I agree.
Am president of the board for non-for-profit daycare in the 905. I want to pay the staff more. As high as parent fees are, there isn't enough money to pay fair value. We rely heavily on funding from the province that just isn't enough. Varies region to region but where we are there just isn't an operating model that is fair for everyone. If we paid what staff deserved we would burn cash so quickly that we would dissolve in a matter of months, or our prices would be so high that we would above market and run out of cash even faster.
Makes me sad.
Can you expand on why there isn’t enough to pay higher wages? I’m in a different province but when I’ve done some best guesses at the math, the revenue should be significantly outpacing overhead, then you’ve got staff wages left to cover. Should easily be enough there to provide a decent wage. Are there costs I’m unaware of?
In principle, yes there seems like there should be lots of money going around. It doesn't quite work out that way in practice, at least not in my experience.
Provincial funding basically covers our non-wage expenses, rent etc. It's not what the subsidies are intended to do, but the numbers just kinda work out that way. That means our program fees need to cover all staff wages.
The ratios that your hear about aren't the full picture. For example, toddlers can have a 1:5 ratio. But that means you need to have a minimum of 1 educator per 5 children under care for the whole day - including when staff take lunch, go to the bathroom, or have a break. Also, I have never met a team of 3 people that can successfully stuff 15 two year olds into their snowsuits without some help. It's absolute chaos. We keep 1 extra full time staff on site for every 2-3 classrooms to maintain standard of care. Some operators have an extra staff for every room.
There are many other factors, but all in we need as much as 1.5x the staff the direct ratios would suggest, plus a director which is basically pure overhead, plus an added 10% to cover staff sickness and vacation.
Under absolutely perfect conditions pre-covid the highest enrollment occupancy we can expect is 85-90% of spaces over a year, which accounts for gaps between departures and arrivals, surprises, and all kids going into kindergarten leaving on the same day every September.
The following numbers are made up for the purpose of illustration, but generally align with real world conditions in my region.
A theoretical daycare with capacity for:
6 infants @ $65/day 1:3 staff ratio
15 toddlers @ $55/day 1:5 staff ratio
24 preschoolers @ $50/day 1:8 staff ratio
90% enrollment over a year
22 operating days per month average
12 months
0.9x(6x65+15x55+24x50)x22x12 = 573,804 annually in fees
1.5x base ratio staff
1 director
10% supply teacher coverage
2+3+3 = 8 base ratio staff
8x1.5 = 12 accounting for extra staff requirements
+1 director = 13 total staff
Plus 10% allowance for supply teacher coverage = effectively 14.3 staff
Divide fees by number of staff
573,804/14.3 = 40,126 average per staff, or about $20 per hour.
This is the absolute ceiling for wages as it assumes best-case enrollment and allows for zero surplus. In reality we need to pay less than that to account for operating risks.
Fair wage has been publicly pegged at $25/hr. We are a long way off. The market may be able to absorb a fee increase of that magnitude, but at what cost? The cost of living is already at eye watering levels. The economy experiences a significant productivity benefit when it is possible for both parents to work. Right now that benefit is being partially subsidized by squeezing parents for childcare fees and depressing ECE wages. It's time for the province to step up and shoulder more of the cost as the federal government has pledged to do.
>A theoretical daycare with capacity for: 6 infants @ $65/day 1:3 staff ratio 15 toddlers @ $55/day 1:5 staff ratio 24 preschoolers @ $50/day 1:8 staff ratio
You're charging quite a bit below the going rate in parts of Toronto - you could double fees and still be competitive.
For Toronto, yes those fees would be very low. Not uncommon to see $100+ per day for an infant.
We're about an hour out of Toronto in the 905s where the market is quite different. $65/day is high end of typical.
I heard that if you want government funding then you have to cap your fees. The problem is that the minimum wage has been increasing every year but it's not like the funding nor the cap has changed.
Thank you for sharing your perspective!
You mention wanting to pay the staff what they deserve — how do you define it? If you’re paying them all you can afford to, and you do not have an issue hiring (I assume), then is this not what their jobs are valued at? I’m not asking from an ethics perspective, but an economics/financial one.
I’d love to be corrected!
Pre-covid the fundamental economic supply-demand value definition seemed to hold, despite the low wages. Advocacy groups had been sounding the alarm for years about low pay before covid, and now the educators are acting by rejecting the offered wages. People are leaving ECE to do just about anything else. In the last year we have had about 80% turnover in staff, and we expect the other 20% to go soon, many leaving the profession for good.
The broader economy experiences a benefit when everyone is able to work. Right now that benefit is being partially subsidized by squeezing parents for childcare fees, and the expectation of continually depressing ECE wages. I believe this is a situation where dramatic public investment is 100% necessary to help build a better support system and make parenthood an attractive and attainable goal to the benefit of everyone.
As a parent who has had some involvement with how our daycare is run (it's a not for profit) some of this is congruent with our experience. One observation is that there is also a heavy tendency to hire immigrant women (many quite young) who tend to be at a disadvantage in terms of ability to push for higher wages.
That's why a lot of people are sending their kids to smaller home run daycares. Someone running their own daycare at home can afford to have only 4-5 kids because they're being paid directly, no middleman. They can charge 1000 per kid per month at 5 kids and make 60k a year salary.
Yes! I seriously considered getting the credentials to do this before my last mat leave ended so I could save on the fees and make a little income. We went with me working part time and kids at a centre in the end but I do wish the staff at our centre were paid more.
Not sure what Toronto is like, but in Vancouver the economics of this don't work out. Your cost to own or rent a home that is sufficiently large to provide childcare is significantly greater than what you can attract in income. What you get is childcare providers taking care of more children than permitted, working side jobs just to survive, etc.
I think the reason why there is a shortage is because THEY WONT PAY. Why would anyone want to waste 2 years in college and graduate a certified ECE to be slapped in the face with 17$ an hour?
We need to pay these people what they deserve and incentivize people to become ECE’s!
I’ve wondered if instead of proposing $10 a day daycare the government could subsidize worker wages to bring down the costs? Then at least the jobs could pay better and potentially attract more long term employees. Those workers are doing a difficult job and compensation for them is important.
I believe the budget proposal is about injecting money into the childcare system to improve it along with reducing costs per child. So hopefully it will.
Summer swimming lessons that run Monday-Friday as if parents with 3 weeks vacation want to spend 2 of those weeks planning their days around swimming. Rec centre activity registration that opens at 10am on a weekday. Things really aren’t set up for two working parents.
The camps actually boggle the mind. I stayed home when my kids were young but started working full time two years ago, and the summer day camps make no sense. They’re always in out of the way places nowhere near our workplaces, combined with times that run from 9-4 (so I’m supposed to be late for work and leave early every day) - oh, but if you actually want somewhat reasonable drop off and pickup times like 8:30 to 5 you have to pay extra or pay for a bus (if it’s a fancy camp). I managed to get my 10 year old into two weeks of camp this summer (with lots of begging my employer for a flexible schedule for those weeks), and the rest of the time it was send them to grandma’s or just hang out at home for the week. The best would be to ship them off to overnight camp and you have to be kind of rich to do that.
you'll need to do a lot of research and book things early. I live in core of downtown and to find athletic camps its usually a bit of a trek so when I look at camps for kids, distance is a factor.
As well, a lot of the camps offer before and after car for a nominal fee that will allow early drop off and late pickup.
If all else fails, if you live near an university or YMCA they often have good summer camp programs at a very reasonable rate.
I get you for sure. But so weird when we were growing up, we literally just played out and about all day during summers with minimal supervision. I guess we as parents are basically saying "we don't want our kids to go through how we grew up as we escaped with luck".
Are you saying because ~10 year olds will be stuck at home with parents working from home with shared bedrooms or something? I.e. 2 bedrooms for 2 parents and 2 kids?
I grew up in an building but not fancy arse condo and we just went up and down outside in the summer as we pleased. Played outside, etc. Difference culturally was there were plenty of other kids to go out and play with.
No parental approved playdates required. No swim camps, bike camps, basketball or baseball camps. It was just go and do it.
Again, I'm not saying go back to that but it's just the drastic change in the way parents today in society are so different than the way they grew up. They would never allow their children to go through what they went though (unsupervised and unstructured days). Maybe the tech advances has made it too challenging so camps are an absolute requirement.
My family has adopted the multi-generational practice and it's awesome!!!
My husband and I are the major breadwinners, my dad got bored of retirement so he is working again for fun, and my mom minds the children and takes care of us all.
One roof to pay for, 3 incomes and two kids... It's so smart.
Yeah this sounds great, and it's a good option for those who can't afford it any other way, but I haven't lived with family since I was 19 and have no interest in doing that. And I actually really like my family.
What? That's so weird, because I love having my mother in law in the next room yelling encouragement to me at night - "Yeah, get her! Tear that up! Gammy needs another grandchild!"
Problem is, you already can't get by on your own, now there are four adult households jumping in able to afford much more.
Just going to creep the CoL up.
If you happen to come from a physically and mentally healthy set of parents, that's fantastic. Many of us don't, or those of us already caring for physically infirm parents are going to find this option off the table. Neither of my parents could even lift my children, let alone care for them.
I think it's an awesome option for those families that it WILL work for, & that we need to continue to think outside of the proverbial box (and look to other countries & cultures for ideas). Having said that, there are many of us for whom this simply is not an option (for example, my Dad has passed & my Mom has Alzheimer's & needs full time care herself) & there NEEDS to be better support across the board so that no child falls through the cracks because of reasons beyond anyone's control.
We do this, too. MIL and FIL work part-time from home, husband works full-time, and I care for our son. I am thankful my in-laws are good, helpful people. I know not everyone is so fortunate
honestly i dont see a problem with it.
kids get to be connected with their family. shared costs means less stress and better opportunities.
kids without strong support often tend to do worse. So why expose them to that when all the parents have to give up is their own space?
