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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NO ONE I know has ever had reliable childcare. What is your definition of reliable?
If something fell through, they had to take off work, or occasionally bring kids to work (or stay home and work with kids). We are all middle class families in the DC area.

It must be a luxury indeed to have reliable childcare. Not in my universe.

Thankfully, my kids are now teens.[/quote]

The only people I know with truly fool proof childcare coverage have both a full time nanny AND family nearby (who are able and willing to provide childcare when needed). It's a truly rare and privileged position to be in.

I have a kid in 1st grade and we do school plus aftercare plus camps plus use leave to fill in the gaps. Which is what most parents seem to do. I also have a less than FT job (30-35 hours a week, so I still work pretty full days) which helps a lot on the margins and makes pick up/drop off and activities easier. But I have two friends with kids in my child's class who, because they have younger kids, have nannies, and even though I get that they are paying a lot of money for the nannies, I'm so jealous of the fact that they pretty much never have to stress about childcare coverage. Sure, they still do camps for their older kids in the summer and they have to pay the nanny extra when she's taking care of the older kid too, but even just knowing that you basically never have to arrange for care or take time off for a random school holiday or parent teacher conference or whatever... so nice.

Like most people, we can't afford/justify a nanny for a school age child. I'd actually love to do part-time childcare if we could swing it because aftercare is pretty subpar, but that's expensive too and also it's incredibly hard to find a part-time nanny who won't quit on you after a few months for a full time gig.

Point is, 99.9999% of parents will have gaps in childcare, especially for elementary kids who cannot be left alone (or for many early elementary kids, to self-entertain elsewhere in the house) but also are not going to have full time daycare or a nanny because they are in school for approximately 50% of the days of the year. It's a maddening problem given how common it is -- why haven't we figure out how to solve it on a societal level instead of just leaving every parent to fend for themselves? That's what other, more civilized countries do.[/quote]

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