responsible 10 year old taking care of 6 year old

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's funny, because we were considering a very similar thing. Let's see if these facts change the responses:

1. We have a 10 and 7 year old, currently in SACC pre-care. SACC is about $430/month for the two of them.

2. I have a hybrid schedule, WFH two days a week. My wife is a high school teacher with late start every other day. My wife occasionally has early meetings.

3. When I work from home or when my wife has late start without any meetings, we stay home and walk the kids to the bus stop.

4. About five times per month, we use SACC, when both my wife and I need to go into work early on the same day. We never use SACC on teacher work days, since my wife teaches in the same district.

5. When I go into the office, there is about a 1 hour gap before the school bus comes.

6. Our 10-year-old is very responsible. The 7-year-old is fine but not an uber-rule-follower.

So we are basically paying $430/month for 5 hours of childcare per month. If we didn't have SACC, and in months with a bunch of holidays, we'd probably even reduce that to 2-3 hours per month where the kids would be home alone and have to get themselves to the bus stop.

What says DCUM? How long do we keep paying for SACC? Do we stop it for the 10 year old but keep it going for the 7 year old? Do we keep it for both this year, but stop it when they are 11 and 8?

One final factor is that SACC pre-care has a 3 year waitlist at our school, so I feel selfish holding three spots. My wife's view is we should not feel selfish and she doesn't trust the 7-year-old to always follow the directions of the 10-year-old.

You keep it up all through elementary school. The main reason is because you leave an hour before the bus. I might have a different answer if you left 10-15 minutes before the bus. The alternative might be dropping them at the house of another family on your bus route. But, 2-3 times a month is different than regularly 5 times month, which is also at least once a week. Basically, I’d say you use your spot and should keep it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you have children if you couldn't or refuse to care for them?

No, your elder child should not be raising his younger sibling.

This is a deranged overreaction. A 10 year old babysitting a younger sibling is totally normal. Waucthing a younger sibling after school until a parent gets home is not "raising" a sibling.

[Anonymous]

We are in a similar situation, 10 year old (very responsible) and 7 year old.

What made me decide not do rely on my oldest for 30 minutes of care twice a week is that if something happened I don’t think I would be able to forgive myself or my oldest. Better to be safe than sorry. So 10 year old comes home by themselves and 7 year old goes to care after school.