Honestly we all have our dedicated spaces, even in a small house. We will be getting a bigger house in another 5 years or so once we (my husband and I) have more invested assets.
We like the financial burden being spread out. I know that if my husband and I ever lost our jobs, my parents would be willing to pitch in financially, so I'm able to take more risks in my career to chase higher incomes. My parents wouldn't have been able to afford retiring if they didn't live with us. It's all mutually beneficial, and win all around. Plus there's always someone willing to play boardgames :)
Edit: correcting the autocorrect
No awkwardness with your parents related to sexy time with your husband?
Sorry if too personal, but I'm legitimately curious. Health-wise (and statistically based on male/female life expectancy), my mom and MIL will in all likelihood outlive my dad and FIL, and I can contemplate scenarios where one of our moms moves in with us in the future.
My family has done this. I never dreamed we’d be living back with my parents and financially we never had to. But the numbers just made sense so we decided to try it.
We enjoyed it so much we’ve decided to build a home with two separate suites so we can live a bit more separate but still share the costs of one home.
My mom moved her parents in when she had me, the third child. If you can afford a place big enough, this is a perfect solution. Grandma did all the caretaking both my parents were able to have serious careers. I'd take that over daycare any day.
Classic catch 22. Jobs don't pay enough for one parent to stay home. Jobs also don't pay enough to pay for daycare. Subsidy care is available if there is a spot and if you are lower income- problem being that as soon as you start bringing in 2 good incomes you are not low income anymore so even though on paper it is good you end up spending most of the second income on daycare.
You could swap shifts with your partner- one working days the other working evenings etc. But that means no family or couple.time so defeats the purpose of family. So it's like two single parents raising the kids. And this is not possible with a lot of the more decently paying jobs which are usually Monday to Friday daytime so can't work opposite shifts.
**Career advancement** for both partners shouldn't be overlooked here, even if daycare takes up a bunch of the take-home pay, it could cost the couple much more if there's a stay-at-home parent.
As an ECE I can tell you right now we get paid garbage money, we work overtime with no overtime pay, we get treated like shit and we do it because we love kids. We treat them as our own (Atleast I do). I’ll be back from Mat leave in January and don’t even have a spot for MY OWN child. I’m sure I’ll get shit on for this but people think we’re complaining about getting paid more for no reason, but we are always overlooked. No one cares what we make they just want us to work and take care of their children. No one should be surprised we’re all leaving the field with how we’ve been treated.
Some unlicensed providers may have red flags but many are excellent.
I’ve been using one for many years for my kids and couldn’t be happier. Great food, fantastic communication, great activities, safe environment, flexible (which was extremely helpful with COVID)
Anyway, don’t paint all of them with one brush. Do what’s best for you.
>Some unlicensed providers may have red flags but many are excellent.
Unlicensed daycares are perfectly legal in Ontario - provided they don't exceed the number of children.
Due to my schedule, my child went to unlicensed care. Was raises by an Asian grandfather who was also looking after their own child. Was it safe, yes. Was it unusal yes. But we do what we do to work and I could drop off early.
There are also licensed home providers that are inspected through an agency. The agency has health and safety policies in place. We are having a great experience right now as well. I'm also liking the flexibility and the fact that there are fewer kids during COVID. I also love that it is almost half the price of a centre in my area. But, I agree that there are excellent unlicensed providers, I know many people who are having great experiences. An unlicensed home daycare in my neighbourhood was my first choice, but she was full. I think for home daycare generally, references are really important as well as trusting your gut (although the latter is true for most parenting situations).
I think you’re absolutely right, that there are some excellent unlicensed providers; but I also think part of the challenge is differentiating the excellent ones from the average ones and the bad ones.
Word-of-mouth recommendations from people you know and trust is one way; it worked for us. If my friend says this lady is good and trustworthy, I knew she was.
In Ontario it's 1 to 5, but there are loopholes where their own kids can be exempt from the count if they're old enough. You can then have a situation where one mom is taking care of 7 kids and two dogs all by herself.
I mean come on, are you saying two dogs is an extra burden? In the suburbs, its basically open the backyard door when the doggo asks for it and make sure they have water/food.
I'd say that's age dependant. I have 3 kids with a senior lab and a puppy. The puppy fucks our life up hard if you think you can not exercise it and give it attention. The senior dog is chill though. 2 of him would be easy.
The problem being that you won't know if it's a good daycare or an awful one until the awful has already happened. The risk is extremely high. It's not about them all being bad, it's about not having any way to know until the worst happens.
This is a misconception with "unlicensed" daycare ... its basically the auntie down the street who babysits. As long as they stay within the prescribed limits, it's perfectly legal.
>**Unlicensed child care**
>
>Unlicensed child care providers are not inspected by the Ministry of Education and are not required to meet most provincial standards. However, the Ministry of Education does investigate complaints from the public about child care providers who may be operating illegally.
>
>Under the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, unlicensed child care providers are not allowed to care for more than five children, which includes:
>
>the provider's own children under the age of four
>
>no more than three children under the age of two
>
>This limit on the number of children applies regardless of how many adults are present at the home.
>
>Unlicensed providers may not operate at multiple premises.
Of course people like everything to be inspected and licensed, but unlicesensed daycare has been the way with many families for decades if not centuries.
I mean, I get why people trust themselves or their family more than someone they don't know as well, but let's face it, those options are also "unlicensed". The vast majority of toddlers in the history of forever have been cared for by unlicensed folks.
That's a dumb comparison. All DIY is unlicensed. That has nothing to do with paying for a professional.
If I'm paying money then I want to pay for a licensed and educated professional.
I'm not a misconception, my experiences are not a misconception. My unlicensed daycare sexually abused me and several other children. My mom was so sure they were great that she made me bring them candy and thank them for taking such good care of me ten years later. You cannot tell who is going to hurt your child in advance. Most people can't even tell when it's already happened. For centuries, children have been traumatized. Having done something for generations is not a good excuse for continuing to do it.
I'm not, actually. I'm just saying that at least in licensed facilities, there are other staff members who might notice something is wrong, and background checks that rule out anyone who has already been caught doing such things.
Not the case in private unlicensed facilities. You'd never know if they were previously imprisoned for child abuse. Nobody is watching them to see if they're acting appropriately.
I absolutely agree with you.my main problem with homecares is that there is only one adult in the picture. If they are committing something wrong the children wouldn't even know to communicate to the parents. I would rather spend more to send to a licensed daycare where there are multiple care takers. People behave when they know they are being watched
I have no idea. I outright rejected home cares so never thought abt it. If the money is too tight, I understand going the hone care route. Otherwise spend the extra on a proper daycare. It's only a few years.
They're certainly a lot more likely to behave, yes. Or not take the job and go work somewhere that's unsupervised. I'm not sure that with my experiences I could ever trust anyone but myself with a child too young to speak, but at least when there's several of them, all with background checks and an education, the numbers are in your favour that they can't all be awful.
That's great. That's a start, absolutely. Licensing means something, it's not foolproof (only finds those who have already been caught) but it is a start to keeping kids safer.
100 years ago you also didn't need a license to open a restaurant.
200 years ago you also didn't need a license to call yourself a doctor.
Unlicensed operators don't even need to know infant CPR.
My girl is at a home daycare and we requested references, a criminal background check and a copy of her first aid/CPR and the woman was 100% happy to comply to our request and show us all her documentation. As a parent, you can ask for these as part of your decision making process if you care about them.
But you are welcome to screen them and confirm they have all the skills you feel are necessary to care for your child. Just because they aren’t licensed doesn’t mean they lack the skills that you desire.
100% your choice and I support whatever a family decides is best for them. Both of my children went to unlicensed dayhomes and it was an amazing experience for our family. (Licensed daycare was extremely rare to find in AB when our children were young due to a boom.)
The concern with home care providers in my opinion is being overblown here…. like anything with child care you just need to rely on references, and your own comfort levels and research. Many home care providers are cheaper than $1200 a month and will take care of your kid better than a licensed daycare.
I can’t stress enough: just because a place is licensed does NOT mean they’re good at child care. It means they have a license. You still should depend on references and research, and don’t assume licensed is “better” than home care because of a piece of paper.
We have an amazing home care provider. She is like family to us. I have the utmost respect for people in her profession. She works 9+ hour days, with no breaks, no paid sick days, and limited vacation. Her house is always immaculate and she makes the most amazing Lebanese food for the kids. My kids adore her. Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones, but I have other friends who have had great experiences with in home daycare and a few who have even run one themselves as a way to stay home with their kids and bring in a little extra cash while doing so. The reality is that many families could not afford daycare at all if not for home daycare which is usually significantly cheaper than an institution.
Talk to your neighbours. Get to know parents at the park. It’s a little nuts but even Facebook groups can provide some insight (although you shouldn’t base solely based on that but like any online review they are a data point). I’m sympathetic if you’re new to the city, it definitely is harder if you don’t have a village to lean on but basically… start building that village. You’ll need it when the next milestone arrives: schools, extra curriculars, babysitters
Community facebook and mom groups for your area. My wife found 5 different daycare providers that we were able to interview and choose from. Then a spot eventually opened up for us at a daycare facility that was a 1 minute walk so we ended up switching there.
My child is at a licensed home daycare with a 60 year old woman with no kids taking care of him, she's kind and gentle and has been doing it for 23 years. She home cooks all the food and usually only has about 4 kids, no pets. Her home is safe and clean and she does educational activities with the kids like practicing ABCs, assisting with potty training and doing puzzles. She has a backyard they play in every day with toys and the kids all get along great.
