The Importance of Day Care - by Kendel Holdorf

Day cares for children have been a controversial topic for years. For most parents it is a crucial part of the way they can achieve goals, work hard, or simply complete a small task at home. Some opinions state that a parent must choose between not going to work or only working to pay for such a high cost (Rhodes and Lukas, 2016.) In 2020, it was recorded that there were about 23.6 million children between the ages of 0-5 (Duffin, 2022.) With so many families being part of that number with children under the kindergarten age, what options do they have to continue working to provide for their family?

In 2019 I gave birth to my first son, was a single mom, and had just received my esthetician license. I worked very hard to go to class while pregnant and rush to work immediately after and do it all over again the next day. I knew I wanted a better career than serving so I was able to spend time with my son, stay financially stable, and just to have more of a scheduled routine. I lived within walking distance from a daycare in Oregon that I was interested in taking Julian to. It was important to me that I found a job with my new certificate, as I didn’t want all the money I spent on student loans, and am still paying off, to have been for nothing. I was given a tour and fell in love and was extremely confident with this establishment. The woman who gave me the tour sat me down and went over pricing and I was blown away.

It would’ve been $2,000 a month for Julian to attend 5 full days a week. In the year 2019, I only made $26,395, take away the $24,000 it would be just to send my son to daycare so I am able to work, and I would’ve been left with $2,395 a year! Trust me, I have gotten the “well why did you have a kid if you can’t afford one” judgments over and over but I am hoping to explain it. It is not that I couldn’t afford my child, children are quite cheap in my opinion, it is the things they require the most that has been marked up to a price that becomes a dream to reach. Reports show that in 2019 the average cost of daycare across the country was $9,687 (Vega, 2022.) In all honesty, have you ever been able to save $9,687 in one year? If so, then a huge congratulations to you, but the majority of people most likely haven’t so if it’s hard to imagine putting away that kind of money in only a year, can you imagine spending that kind of money on one thing in only a year?

When I was younger my mother was also a single parent. She started with having our roommate, Peggy, watch me during the day, then eventually moved me into daycare. It was such an important thing for her that I was being cared for during the time she needed to work, because not working was absolutely no choice for her. In 2000, we lived in San Diego, my mother made $2400 a month working for a bank, and paid $425 monthly for me to attend at the facility I went to. It created a struggle for her but in her own words, “I had no other option, and I needed to work.” Once in I was able to attend kindergarten and there was no more fees involved my mom found herself facing another bump in the road. At this time we had moved to Arizona and she had switched jobs, but this came with a start time of 6:00 am and with school not starting until around 8:00 am what was she to do? Luckily the school I attended had a early morning program called LEAP. It allowed parents to drop their kids off to the school early so they were able to get to work on time.

Due to the price I couldn’t afford, I stuck with my serving job and worked nights while I stayed at home with my son during the day. When I moved back to Arizona, in 2020, I didn’t have my mom with me and I needed to find daycare to be able to work during the day and be at home at night. Without daycare services I couldn’t work what I needed to, and without working I couldn’t afford daycare. Being a single mom I didn’t have a choice, I needed a job and so I began looking for programs to help. The one I was told about the most was DES, a program through the state to help ease the amount I needed to pay. The way it works is you must provide your gross yearly income and they will determine the amount you pay based off what you make. As COVID restrictions were starting to lift, I finally found a job with my esthetician license. I was able to get the aid I needed and only needed to pay $140 a month for daycare as the government assistance took care of the rest.

I now have two more kids and am still on the same program. I do have to pay more than the initial $140 because of the obvious reason I have more children in the daycare, but without it, I wouldn’t be able to have gone back to college, or work the amount of shifts I need to provide for my family. Another program I recently learned about is through Pima Community College. I received an email shortly after starting my first semester’s classes about a new program that can help with childcare costs and if I didn’t qualify for theirs, they could direct me to a list of other programs to help with cost. This specific assistance you do need to be DES certified already, but the copay is either paid for or they provide help with paying for the full amount. There are also scholarships available, that are run by local non-profit organizations and even some state funded pre-kindergartens that can give you a low fee or no fee at all.

Applying for DES daycare assistance can be done in a few ways, online, in person, or over the phone. An application will need to be completed and turned in, personally, I printed it from the website (https://des.az.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/dl/CCA-0001A.pdf?time=1670436536629) and I mailed it in. There are specific locations around Tucson that the application can be taken to as well. It is also an option to call 1-800-867-5808 and speak with someone over the phone to answer the application questions. This way can be extremely time consuming as there have been times I have been on hold for an hour to two hours so make sure you have enough time to complete it this way. Overall I have always felts speaking with someone on the phone is the most productive since you are able to answer any questions that might come up or provide further information if needed and it speeds up the process. To apply through Pima’s program, counselors and advisors can assist with providing the application and answer any questions with what documents need to be given to complete the process for getting approved.

Not only do daycare and preschool programs allow parents the opportunity of going to work, but it helps the children as well. Since my kids have been enrolled in daycare, I have noticed the amount of new knowledge they obtain and things I didn’t know they knew. Although it is not completely true that children who attend these programs have a better outcome than the ones who don’t (Lowry, n.d.) However, personally, I have noticed that my oldest is very outgoing, polite, smart, and overall has developed skills very early and quickly. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that children who attended a daycare facility showed better cognitive and language development, fewer behavioral problems at the ages of 2-3, and a better understanding of numbers and letters (Lowry, n.d.)

Daycare programs are a great way to help parents carry on with their normal work life or daily tasks. It relieves stress off of us parents and doesn’t keep raising the questions in our minds of where will my children go today? Without daycare I wouldn’t be at the point in my life of working at my degree and achieving my goal of becoming a nurse so I can better provide for my children. Without the government assistance or the application I sent in through Pima to additionally help with costs, I wouldn’t have had the chance to achieve any of this. The best part about sending my sons to daycare, is that they love it, and hearing about their day and what they’ve learned, seeing the new skills they’ve gained, is an amazing feeling.

References

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Does child care make a difference to children’s development? (n.d.).
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Kamenetz, A. (2020, July 31). What Are Parents Doing For Child Care? Here Are 3 Options (With Trade-Offs). NPR.org.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/31/897164159/what-are-parents-doing-for-child-care-here-are-3-options-with-trade-offs

Lukas, C. R. S. E. &, Lehrer, E., & Rose, M. (n.d.). The Uncomfortable Truth about Daycare. National Affairs.
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publ...-about-daycare

Peacock, J. (2021, August 9). Why Child Care is Important for Parents. Procare Solutions. |
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Statista. (2022, September 30). Number of children in the U.S. in 2020, by age group.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...the-us-by-age/

The Importance of Preschool and Child Care for Working Mothers. (2013, May 8). Center for American Progress.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-importance-of-preschool-and-child-care-for-working-mothers/

Vega, N. (2022, February 21). Child care now costs more than $10,000 per year on average—here’s why that’s a problem. CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/21/aver...-per-year.html