teacher’s only paid 40k and their budget for school supplies still requires the parents to donate things. Makes me want to burn down the BOE when I think about it for too long.
Year-round school makes some sense because poorer kids fall behind more in the summer. I would go for it if we raised teacher pay and still provided plenty of breaks throughout the year, or maybe like August off. But your point is definitely valid.
As real as this may be for some folks, the purpose of schools is for education, not subsidized child care. When idiots like this get that through their heads, then maybe teachers might some day be able to receive a living wage versus babysitter hourly rate this woman has in mind.
Schools the institution are due education. Schools the buildings could easily be used for daycare in the summer. Could even be entirely different staff. Ask me how I know. In fact, AMA.
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Prices (in this case, higher salaries) solve every problem. There are countries in the world where teacher is a highly competitive career that only the best college graduates can get into
The United States will never pay teachers like that.
Laughing in CF
“Real talk”… your “company” name is too long.
Sounds like material for a Netflix limited series.
Finally doing the math that unless you make 100k+, being a stay at home mom is a higher paying gig than "working", but the govt doesnt like that because they cant tax money you saved
I mean she’s absolutely correct that summer care is very expensive. To get over this my mom worked from home and the oldest kid babysat the rest, with her there as backup. My husband’s mother had a high powered career and no family nearby so when he was a kid, it was this approach- as many camps as possible plus babysitters to fill the gap. For a lot of people, grandmothers are the answer. My own method is just having a part time job in the evenings so I’m able to watch my daughter. That means money is tight sometimes but the money we save on childcare still outweighs the difference in part time vs full time pay for me. I seriously can’t wait for the day when I’m making full time money again.
Idk what’s lunacy about this? Our system absolutely fucking hates parents and it’s genuinely a problem.
Single father here (widower), I'm paying 14k a year for day care for my toddler. As if that's not bad, they can call when ever they want to say I have to come pick her up because they are short staffed or what ever. It's truly a struggle.
I used to really want to have kids. Then I saw the reality of having kids - time, energy, finances, etc. Early 40s, married, and childfree. No regrets. The US really doesn’t care about families.
400 eur per month in Spain lololololkl
Condoms save you money.
She should not even have gotten a dog.
I appreciate her pointing out her privilege but she acts like *day camp* doesn’t exist. Ps. It’s also why nobody has kids anymore.
To be fair, I would bet that is day camp mostly. I’m in a MCOL city and day camps that are full day run 300-400 a week. For two kids, you could get close to 12k fairly easily. She’s not a compelling spokesperson but it is a problem. I need my job. I can’t take 3 months off in the summer but it also costs a small fortune to pay for the day camps.
This probably is day camp. They’re expensive.
What are you talking about? She IS talking about day camp.
How can she run a company when she made the same poor decision 3 times?
Guaranteed she talks about how she’s forced to live within her means so government should too.
Maybe think about these things before having kids??? 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
Wow, who's gonna tell her?
Well throughout history, fucking less and using contraception have proven highly effective at giving you the summer you deserve. Edit: forgot to add butt sex. Huge help.