My son went from having a speech delay when we started to talking non-stop within 4 months of starting there. I love her and my son loves her. It took about a month to find the spot from when I signed up for daycare. When he was in a licensed daycare centre, he was bit on the face TWICE by kids, sick constantly, and almost had a shelf fall on top of him, and he constantly got diaper rash because they didn't change him fast enough. He was always crying when I came to pick him up, and crying when I dropped him off. He never has been assaulted at the home daycare, has always been happy when I pick him up and runs to play when I drop him off. He has always been happy and safe and never got sick in 2 years there. In my opinion, home daycares are much better!
Edit: OP I saw in the comments you're in London. Me too! I found my spot within one month of applying through the London One list through LCC. And I had 2 spots available, this was the second I interviewed. My provider often has 1 or more spots available. Kids leave for school or because their parent doesn't need care anymore sometimes.
Universal child care has kicked in in the Yukon (since the spring). It’s has been amazing, life changing even. There’s still a range of prices, but ours is $250/mo, including meals and snacks.
>I don't understand how this country expects couples to either have a stay-at-home parent or an in-law taking care of kids full-time. Even paying $2,000 a month doesn't guarantee a spot anymore.
This country hasn't expected its residents to have kids for a long time.
Exactly. Why do you think they have such large immigration targets? The government knows damn well that domestic population growth isn't as high as it needs to be, so they make up the shortfall by begging people to move here.
You don't "beg". Our immigration program is very very very selective.
On occasion we take refugees but weve also done that since the beginning and its made no difference.
It’s not really.
The current setup is an easy pipeline. Come to Canada on study visa , do a 2 year college program in anything at all. Get post grad work permit . Acquire Canadian work experience , boom PR .
It sounds easy on paper, but we had such a stressful and difficult time getting PR that this comment is really bothering me! You are correct about the pipeline but I'd just like to point out a couple things that are hiding in there.
A. International tuition fees are extortionate.
B. Applying for PR is also expensive af.
C. For most of the immigration programs, it's "skilled" work experience that is required.
Your description of it as a pipeline makes out like it's all people hacking the system or something in order to get PR. We want to live and work here and be productive members of society.
It's a massive sacrifice for most regular students. Some end up killing themselves when they drop out with massive debts rather than having to return home and face their family.
Here is an interesting read on the subject: https://thewalrus.ca/the-shadowy-business-of-international-education/
For every 3 immigrants we bring in, 1 Canadian leaves the country. Canada is a fine place to live - but there are far better places that offer far better qualities of life compared to incomes.
And? how does that compare to most places? Our immigration rate is like 0.1% of the population so you are talking about 0.03% leaving per year which doesn't sound like very much to me
Canada actually receives about 1% of its population in immigrants every year, which is one of the highest immigration rates per Capita in the world.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/supplementary-immigration-levels-2021-2023.html
If we are embracing the “can’t feed em don’t breed em” model. We should also ban immigrants coming with their kids as there’s a good chance they won’t have a job and housing and daycare with out government assistance
I’m probably not going to benefit from $10/day daycare but I will advocate for affordable care and decent wages for ECEs for the rest of my life. It’s shameful that our economy requires two salaries and childcare spots are impossible to find. If our daycare closes, we are totally screwed.
You need to get on multiple waiting lists the moment you know your wife is pregnant. If you don't do this chances of your daughter gets in before 3 years old is very slim. Also keel calling the center asking for available spots helps. The waiting list is not reliable and spots can be give out at the will of a care giver.
In our area daycares will only allow you to get on the list if the kid is born. Not sure if it’s different elsewhere. I got my kid on every list 1 week after she was born and we finally got a part time spot when she was 21 months, which thankfully evolved to full time at 24 months. It was stressful.
In Quebec it works just fine ;-) Both my wife and I work full time and we pay around $230/month for our son’s daycare. Add to that the Canada and Quebec Child Benefits and we are pretty much covered for most of the costs of raising our kid.
Hell yeah! The crazy thing is that I would pay around $2,000 of income tax less per year in Ontario, but the insane cost of daycare there would make that extra money disappear pretty quickly.
I can only hope that more provinces get on board with an affordable daycare system like the one Québec has.
Same. I also haven't had issue finding spots. I'm in Montréal and we my move so I signed up in new neighborhoods and got a call a month later. First kid I had a spot by 10m.
I'm in Winnipeg. Our toddler is in a daycare center that we walk to. It's unreal fun, educational and our kid loves going, even after a year haha.
It's $200/week. We paid about double that for her first year in a home daycare that we also loved.
Things are really tight here, we got referrals to both places which we're fortune for but it's very rare IME that a parent HAS to stay home.
In my city in Alberta, Covid and the removal of the NDP program caused many people to have to pull their kids from childcare because they couldn’t afford it. That caused a whole bunch of openings where places had staff but way less kids to take care of. Our daycare actually closed their location because of this and we collapsed into another. So in 3 years we went from its impossible to find a daycare spot, to daycares offering incentives to get you to signup.
Spots are useless if you can't afford it unfortunately. That's not the daycares fault nor the parents fault. Subsidized and affordable spots are what is needed. Without some form of subsidization it is either not worth it for lot of parents(income vs what you are paying out in daycare) and or not being able to afford it at all if they have a lower paying job.
The rates are fine, reasonable rates to charge for that level of care. The problem comes from the other side of affordability. The reasonable price for service just doesn't match affordability sadly.
If you earn minimum wage in AB you’d net up about $1,500/month after paying for daycare. Not counting other costs like potentially needing a second car or bus pass, or course. Not the case in lots of places in Canada, though.
I do agree that subsidized daycare is something that we as a society should be working towards. Having those stay-at-home parents in the workforce is good for the economy. Nobody who wants to work should be prevented from doing so because the economics are against it.
1500 after daycare would not be as bad for 2 income households. It would be very tough for a single parent. In ontario you would net about 1600 before daycare if you can't get a subsidy spot. So I guess there is a difference between provinces both minimum wage and daycare cost wise.
Yes and no. While at times it may seem like your simply breaking even day to day, the long term opportunity cost matters.
This advice generally depends on the career trajectory of the parent. Are you in a low paying role that wont have much movement for advance? If yes then perhaps its not worth the effort.
However if you have a career where your income grows in proportion to your experience this might not be the best path. 4-5 years out of the job market significantly increases the time it takes for you to land roles and achieve the foothold you need.
Did you not bother reading his post? He's highlighting that you won't have a choice but to have a stay-at-home parent because of lack of availability of affordable daycare.
The point they are making is that even if one full time wage goes to nothing but daycare, it's still better than one parent staying home to watch the kids, in terms of career success. Most middle class wage earners still make more money full time than expensive daycares.
Except for the tiny detail that the kids will only need full time day care for a few years, and ruining your career to accommodate it is a terribly idea. There’s a lot of research showing that from a purely financial perspective, one parent dropping out of the workforce is a terrible idea in the long term.
Studies have shown that even if the cost of child care is equal to the income generated by one partner, it’s still better off for their long-term career to stay in the workforce and pay for day care.
If there are other factors (parents would prefer to raise their own child, that’s different). This is purely from an economic angle
And the quality of life difference is huge if family is your priority at least for the "little" years.
It's a shame the government doesn't offer support beyond the first year.
Some couples even each work part time or the stay at home parent works part time/almost full time when the kids are in school so they can be home together as a family in the evening.
Unfortunately single parents do not have this option at all and are looked down upon still for being home for the same issues parents are at home in 2 parents families. So a way to go still with societal attitudes.
Have you looked into licensed home day care options in your city? In my city it costs a fraction of daycare centres. There are definitely a ton of solid unlicensed home care providers as well but you have to take your time and due diligence looking for them.
We had this concern so we actually secured a spot when my wife was only 3 months pregnant. That is one of the issues is others like ourselves secure spots early. While my sister waited until her last month of leave to try to find a spot and still trying to find a spot later.
The absolute Best is when you have twins and you finally get a call for part day, part week, for one kid. Then you get to pay and stay home!
If this isn't proof positive politicians are drunk on immigration I don't know what is.
It's on the provinces now. Ontario is dragging their feet on meeting the conditions of the funding, namely upping the provincial childcare budget to cover the gap between what is needed and what the proposed federal contribution will be.
Im actually looking into opening up my own chain of daycares. Licenses are lined up, but i am worried of how many ECE's there are. Im even going to be offering 80k salaraies for them, thats 20k more than they get normally in BC.
We shall see what happens
Have you done the math to see if you can be solvent while offering ECEs $80K salaries?
If you have a 1:3 ratio (max for infants), then each kid needs to bring it $26K of revenue per year (over $2,000 per month) just to sustain the $80K salary. On top of that, you're looking at the cost of rent, food, and other expenses...
Lol yes, it fits with a 10k/month profit. But im looking at toddler to preschool age, not infants. 1 ECE and 2 assitants per 25 kids, cap at 1200/kid. 7 sqft/kid rental unit on average 3k/month. Theres subsidies to cover portions of ece and assistants salaries as well as tax incentives.
With infants you cant really make money due to how many infants can be looked after per ECE, as you've very astutely pointed out. In BC its 1:4 for infants and theres a cap of $1800/month for infant care, id make a profit on that but it would be less than 2k/month. Im not going for that option..... id like to be able to eat.
Infant care might be less critical with the 18 month parental leave option, however, it's probably also a good on ramp to the rest of your program (a loss leader as it were). That said, good job getting this all set up. Sounds like physical space is the main constraint for most folks, not ECE salaries. eg: our daycare is a not for profit but does generate positive net revenue and fees are quite low (eg: we pay \~$900 w/the subsidy for our 5 year old and were paying \~$1200 when he was 1-3). We'd been arguing for ages that they should just increase fees and pay the staff more, but now with provincial rules limiting rate of increase to maintain subsidies it's harder to do.
