What do they expect people with infants/toddlers to do?

[Anonymous]

Many people I know have a relative caring for the children. Grandma, Grandpa or Aunts.

[Anonymous]

I can tell you my Mom participated in child sharing/caring with other Moms and these arrangements were commonplace in the 1960's.

Five Moms. Each Mom takes a day. You tell your employer you can work 4 days a week. The kids get dropped off at the Mom of the day.

Daycare as a business was not such a thing in the 1960s. You had to be creative to get your childcare.

This arrangement was pretty common in Bowie in the 1960s and allowed Moms to work.

[Anonymous]

Have you considered flying one of the grandmas in? Or greatgrandmas in? She would probably appreciate that you asked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can tell you my Mom participated in child sharing/caring with other Moms and these arrangements were commonplace in the 1960's.

Five Moms. Each Mom takes a day. You tell your employer you can work 4 days a week. The kids get dropped off at the Mom of the day.

Daycare as a business was not such a thing in the 1960s. You had to be creative to get your childcare.

This arrangement was pretty common in Bowie in the 1960s and allowed Moms to work.

Again, why does the responsibility fall on the moms? In this day, it should be dads as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can tell you my Mom participated in child sharing/caring with other Moms and these arrangements were commonplace in the 1960's.

Five Moms. Each Mom takes a day. You tell your employer you can work 4 days a week. The kids get dropped off at the Mom of the day.

Daycare as a business was not such a thing in the 1960s. You had to be creative to get your childcare.

This arrangement was pretty common in Bowie in the 1960s and allowed Moms to work.

One person carrying for 5+ infants/toddlers who is not used to doing so sounds like a great idea. What could go wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am just really fortunate to work for a good employer that values employee loyalty/tenure and performance.

OP here.

I'm actually in that situation. I actually have a ton of leave saved up, and I work for an employer that would bend over backwards to accommodate me. My spouse isn't as lucky in that regard.

But I don't think its fair to either me or my employer to expect me to either take an indefinite period of leave, or work with very low productivity for an extended period of time.

Fair? It's a global pandemic. I's not about fair. Until child care centers an schools can open up NORMALLY, companies will just have to absorb low productivity. That's just how it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am just really fortunate to work for a good employer that values employee loyalty/tenure and performance.

OP here.

I'm actually in that situation. I actually have a ton of leave saved up, and I work for an employer that would bend over backwards to accommodate me. My spouse isn't as lucky in that regard.

But I don't think its fair to either me or my employer to expect me to either take an indefinite period of leave, or work with very low productivity for an extended period of time.

Fair? It's a global pandemic. I's not about fair. Until child care centers an schools can open up NORMALLY, companies will just have to absorb low productivity. That's just how it is.

LMAO. Sure they will.

[Anonymous]

After juggling for 10ish weeks care for an infant and toddler full time with one adult working ft and one working 50%, we hired a nanny so the other parent could go back to 100% small condo so it will be a cluster to have 3 adults and 2 kids but we saw no other option. What we were doing was stop gap not long term. Not clear when daycare was opening (or if it would go under or reduce capacity or only offer part time care) . Nanny is about 20% more than care for 2 compared to our daycare which was a below average price for dc. But it is an astronomical price. And socks. So yes it sucks more for people who can't afford a nanny. Wash for people with only one kid because we may have been able to handle just one kid and keep her home but that was not possible with two. If we had one we may have looked for part time help in more of a mothers helper type of role.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can tell you my Mom participated in child sharing/caring with other Moms and these arrangements were commonplace in the 1960's.

Five Moms. Each Mom takes a day. You tell your employer you can work 4 days a week. The kids get dropped off at the Mom of the day.

Daycare as a business was not such a thing in the 1960s. You had to be creative to get your childcare.

This arrangement was pretty common in Bowie in the 1960s and allowed Moms to work.

Again, why does the responsibility fall on the moms? In this day, it should be dads as well.

Lol. Men are very capable of caring for a child, but at least for my husband, multitasking is hard enough when children aren’t involved. Involve multiple children and disaster may ensue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can tell you my Mom participated in child sharing/caring with other Moms and these arrangements were commonplace in the 1960's.

Five Moms. Each Mom takes a day. You tell your employer you can work 4 days a week. The kids get dropped off at the Mom of the day.

Daycare as a business was not such a thing in the 1960s. You had to be creative to get your childcare.

This arrangement was pretty common in Bowie in the 1960s and allowed Moms to work.

Again, why does the responsibility fall on the moms? In this day, it should be dads as well.

Lol. Men are very capable of caring for a child, but at least for my husband, multitasking is hard enough when children aren’t involved. Involve multiple children and disaster may ensue.

Women have been socialized to believe it's their responsibility to care for children, and men have been socialized to believe it's not their responsibility. How many of us have husbands who self-congratulate themselves for being such involved fathers but took less than half of the parental leave they were entitled to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you would not hire a nanny if your kids are not school aged. All the more if you have two or more kids. Heck, I have one five year old and I am thinking of hiring a nanny.

Oh yeah, the 38 million Americans who are unemployed are going to hire a fking nanny.

Fk you, PP.

Calm down, what is with the temper tantrum? Why would 38 million UNEMPLOYED Americans hire nannies? The OP is talking about her EMPLOYED self and her EMPLOYED husband. That's a dual income family with two kids - it's the same price to hire a nanny as it is to send them to daycare.

[Anonymous]

Nannies are $40-60k per year plus paying taxes and benefits. 1 kid FT in preschool is $24k. Less if in a more affordable option.

That is why I can’t just “hire a nanny”.

[Anonymous]

Lock these nannies up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is probably more venting than an actual question... But I'd still love to hear others' thoughts on this.

While Maryland is (sort of) loosening restrictions on who can use the essential personnel daycares, it's still being heavily regulated and restrictive. Daycares can't open without going through a fairly complicated process, so people's regular daycares are often not open.

Yet, many of us are expected to work- if not going into work, at least working from home.

What exactly does the county/state expect people with infants and toddlers to do? Do they really think we should be sending our kids to the opened daycares that are now filled with only high-risk kids? And now that the state is no longer paying for daycare, that might mean paying for daycare twice: 1) paying your "regular" daycare to reserve your spot, and 2) paying the temporary essential personnel daycare.

They're putting parents in an impossible situation by not giving parents more (paid) child care options. The least they could do would be to completely deregulate providers caring for children in a single family (or perhaps even 2-3 families).

OP,

There are a lot of different issues going on in your post.

1. If daycare is open and you feel it is not safe, that's your decision. There is some data on infections in centers for essential workers and the vast majority of centers have been able to safely operate. When two centers in CO have to close temporarily due to cases, that is what we hear rather than the fact that hundreds or maybe thousands of facilities that reopen had no incidents.
2. Paying daycare while they are closed is up to the center. For better or worse, they are businesses that need to survive and government is not going to bail them out.
3. Deregulating day care temporarily is a terrible idea.

I have an infant and a toddler and think we need to prioritize getting daycares open with protocols recommended by CDC. Even more dire will be then they open at half capacity and many people can't get care.

Our society's reaction to COVID is mind boggling. On the one hand, we have shameful fools in the white house stoking controversy of mask wearing. On the other hand, we can't seem to put risk in perspective and figure out how to open an essential service like child care. In one weekend we shut down the country and I fear it will take years to unravel this mess. Yes, there is risk, but the risk to young children and parents is very low, and the benefits (indeed the necessity) of opening child care far outweighs the risk.

[Anonymous]

Benefits don’t weight the risk, gtfo out