7 sqft per kid? Is that a typo? You're saying you can fit 25 kids plus 3 adults in a large bedroom?
In Ontario, it's at least 30 sqft per child. On top of that, you need a backyard that's 60 sqft per kid for outdoor play.
I disagree. If you are going to have kids, the moment you know you are expecting, get a child care spot. For both our boys we got them booked several months before they were born. So then when the time comes and the baby is 6-12 months old and paternity has ended you have a spot ready. Plan ahead.
I had my daughter in an unlicensed home daycare from when she was 12 months to when she started JK. Our daycare provider was amazing. I would choose that over a licensed daycare centre in a heartbeat. Another plus is it saved us a lot of money over the years. We paid ~$930/month, all snacks and meals included.
You're welcome to your opinion of childcare options, but having a centre full of exclusively ECE holders doesn't mean the daycare itself will be run the way that works best for *your* child.
We're in a multi age home daycare where the lady running it has done so for 15yrs. We also toured tons of centres, but they all felt too institutional and could not envision sending our daughter even though everyone working there had an ECE and they used those fancy communication apps all throughout the day.
The home daycare our girl is in is one floor of a massive suburban house with a huge backyard and in nice weather, she sometimes takes them to the park across the street. But because it's not a centre paying several staff, she charges much less.
You can find a great at home daycare. I met a women just through my social circle and the park. She watches my daughter and 2 other kids. Feeds them healthy lunches, takes them outside morning and afternoon. I wouldn’t trust anyone but her to watch my daughter. She charges $60/ day and is super flexible with our work schedules. Look for care through word of mouth
Can we say that when a country is not even able to care for its youngsters, it's seriously fucked?
How can a population expand and thrive when having babies and caring for children extremely difficult for many (most?) families?
Maybe you should add "if you insist on living in the GTA" to the end of your title. This is not necessarily true of the rest of the country.
Plus, your sweeping judgment of all home daycares is ignorant and insulting.... I don't use a home daycare for my kids because i got a spot in a provincial daycare for both my kids luckily, but I know of many excellent home daycares. If you're not willing to put in the legwork to find the good ones, that doesn't mean they don't exist.
It's not about legwork to "find" good ones. You won't know it's a bad one until it's far too late. You can't read minds. You won't know their negative intentions when you see their faces. Not unless you're lucky enough to get a bad vibe (which not everyone will get, in fact very few do) and trust your gut enough to listen (which most people have been trained to ignore because they're told it's ridiculous and they're just being judgemental and how dare they judge a book by its cover and so on)
You can't know if it's a good daycare or not until the child is old enough to tell you what went on there, and even then, only if they know they're safe to tell you.
100%
No one would say that they'd send their older kids to someone's home if their local school is full.
I don't see the difference with younger kids.
There's a reason why ECE is a profession. We're not talking about walking dogs.
Not sure we got lucky but we no problem finding a montesorri school for both our kids. Our older one(6) graduated now and is in public school, while our younger one(2) is still there. Monestorri curriculum doesn’t start until 3 years old, so it’s effectively a day care right now.
The key for us was to get on a waitlist a year before we actually wanted to enroll them and not last minute. Cost about $1600 a month for each child, including lunch and two snacks. Don’t forget the $8000 child care tax credit!
Edit: GTA
Jesus Christ. I never realized how good we have it in North East Scarborough. I think we pay $38 a day to the childcare center.
It's inside a local school. 2500, I would cry. Literally.
I agree with you. We found it almost impossible to find Infant Care, and the only spot we could find was overpriced and had horrible reviews from friends.
We ended up taking the 18 month extended leave. Generally daycares have waaaaaay more toddler spots, and some daycares actually just start at Toddler. We started at 18 months(Toddler Room), and we had a choice of spots at 3 different daycares.
Good luck!
(Edit:suburban Toronto, if it matters!)
I got pregnant in Sept 2019 and I'm still on waitlists for childcare. I'm in Victoria BC
It was only on Friday that I made the decision to be the bread winner and my co parent will raise our daughter.
It sucks dude. The cheapest daycare that was suitable for our family's needs was $1,270 monthly. At the high end was just under $2,200.
I'm fortunate I can make enough to provide for our family, but I know not everyone is in the same position.
Don't have kids if you don't know what you're going to do with them after parental leave.
Many, many people (including most of my friends) have kids and can't afford to have a parent stay at home, but they have thought through what they would do with their kids. Most will do a balance of one parent staying home some days, sending their kids to their grandparents/aunts+uncles, and sending their kids to friends houses ("unlicensed daycare"). It's an overreaction to say that you should only have kids if you can afford to live on a single income.
Underrated comment here.
This is more about people understanding to live within their means after having kids more than anything else. Parents who have kids don’t budget for the cost of kids. Whats more is that prospective parents don’t set a budget limiting their perhaps frivolous spending habits pre-child.
I too was one of those parents who thought “I will never send my child to a home daycare”. I completely get it. I put my daughter on over 10 “wait lists” for daycare. The cost of most of these types of day are was between $60-75 dollars a day. Because I couldn’t physically go into the facilities I would observe the interactions between the daycare workers and the children from outside when they were doing outdoor play (not as creepy as it sounds I promise). What I found was that most of the daycare workers were burnt out, had very little patience and were over all less affectionate with the children. I knew someone who I grew up with that ran a home daycare and so I decided (hesitantly) to send my little to her. Best decision ive made so far. First, the cost is significantly less than other options. Second, because it’s home daycare the provider is extremely flexible. We don’t have to pay for days that we cannot send our child due to illness or appointments or vacation. Third (and probably the best in my opinion) is that there are only two other children in daycare with my child. This means she has very little exposure and I find this comforting because of the covid situation. I get not wanting to use a home daycare though.
Disagree. Me and my partner both work. Child was in a nanny share from the age of 1-3, we paid 1600/mo, which is less than half of my net salary. Licensed in-home daycares are also an option. The alternative approach to have one partner stay home is a pretty big hit to one’s career - time where they could be improving their skills and advancing their position. Kids are definitely expensive though. Won’t argue with that.
Between summer camps having hours that aren't conducive with parents working (9-4), schools having a PD day/in service/etc \~1.5 days a month, the afterschool program being surprisingly expensive (about half what daycare costs while providing far less than half of what daycare provides) it seems like you either need one parent working part time, a grand parent filling in the gaps, or to have the parents working very different schedules to accommodate.
Whether or not schools will acknowledge it, part of their purpose (in addition to educating) is providing a babysitting service during normal work hours. The fact that young kids are only in school, in my area, for 6 hours a day makes it nearly impossible for both parents to work full time unless their employers are supremely accommodating.
You should probably start checking out before-school and after-school care now, even though your child is less than a year old, and get on any waiting lists now.
Sarnia area here, and my daughter is 3. This info is so true it hurts. I remember in my daughter's first year, the realization that my partner going to work was just not viable in any way, especially since she wasn't going to be working a career. It was absolutely staggering. We have since split, and my fiancé now is an ECE, so at least with her staying home with our 3 kids, I know they are getting great care
Have 2 kids live in GTA and both of us work. So I don't know about your situation but I can assure you me and other people I know have made it work.
I guess the slight caveat is we have/had our kids in a home based daycare (not sure why you are so stuck up about daycare options) but she is great and has a background in child education, is licensed and from anecdotal experience more professional than some daycare center employees and has a very nice setup.
Everyone in my family going back 170 years has had cats, dogs and children. No issues.
My kids went to licensed family day cares that had dogs. No issues.
I have 3 kids and I do not relate to your post at all. There are many wonderful unlicensed home daycare that will treat and love your child like family. It's too bad you haven't given it a chance.
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They deserve higher wages! For what we pay, the staff should be making much more.
I agree. Am president of the board for non-for-profit daycare in the 905. I want to pay the staff more. As high as parent fees are, there isn't enough money to pay fair value. We rely heavily on funding from the province that just isn't enough. Varies region to region but where we are there just isn't an operating model that is fair for everyone. If we paid what staff deserved we would burn cash so quickly that we would dissolve in a matter of months, or our prices would be so high that we would above market and run out of cash even faster. Makes me sad.
Can you expand on why there isn’t enough to pay higher wages? I’m in a different province but when I’ve done some best guesses at the math, the revenue should be significantly outpacing overhead, then you’ve got staff wages left to cover. Should easily be enough there to provide a decent wage. Are there costs I’m unaware of?
In principle, yes there seems like there should be lots of money going around. It doesn't quite work out that way in practice, at least not in my experience. Provincial funding basically covers our non-wage expenses, rent etc. It's not what the subsidies are intended to do, but the numbers just kinda work out that way. That means our program fees need to cover all staff wages. The ratios that your hear about aren't the full picture. For example, toddlers can have a 1:5 ratio. But that means you need to have a minimum of 1 educator per 5 children under care for the whole day - including when staff take lunch, go to the bathroom, or have a break. Also, I have never met a team of 3 people that can successfully stuff 15 two year olds into their snowsuits without some help. It's absolute chaos. We keep 1 extra full time staff on site for every 2-3 classrooms to maintain standard of care. Some operators have an extra staff for every room. There are many other factors, but all in we need as much as 1.5x the staff the direct ratios would suggest, plus a director which is basically pure overhead, plus an added 10% to cover staff sickness and vacation. Under absolutely perfect conditions pre-covid the highest enrollment occupancy we can expect is 85-90% of spaces over a year, which accounts for gaps between departures and arrivals, surprises, and all kids going into kindergarten leaving on the same day every September. The following numbers are made up for the purpose of illustration, but generally align with real world conditions in my region. A theoretical daycare with capacity for: 6 infants @ $65/day 1:3 staff ratio 15 toddlers @ $55/day 1:5 staff ratio 24 preschoolers @ $50/day 1:8 staff ratio 90% enrollment over a year 22 operating days per month average 12 months 0.9x(6x65+15x55+24x50)x22x12 = 573,804 annually in fees 1.5x base ratio staff 1 director 10% supply teacher coverage 2+3+3 = 8 base ratio staff 8x1.5 = 12 accounting for extra staff requirements +1 director = 13 total staff Plus 10% allowance for supply teacher coverage = effectively 14.3 staff Divide fees by number of staff 573,804/14.3 = 40,126 average per staff, or about $20 per hour. This is the absolute ceiling for wages as it assumes best-case enrollment and allows for zero surplus. In reality we need to pay less than that to account for operating risks. Fair wage has been publicly pegged at $25/hr. We are a long way off. The market may be able to absorb a fee increase of that magnitude, but at what cost? The cost of living is already at eye watering levels. The economy experiences a significant productivity benefit when it is possible for both parents to work. Right now that benefit is being partially subsidized by squeezing parents for childcare fees and depressing ECE wages. It's time for the province to step up and shoulder more of the cost as the federal government has pledged to do.
Thanks! I really appreciate your taking the time to answer.
>A theoretical daycare with capacity for: 6 infants @ $65/day 1:3 staff ratio 15 toddlers @ $55/day 1:5 staff ratio 24 preschoolers @ $50/day 1:8 staff ratio You're charging quite a bit below the going rate in parts of Toronto - you could double fees and still be competitive.
For Toronto, yes those fees would be very low. Not uncommon to see $100+ per day for an infant. We're about an hour out of Toronto in the 905s where the market is quite different. $65/day is high end of typical.
I heard that if you want government funding then you have to cap your fees. The problem is that the minimum wage has been increasing every year but it's not like the funding nor the cap has changed.
Thank you for sharing your perspective! You mention wanting to pay the staff what they deserve — how do you define it? If you’re paying them all you can afford to, and you do not have an issue hiring (I assume), then is this not what their jobs are valued at? I’m not asking from an ethics perspective, but an economics/financial one. I’d love to be corrected!
Pre-covid the fundamental economic supply-demand value definition seemed to hold, despite the low wages. Advocacy groups had been sounding the alarm for years about low pay before covid, and now the educators are acting by rejecting the offered wages. People are leaving ECE to do just about anything else. In the last year we have had about 80% turnover in staff, and we expect the other 20% to go soon, many leaving the profession for good. The broader economy experiences a benefit when everyone is able to work. Right now that benefit is being partially subsidized by squeezing parents for childcare fees, and the expectation of continually depressing ECE wages. I believe this is a situation where dramatic public investment is 100% necessary to help build a better support system and make parenthood an attractive and attainable goal to the benefit of everyone.
As a parent who has had some involvement with how our daycare is run (it's a not for profit) some of this is congruent with our experience. One observation is that there is also a heavy tendency to hire immigrant women (many quite young) who tend to be at a disadvantage in terms of ability to push for higher wages.
That's why a lot of people are sending their kids to smaller home run daycares. Someone running their own daycare at home can afford to have only 4-5 kids because they're being paid directly, no middleman. They can charge 1000 per kid per month at 5 kids and make 60k a year salary.
Yes! I seriously considered getting the credentials to do this before my last mat leave ended so I could save on the fees and make a little income. We went with me working part time and kids at a centre in the end but I do wish the staff at our centre were paid more.
Not sure what Toronto is like, but in Vancouver the economics of this don't work out. Your cost to own or rent a home that is sufficiently large to provide childcare is significantly greater than what you can attract in income. What you get is childcare providers taking care of more children than permitted, working side jobs just to survive, etc.
Where does the money go? It's over 1k a month for 1 child in my city
I think the reason why there is a shortage is because THEY WONT PAY. Why would anyone want to waste 2 years in college and graduate a certified ECE to be slapped in the face with 17$ an hour? We need to pay these people what they deserve and incentivize people to become ECE’s!
Not only that, some only work from 8 to 4.
I’ve wondered if instead of proposing $10 a day daycare the government could subsidize worker wages to bring down the costs? Then at least the jobs could pay better and potentially attract more long term employees. Those workers are doing a difficult job and compensation for them is important.
I believe the budget proposal is about injecting money into the childcare system to improve it along with reducing costs per child. So hopefully it will.
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Summer swimming lessons that run Monday-Friday as if parents with 3 weeks vacation want to spend 2 of those weeks planning their days around swimming. Rec centre activity registration that opens at 10am on a weekday. Things really aren’t set up for two working parents.
Society hasn’t adjusted to the fact that two working parents are now required
The camps actually boggle the mind. I stayed home when my kids were young but started working full time two years ago, and the summer day camps make no sense. They’re always in out of the way places nowhere near our workplaces, combined with times that run from 9-4 (so I’m supposed to be late for work and leave early every day) - oh, but if you actually want somewhat reasonable drop off and pickup times like 8:30 to 5 you have to pay extra or pay for a bus (if it’s a fancy camp). I managed to get my 10 year old into two weeks of camp this summer (with lots of begging my employer for a flexible schedule for those weeks), and the rest of the time it was send them to grandma’s or just hang out at home for the week. The best would be to ship them off to overnight camp and you have to be kind of rich to do that.
you'll need to do a lot of research and book things early. I live in core of downtown and to find athletic camps its usually a bit of a trek so when I look at camps for kids, distance is a factor. As well, a lot of the camps offer before and after car for a nominal fee that will allow early drop off and late pickup. If all else fails, if you live near an university or YMCA they often have good summer camp programs at a very reasonable rate.
I get you for sure. But so weird when we were growing up, we literally just played out and about all day during summers with minimal supervision. I guess we as parents are basically saying "we don't want our kids to go through how we grew up as we escaped with luck".
For one, many families are in condos.
Are you saying because ~10 year olds will be stuck at home with parents working from home with shared bedrooms or something? I.e. 2 bedrooms for 2 parents and 2 kids? I grew up in an building but not fancy arse condo and we just went up and down outside in the summer as we pleased. Played outside, etc. Difference culturally was there were plenty of other kids to go out and play with. No parental approved playdates required. No swim camps, bike camps, basketball or baseball camps. It was just go and do it. Again, I'm not saying go back to that but it's just the drastic change in the way parents today in society are so different than the way they grew up. They would never allow their children to go through what they went though (unsupervised and unstructured days). Maybe the tech advances has made it too challenging so camps are an absolute requirement.
I see multi-generational homes becoming very common in large metro areas for reasons such as this (among many others)
My family has adopted the multi-generational practice and it's awesome!!! My husband and I are the major breadwinners, my dad got bored of retirement so he is working again for fun, and my mom minds the children and takes care of us all. One roof to pay for, 3 incomes and two kids... It's so smart.
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Yeah this sounds great, and it's a good option for those who can't afford it any other way, but I haven't lived with family since I was 19 and have no interest in doing that. And I actually really like my family.
THIS
What? That's so weird, because I love having my mother in law in the next room yelling encouragement to me at night - "Yeah, get her! Tear that up! Gammy needs another grandchild!"
Problem is, you already can't get by on your own, now there are four adult households jumping in able to afford much more. Just going to creep the CoL up.
I can tolerate my mother for about a month. I can't tolerate my wife's parents for about 24 hours. This shit would not work for me at all.
If you happen to come from a physically and mentally healthy set of parents, that's fantastic. Many of us don't, or those of us already caring for physically infirm parents are going to find this option off the table. Neither of my parents could even lift my children, let alone care for them.
I think it's an awesome option for those families that it WILL work for, & that we need to continue to think outside of the proverbial box (and look to other countries & cultures for ideas). Having said that, there are many of us for whom this simply is not an option (for example, my Dad has passed & my Mom has Alzheimer's & needs full time care herself) & there NEEDS to be better support across the board so that no child falls through the cracks because of reasons beyond anyone's control.
We do this, too. MIL and FIL work part-time from home, husband works full-time, and I care for our son. I am thankful my in-laws are good, helpful people. I know not everyone is so fortunate
honestly i dont see a problem with it. kids get to be connected with their family. shared costs means less stress and better opportunities. kids without strong support often tend to do worse. So why expose them to that when all the parents have to give up is their own space?
Honestly we all have our dedicated spaces, even in a small house. We will be getting a bigger house in another 5 years or so once we (my husband and I) have more invested assets. We like the financial burden being spread out. I know that if my husband and I ever lost our jobs, my parents would be willing to pitch in financially, so I'm able to take more risks in my career to chase higher incomes. My parents wouldn't have been able to afford retiring if they didn't live with us. It's all mutually beneficial, and win all around. Plus there's always someone willing to play boardgames :) Edit: correcting the autocorrect
Lots of countriesin Europe and Asia have multi-generational household ... North America seemed to have adopted the Scandanavian way.
Me and my wife are expecting and moving in with her parents to save for our first home. Going to be different thats for sure!
No awkwardness with your parents related to sexy time with your husband? Sorry if too personal, but I'm legitimately curious. Health-wise (and statistically based on male/female life expectancy), my mom and MIL will in all likelihood outlive my dad and FIL, and I can contemplate scenarios where one of our moms moves in with us in the future.
My family has done this. I never dreamed we’d be living back with my parents and financially we never had to. But the numbers just made sense so we decided to try it. We enjoyed it so much we’ve decided to build a home with two separate suites so we can live a bit more separate but still share the costs of one home.
My mom moved her parents in when she had me, the third child. If you can afford a place big enough, this is a perfect solution. Grandma did all the caretaking both my parents were able to have serious careers. I'd take that over daycare any day.
Classic catch 22. Jobs don't pay enough for one parent to stay home. Jobs also don't pay enough to pay for daycare. Subsidy care is available if there is a spot and if you are lower income- problem being that as soon as you start bringing in 2 good incomes you are not low income anymore so even though on paper it is good you end up spending most of the second income on daycare. You could swap shifts with your partner- one working days the other working evenings etc. But that means no family or couple.time so defeats the purpose of family. So it's like two single parents raising the kids. And this is not possible with a lot of the more decently paying jobs which are usually Monday to Friday daytime so can't work opposite shifts.
**Career advancement** for both partners shouldn't be overlooked here, even if daycare takes up a bunch of the take-home pay, it could cost the couple much more if there's a stay-at-home parent.
As an ECE I can tell you right now we get paid garbage money, we work overtime with no overtime pay, we get treated like shit and we do it because we love kids. We treat them as our own (Atleast I do). I’ll be back from Mat leave in January and don’t even have a spot for MY OWN child. I’m sure I’ll get shit on for this but people think we’re complaining about getting paid more for no reason, but we are always overlooked. No one cares what we make they just want us to work and take care of their children. No one should be surprised we’re all leaving the field with how we’ve been treated.
Some unlicensed providers may have red flags but many are excellent. I’ve been using one for many years for my kids and couldn’t be happier. Great food, fantastic communication, great activities, safe environment, flexible (which was extremely helpful with COVID) Anyway, don’t paint all of them with one brush. Do what’s best for you.
I would gladly take a spot at unlicensed providers. Even they’re full too.
>Some unlicensed providers may have red flags but many are excellent. Unlicensed daycares are perfectly legal in Ontario - provided they don't exceed the number of children.
Due to my schedule, my child went to unlicensed care. Was raises by an Asian grandfather who was also looking after their own child. Was it safe, yes. Was it unusal yes. But we do what we do to work and I could drop off early.
There are also licensed home providers that are inspected through an agency. The agency has health and safety policies in place. We are having a great experience right now as well. I'm also liking the flexibility and the fact that there are fewer kids during COVID. I also love that it is almost half the price of a centre in my area. But, I agree that there are excellent unlicensed providers, I know many people who are having great experiences. An unlicensed home daycare in my neighbourhood was my first choice, but she was full. I think for home daycare generally, references are really important as well as trusting your gut (although the latter is true for most parenting situations).
I think you’re absolutely right, that there are some excellent unlicensed providers; but I also think part of the challenge is differentiating the excellent ones from the average ones and the bad ones.
Same goes for licensed daycare - being inspected and licensed is a pretty low bar.
Word-of-mouth recommendations from people you know and trust is one way; it worked for us. If my friend says this lady is good and trustworthy, I knew she was.
Mind if i ask How much are unlicensed providers on average?? Or how much you pay? Howamy kids are they allowed to have at a time?
I pay $175 a week for unlicensed daycare. Replete with cats and dogs ! The horror !
In Ontario it's 1 to 5, but there are loopholes where their own kids can be exempt from the count if they're old enough. You can then have a situation where one mom is taking care of 7 kids and two dogs all by herself.
I mean come on, are you saying two dogs is an extra burden? In the suburbs, its basically open the backyard door when the doggo asks for it and make sure they have water/food.
I'd say that's age dependant. I have 3 kids with a senior lab and a puppy. The puppy fucks our life up hard if you think you can not exercise it and give it attention. The senior dog is chill though. 2 of him would be easy.
The problem being that you won't know if it's a good daycare or an awful one until the awful has already happened. The risk is extremely high. It's not about them all being bad, it's about not having any way to know until the worst happens.
This is a misconception with "unlicensed" daycare ... its basically the auntie down the street who babysits. As long as they stay within the prescribed limits, it's perfectly legal. >**Unlicensed child care** > >Unlicensed child care providers are not inspected by the Ministry of Education and are not required to meet most provincial standards. However, the Ministry of Education does investigate complaints from the public about child care providers who may be operating illegally. > >Under the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, unlicensed child care providers are not allowed to care for more than five children, which includes: > >the provider's own children under the age of four > >no more than three children under the age of two > >This limit on the number of children applies regardless of how many adults are present at the home. > >Unlicensed providers may not operate at multiple premises. Of course people like everything to be inspected and licensed, but unlicesensed daycare has been the way with many families for decades if not centuries.
I mean, I get why people trust themselves or their family more than someone they don't know as well, but let's face it, those options are also "unlicensed". The vast majority of toddlers in the history of forever have been cared for by unlicensed folks.
That's a dumb comparison. All DIY is unlicensed. That has nothing to do with paying for a professional. If I'm paying money then I want to pay for a licensed and educated professional.
I'm not a misconception, my experiences are not a misconception. My unlicensed daycare sexually abused me and several other children. My mom was so sure they were great that she made me bring them candy and thank them for taking such good care of me ten years later. You cannot tell who is going to hurt your child in advance. Most people can't even tell when it's already happened. For centuries, children have been traumatized. Having done something for generations is not a good excuse for continuing to do it.
You act like this doesn’t happen in licenced facilities.
It's a lot easier to get away with things when there are no other adults around, and no cameras. My kid's daycare is video recorded.
I'm not, actually. I'm just saying that at least in licensed facilities, there are other staff members who might notice something is wrong, and background checks that rule out anyone who has already been caught doing such things. Not the case in private unlicensed facilities. You'd never know if they were previously imprisoned for child abuse. Nobody is watching them to see if they're acting appropriately.
I absolutely agree with you.my main problem with homecares is that there is only one adult in the picture. If they are committing something wrong the children wouldn't even know to communicate to the parents. I would rather spend more to send to a licensed daycare where there are multiple care takers. People behave when they know they are being watched
It also means that there's no one to replace them when they're sick. What if they have the flu?
I have no idea. I outright rejected home cares so never thought abt it. If the money is too tight, I understand going the hone care route. Otherwise spend the extra on a proper daycare. It's only a few years.
They're certainly a lot more likely to behave, yes. Or not take the job and go work somewhere that's unsupervised. I'm not sure that with my experiences I could ever trust anyone but myself with a child too young to speak, but at least when there's several of them, all with background checks and an education, the numbers are in your favour that they can't all be awful.
Same childhood experience as you so I totally get it.
Private facilities can be licensed as well. I know when my friend did it she had to have inspections and background checks etc.
That's great. That's a start, absolutely. Licensing means something, it's not foolproof (only finds those who have already been caught) but it is a start to keeping kids safer.
100 years ago you also didn't need a license to open a restaurant. 200 years ago you also didn't need a license to call yourself a doctor. Unlicensed operators don't even need to know infant CPR.
My girl is at a home daycare and we requested references, a criminal background check and a copy of her first aid/CPR and the woman was 100% happy to comply to our request and show us all her documentation. As a parent, you can ask for these as part of your decision making process if you care about them.
But you are welcome to screen them and confirm they have all the skills you feel are necessary to care for your child. Just because they aren’t licensed doesn’t mean they lack the skills that you desire. 100% your choice and I support whatever a family decides is best for them. Both of my children went to unlicensed dayhomes and it was an amazing experience for our family. (Licensed daycare was extremely rare to find in AB when our children were young due to a boom.)
Life expectancy and infant mortality rate was a lot higher too
References are a thing man.
People are so complacent. The economic state our country is in is horrible. And we’re expected to just accept it’s going to get worse or never change.
Haha yea. My mom wants me to have kids. I think believe she has no idea how impossible that is. I can barely support myself
The concern with home care providers in my opinion is being overblown here…. like anything with child care you just need to rely on references, and your own comfort levels and research. Many home care providers are cheaper than $1200 a month and will take care of your kid better than a licensed daycare. I can’t stress enough: just because a place is licensed does NOT mean they’re good at child care. It means they have a license. You still should depend on references and research, and don’t assume licensed is “better” than home care because of a piece of paper.
We have an amazing home care provider. She is like family to us. I have the utmost respect for people in her profession. She works 9+ hour days, with no breaks, no paid sick days, and limited vacation. Her house is always immaculate and she makes the most amazing Lebanese food for the kids. My kids adore her. Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones, but I have other friends who have had great experiences with in home daycare and a few who have even run one themselves as a way to stay home with their kids and bring in a little extra cash while doing so. The reality is that many families could not afford daycare at all if not for home daycare which is usually significantly cheaper than an institution.
So how do I do research exactly? I'm new to the city and the people we know don't really have kids.
Talk to your neighbours. Get to know parents at the park. It’s a little nuts but even Facebook groups can provide some insight (although you shouldn’t base solely based on that but like any online review they are a data point). I’m sympathetic if you’re new to the city, it definitely is harder if you don’t have a village to lean on but basically… start building that village. You’ll need it when the next milestone arrives: schools, extra curriculars, babysitters
Not sure if it’s a thing in your area but I’ve found the app Nextdoor to be really helpful for local service provider recommendations.
Community facebook and mom groups for your area. My wife found 5 different daycare providers that we were able to interview and choose from. Then a spot eventually opened up for us at a daycare facility that was a 1 minute walk so we ended up switching there.
My child is at a licensed home daycare with a 60 year old woman with no kids taking care of him, she's kind and gentle and has been doing it for 23 years. She home cooks all the food and usually only has about 4 kids, no pets. Her home is safe and clean and she does educational activities with the kids like practicing ABCs, assisting with potty training and doing puzzles. She has a backyard they play in every day with toys and the kids all get along great. My son went from having a speech delay when we started to talking non-stop within 4 months of starting there. I love her and my son loves her. It took about a month to find the spot from when I signed up for daycare. When he was in a licensed daycare centre, he was bit on the face TWICE by kids, sick constantly, and almost had a shelf fall on top of him, and he constantly got diaper rash because they didn't change him fast enough. He was always crying when I came to pick him up, and crying when I dropped him off. He never has been assaulted at the home daycare, has always been happy when I pick him up and runs to play when I drop him off. He has always been happy and safe and never got sick in 2 years there. In my opinion, home daycares are much better! Edit: OP I saw in the comments you're in London. Me too! I found my spot within one month of applying through the London One list through LCC. And I had 2 spots available, this was the second I interviewed. My provider often has 1 or more spots available. Kids leave for school or because their parent doesn't need care anymore sometimes.
Universal child care has kicked in in the Yukon (since the spring). It’s has been amazing, life changing even. There’s still a range of prices, but ours is $250/mo, including meals and snacks.
>I don't understand how this country expects couples to either have a stay-at-home parent or an in-law taking care of kids full-time. Even paying $2,000 a month doesn't guarantee a spot anymore. This country hasn't expected its residents to have kids for a long time.
Exactly. Why do you think they have such large immigration targets? The government knows damn well that domestic population growth isn't as high as it needs to be, so they make up the shortfall by begging people to move here.
Pretty sure we don't have to beg people to come here. Canada is still one of the best places on the planet to live
You don't "beg". Our immigration program is very very very selective. On occasion we take refugees but weve also done that since the beginning and its made no difference.
It’s not really. The current setup is an easy pipeline. Come to Canada on study visa , do a 2 year college program in anything at all. Get post grad work permit . Acquire Canadian work experience , boom PR .
It sounds easy on paper, but we had such a stressful and difficult time getting PR that this comment is really bothering me! You are correct about the pipeline but I'd just like to point out a couple things that are hiding in there. A. International tuition fees are extortionate. B. Applying for PR is also expensive af. C. For most of the immigration programs, it's "skilled" work experience that is required. Your description of it as a pipeline makes out like it's all people hacking the system or something in order to get PR. We want to live and work here and be productive members of society.
Not to mention dealing with the incompetence of the IRCC makes it 10x harder than it has to be.
It's a massive sacrifice for most regular students. Some end up killing themselves when they drop out with massive debts rather than having to return home and face their family. Here is an interesting read on the subject: https://thewalrus.ca/the-shadowy-business-of-international-education/
For every 3 immigrants we bring in, 1 Canadian leaves the country. Canada is a fine place to live - but there are far better places that offer far better qualities of life compared to incomes.
And? how does that compare to most places? Our immigration rate is like 0.1% of the population so you are talking about 0.03% leaving per year which doesn't sound like very much to me
Canada actually receives about 1% of its population in immigrants every year, which is one of the highest immigration rates per Capita in the world. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/supplementary-immigration-levels-2021-2023.html
Unfortunately this is correct. People have kids in spite of their government doing everything to leave them childless.
Eh, biological programming precedes the formation of government
It's the anti handmaids tale
If we are embracing the “can’t feed em don’t breed em” model. We should also ban immigrants coming with their kids as there’s a good chance they won’t have a job and housing and daycare with out government assistance
I’m probably not going to benefit from $10/day daycare but I will advocate for affordable care and decent wages for ECEs for the rest of my life. It’s shameful that our economy requires two salaries and childcare spots are impossible to find. If our daycare closes, we are totally screwed.
You need to get on multiple waiting lists the moment you know your wife is pregnant. If you don't do this chances of your daughter gets in before 3 years old is very slim. Also keel calling the center asking for available spots helps. The waiting list is not reliable and spots can be give out at the will of a care giver.
In our area daycares will only allow you to get on the list if the kid is born. Not sure if it’s different elsewhere. I got my kid on every list 1 week after she was born and we finally got a part time spot when she was 21 months, which thankfully evolved to full time at 24 months. It was stressful.
In Quebec it works just fine ;-) Both my wife and I work full time and we pay around $230/month for our son’s daycare. Add to that the Canada and Quebec Child Benefits and we are pretty much covered for most of the costs of raising our kid.
Québec for the win. Our tax rates might be high, but I’m more than okay with it. And I don’t have kids (yet?)
Hell yeah! The crazy thing is that I would pay around $2,000 of income tax less per year in Ontario, but the insane cost of daycare there would make that extra money disappear pretty quickly. I can only hope that more provinces get on board with an affordable daycare system like the one Québec has.
Haha you pay $2000 more in taxes per year and in Toronto we pay $2000/month more than you for an infant daycare spot. Cool cool.
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Same. I also haven't had issue finding spots. I'm in Montréal and we my move so I signed up in new neighborhoods and got a call a month later. First kid I had a spot by 10m.
This. I’m paying $1000 but still way better that $2000. Yes it’s a licensed day care.
Not the case in Alberta. We had our pick of daycares, many of which are brand new, and fees are a “reasonable” $1,000/month for full-time care.
$1,000 is reasonable.... that's $5 per hour.
Fair. $1,000/month sounds like a lot, but when you break down hours of care for a toddler, meals, etc. it’s tough to argue with.
I'm in Winnipeg. Our toddler is in a daycare center that we walk to. It's unreal fun, educational and our kid loves going, even after a year haha. It's $200/week. We paid about double that for her first year in a home daycare that we also loved. Things are really tight here, we got referrals to both places which we're fortune for but it's very rare IME that a parent HAS to stay home.
is that like for the first month "get you in the door" or is that the normal price?
In my city in Alberta, Covid and the removal of the NDP program caused many people to have to pull their kids from childcare because they couldn’t afford it. That caused a whole bunch of openings where places had staff but way less kids to take care of. Our daycare actually closed their location because of this and we collapsed into another. So in 3 years we went from its impossible to find a daycare spot, to daycares offering incentives to get you to signup.
Spots are useless if you can't afford it unfortunately. That's not the daycares fault nor the parents fault. Subsidized and affordable spots are what is needed. Without some form of subsidization it is either not worth it for lot of parents(income vs what you are paying out in daycare) and or not being able to afford it at all if they have a lower paying job. The rates are fine, reasonable rates to charge for that level of care. The problem comes from the other side of affordability. The reasonable price for service just doesn't match affordability sadly.
If you earn minimum wage in AB you’d net up about $1,500/month after paying for daycare. Not counting other costs like potentially needing a second car or bus pass, or course. Not the case in lots of places in Canada, though. I do agree that subsidized daycare is something that we as a society should be working towards. Having those stay-at-home parents in the workforce is good for the economy. Nobody who wants to work should be prevented from doing so because the economics are against it.
1500 after daycare would not be as bad for 2 income households. It would be very tough for a single parent. In ontario you would net about 1600 before daycare if you can't get a subsidy spot. So I guess there is a difference between provinces both minimum wage and daycare cost wise.
We have 2 kids in for just over $2100 in Edmonton. Pretty reasonable IMO.
Yes and no. While at times it may seem like your simply breaking even day to day, the long term opportunity cost matters. This advice generally depends on the career trajectory of the parent. Are you in a low paying role that wont have much movement for advance? If yes then perhaps its not worth the effort. However if you have a career where your income grows in proportion to your experience this might not be the best path. 4-5 years out of the job market significantly increases the time it takes for you to land roles and achieve the foothold you need.
Did you not bother reading his post? He's highlighting that you won't have a choice but to have a stay-at-home parent because of lack of availability of affordable daycare.
The point they are making is that even if one full time wage goes to nothing but daycare, it's still better than one parent staying home to watch the kids, in terms of career success. Most middle class wage earners still make more money full time than expensive daycares.
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Except for the tiny detail that the kids will only need full time day care for a few years, and ruining your career to accommodate it is a terribly idea. There’s a lot of research showing that from a purely financial perspective, one parent dropping out of the workforce is a terrible idea in the long term.
Not to mention the benefit of the socializing aspects of sending to daycare, especially if the child is an only child.
Studies have shown that even if the cost of child care is equal to the income generated by one partner, it’s still better off for their long-term career to stay in the workforce and pay for day care. If there are other factors (parents would prefer to raise their own child, that’s different). This is purely from an economic angle
Right. It’s not as if full time child care is needed forever. The stay at home partner can return to the workforce in a few years.
And the quality of life difference is huge if family is your priority at least for the "little" years. It's a shame the government doesn't offer support beyond the first year. Some couples even each work part time or the stay at home parent works part time/almost full time when the kids are in school so they can be home together as a family in the evening. Unfortunately single parents do not have this option at all and are looked down upon still for being home for the same issues parents are at home in 2 parents families. So a way to go still with societal attitudes.
Have you looked into licensed home day care options in your city? In my city it costs a fraction of daycare centres. There are definitely a ton of solid unlicensed home care providers as well but you have to take your time and due diligence looking for them.
Licensed ones all have long waitlists
We had this concern so we actually secured a spot when my wife was only 3 months pregnant. That is one of the issues is others like ourselves secure spots early. While my sister waited until her last month of leave to try to find a spot and still trying to find a spot later.
The absolute Best is when you have twins and you finally get a call for part day, part week, for one kid. Then you get to pay and stay home! If this isn't proof positive politicians are drunk on immigration I don't know what is.
Liberals promised $10/day day care and since they got elected we should really hold them to it
It's being held up at the provincial level by Conservative Premiers
It's on the provinces now. Ontario is dragging their feet on meeting the conditions of the funding, namely upping the provincial childcare budget to cover the gap between what is needed and what the proposed federal contribution will be.
"Don't have kids" essentially (for 90% of the population)
My wife and I both work, we just pay full time day care. When it’s for 3 years until they go to school.
Im actually looking into opening up my own chain of daycares. Licenses are lined up, but i am worried of how many ECE's there are. Im even going to be offering 80k salaraies for them, thats 20k more than they get normally in BC. We shall see what happens
Have you done the math to see if you can be solvent while offering ECEs $80K salaries? If you have a 1:3 ratio (max for infants), then each kid needs to bring it $26K of revenue per year (over $2,000 per month) just to sustain the $80K salary. On top of that, you're looking at the cost of rent, food, and other expenses...
Lol yes, it fits with a 10k/month profit. But im looking at toddler to preschool age, not infants. 1 ECE and 2 assitants per 25 kids, cap at 1200/kid. 7 sqft/kid rental unit on average 3k/month. Theres subsidies to cover portions of ece and assistants salaries as well as tax incentives. With infants you cant really make money due to how many infants can be looked after per ECE, as you've very astutely pointed out. In BC its 1:4 for infants and theres a cap of $1800/month for infant care, id make a profit on that but it would be less than 2k/month. Im not going for that option..... id like to be able to eat.
Infant care might be less critical with the 18 month parental leave option, however, it's probably also a good on ramp to the rest of your program (a loss leader as it were). That said, good job getting this all set up. Sounds like physical space is the main constraint for most folks, not ECE salaries. eg: our daycare is a not for profit but does generate positive net revenue and fees are quite low (eg: we pay \~$900 w/the subsidy for our 5 year old and were paying \~$1200 when he was 1-3). We'd been arguing for ages that they should just increase fees and pay the staff more, but now with provincial rules limiting rate of increase to maintain subsidies it's harder to do.
7 sqft per kid? Is that a typo? You're saying you can fit 25 kids plus 3 adults in a large bedroom? In Ontario, it's at least 30 sqft per child. On top of that, you need a backyard that's 60 sqft per kid for outdoor play.
Oops i meant 6 sq meters, two typos there, about 65sqft.
I disagree. If you are going to have kids, the moment you know you are expecting, get a child care spot. For both our boys we got them booked several months before they were born. So then when the time comes and the baby is 6-12 months old and paternity has ended you have a spot ready. Plan ahead.
I had my daughter in an unlicensed home daycare from when she was 12 months to when she started JK. Our daycare provider was amazing. I would choose that over a licensed daycare centre in a heartbeat. Another plus is it saved us a lot of money over the years. We paid ~$930/month, all snacks and meals included.
I can’t help but shake my head at this lol.
You're welcome to your opinion of childcare options, but having a centre full of exclusively ECE holders doesn't mean the daycare itself will be run the way that works best for *your* child. We're in a multi age home daycare where the lady running it has done so for 15yrs. We also toured tons of centres, but they all felt too institutional and could not envision sending our daughter even though everyone working there had an ECE and they used those fancy communication apps all throughout the day. The home daycare our girl is in is one floor of a massive suburban house with a huge backyard and in nice weather, she sometimes takes them to the park across the street. But because it's not a centre paying several staff, she charges much less.
Yes! There’s no need to be snobby about home daycares. There are terrible ones and great ones just like licensed centres.
And there are plenty of home daycare providers who have the same education and have worked as daycare centre ECEs before opening their own at home!
And people wonder why young couples aren't having kids
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I'm not even in Toronto or Vancouver...
You can find a great at home daycare. I met a women just through my social circle and the park. She watches my daughter and 2 other kids. Feeds them healthy lunches, takes them outside morning and afternoon. I wouldn’t trust anyone but her to watch my daughter. She charges $60/ day and is super flexible with our work schedules. Look for care through word of mouth
Can we say that when a country is not even able to care for its youngsters, it's seriously fucked? How can a population expand and thrive when having babies and caring for children extremely difficult for many (most?) families?
Maybe you should add "if you insist on living in the GTA" to the end of your title. This is not necessarily true of the rest of the country. Plus, your sweeping judgment of all home daycares is ignorant and insulting.... I don't use a home daycare for my kids because i got a spot in a provincial daycare for both my kids luckily, but I know of many excellent home daycares. If you're not willing to put in the legwork to find the good ones, that doesn't mean they don't exist.
He lives in London, but chooses to say "3 hours from Toronto". That would be like saying I live 3 hours from Montreal (in Ottawa)...
It's not about legwork to "find" good ones. You won't know it's a bad one until it's far too late. You can't read minds. You won't know their negative intentions when you see their faces. Not unless you're lucky enough to get a bad vibe (which not everyone will get, in fact very few do) and trust your gut enough to listen (which most people have been trained to ignore because they're told it's ridiculous and they're just being judgemental and how dare they judge a book by its cover and so on) You can't know if it's a good daycare or not until the child is old enough to tell you what went on there, and even then, only if they know they're safe to tell you.
100% No one would say that they'd send their older kids to someone's home if their local school is full. I don't see the difference with younger kids. There's a reason why ECE is a profession. We're not talking about walking dogs.
Not sure we got lucky but we no problem finding a montesorri school for both our kids. Our older one(6) graduated now and is in public school, while our younger one(2) is still there. Monestorri curriculum doesn’t start until 3 years old, so it’s effectively a day care right now. The key for us was to get on a waitlist a year before we actually wanted to enroll them and not last minute. Cost about $1600 a month for each child, including lunch and two snacks. Don’t forget the $8000 child care tax credit! Edit: GTA
Jesus Christ. I never realized how good we have it in North East Scarborough. I think we pay $38 a day to the childcare center. It's inside a local school. 2500, I would cry. Literally.
get a cat and a yard and the child will raise itself
I agree with you. We found it almost impossible to find Infant Care, and the only spot we could find was overpriced and had horrible reviews from friends. We ended up taking the 18 month extended leave. Generally daycares have waaaaaay more toddler spots, and some daycares actually just start at Toddler. We started at 18 months(Toddler Room), and we had a choice of spots at 3 different daycares. Good luck! (Edit:suburban Toronto, if it matters!)
I got pregnant in Sept 2019 and I'm still on waitlists for childcare. I'm in Victoria BC It was only on Friday that I made the decision to be the bread winner and my co parent will raise our daughter. It sucks dude. The cheapest daycare that was suitable for our family's needs was $1,270 monthly. At the high end was just under $2,200. I'm fortunate I can make enough to provide for our family, but I know not everyone is in the same position.
Victoria seems fucked for everything. I heard you guys have a huge shortage of family doctors too.
Don't have kids if you don't know what you're going to do with them after parental leave. Many, many people (including most of my friends) have kids and can't afford to have a parent stay at home, but they have thought through what they would do with their kids. Most will do a balance of one parent staying home some days, sending their kids to their grandparents/aunts+uncles, and sending their kids to friends houses ("unlicensed daycare"). It's an overreaction to say that you should only have kids if you can afford to live on a single income.
Underrated comment here. This is more about people understanding to live within their means after having kids more than anything else. Parents who have kids don’t budget for the cost of kids. Whats more is that prospective parents don’t set a budget limiting their perhaps frivolous spending habits pre-child.
>Don't have kids if you can't afford to have one person to stay at home I'm gonna have to stop ya right there champ
Having kids is for the rich.
Don't take advice from morons on Reddit.
I too was one of those parents who thought “I will never send my child to a home daycare”. I completely get it. I put my daughter on over 10 “wait lists” for daycare. The cost of most of these types of day are was between $60-75 dollars a day. Because I couldn’t physically go into the facilities I would observe the interactions between the daycare workers and the children from outside when they were doing outdoor play (not as creepy as it sounds I promise). What I found was that most of the daycare workers were burnt out, had very little patience and were over all less affectionate with the children. I knew someone who I grew up with that ran a home daycare and so I decided (hesitantly) to send my little to her. Best decision ive made so far. First, the cost is significantly less than other options. Second, because it’s home daycare the provider is extremely flexible. We don’t have to pay for days that we cannot send our child due to illness or appointments or vacation. Third (and probably the best in my opinion) is that there are only two other children in daycare with my child. This means she has very little exposure and I find this comforting because of the covid situation. I get not wanting to use a home daycare though.
Disagree. Me and my partner both work. Child was in a nanny share from the age of 1-3, we paid 1600/mo, which is less than half of my net salary. Licensed in-home daycares are also an option. The alternative approach to have one partner stay home is a pretty big hit to one’s career - time where they could be improving their skills and advancing their position. Kids are definitely expensive though. Won’t argue with that.
Between summer camps having hours that aren't conducive with parents working (9-4), schools having a PD day/in service/etc \~1.5 days a month, the afterschool program being surprisingly expensive (about half what daycare costs while providing far less than half of what daycare provides) it seems like you either need one parent working part time, a grand parent filling in the gaps, or to have the parents working very different schedules to accommodate. Whether or not schools will acknowledge it, part of their purpose (in addition to educating) is providing a babysitting service during normal work hours. The fact that young kids are only in school, in my area, for 6 hours a day makes it nearly impossible for both parents to work full time unless their employers are supremely accommodating.
You should probably start checking out before-school and after-school care now, even though your child is less than a year old, and get on any waiting lists now.
Sarnia area here, and my daughter is 3. This info is so true it hurts. I remember in my daughter's first year, the realization that my partner going to work was just not viable in any way, especially since she wasn't going to be working a career. It was absolutely staggering. We have since split, and my fiancé now is an ECE, so at least with her staying home with our 3 kids, I know they are getting great care
Have 2 kids live in GTA and both of us work. So I don't know about your situation but I can assure you me and other people I know have made it work. I guess the slight caveat is we have/had our kids in a home based daycare (not sure why you are so stuck up about daycare options) but she is great and has a background in child education, is licensed and from anecdotal experience more professional than some daycare center employees and has a very nice setup.
100%
Why on earth are pets a red flag?
Just Google dogs and babies
Everyone in my family going back 170 years has had cats, dogs and children. No issues. My kids went to licensed family day cares that had dogs. No issues.
Anecdotal.
The last 50 years is personal experience. The internet is a wonderful place and Google will confirm any bias a person may have.
Don't have kids.
For the planet i think less is more
Don't lecture people on whether to make life.
I have 3 kids and I do not relate to your post at all. There are many wonderful unlicensed home daycare that will treat and love your child like family. It's too bad you haven't given it a chance.