School is Out Again...
Since the new year, my school age kid has been at home 6.5 days of 25 working days. With school being out so often, here are my go-to back-up childcare solutions.
When my little one started kindergarten, a common question I got was: “What are you going to do all day now that your kid is in school?”
I used to think I might be able to pick up a hobby or learn a new skill in addition to picking up new consulting clients. However, since then I’ve been shocked by how many more work hours there are than school hours. School is not childcare, and to keep working I still need to stitch together childcare in order to keep my day job.
The Math: School Covers ~50% of Work Hours
The academic day often begins well before the typical workday does, sometimes as early as 7 a.m. However, it is not unusual for children to be released from school as early as 2 p.m. For the average workday, work hours run until 4 p.m. or later (then add in time zone differences), leaving a gaping hole between the end of the school day and the end of work.
Compounding this issue are the numerous half-days, professional development days, and holidays that dot the school calendar throughout the year. That does not factor in sick days or other personal reasons for children to be pulled out of school (such as a family emergency). For some situations, that can mean a kid is out of school one day for every week of school. Not to mention the occasional extended school vacation that could range from a long weekend to a week or more.
The summer months, perhaps the longest child-care-free zone, stretch out for somewhere between 8 to 12 weeks. While they signify the break from education, for working parents, it can mean an annual scramble to piece together care solutions, from camps to community centers, to friends and family stepping in.
Paying to Work
For every $1.00 in gross income, parents might only have $0.60 to $0.80 post-tax left to pay for childcare coverage
With children out of school, parents have to figure out how to cover those hours, and very often, it means paying for childcare help. Working with after-tax dollars, this is a particularly painful line item in family budgets.
For every $1.00 in gross income, parents might only have $0.60 to $0.80 on the dollar left, after taxes, to pay for childcare. This means that while the child is out of school, the money earned during that time has a diminished value.
Here’s a closer look. There are approximately 1,000 hours of gap between school coverage and work hours. There are a couple of common solutions to procuring childcare to cover those hours:
Nanny / Babysitters usually cost $15 - 30 per hour. Annualized Cost: $15,000 to $30,000. Although expensive, this cost becomes more cost-effective with more kids, so a nanny-share or a larger family may still benefit from this option.
Afterschool Programs: In shared care settings, like before and after-school programs and summer camps, the expense can be less per hour but still be significant per child. Assuming childcare costs of $250 per week for approximately 15 weeks of school vacation weeks and summer camp, that sums up to ~$3,750 for one child. For two kids, that cost is now $7,500 per year.
The median household income for an American family of 4 is $120,000. This cost is therefore between 6.75% to 25% of a median family’s gross income.
Getting Creative with Childcare
Since my kid started school and I’ve quit my full-time job to cover the home front, these additional childcare costs are a “nice to have” and not a “must have". However, I still run my own consulting business, and clients aren’t going to be happy if I miss their deadline because my kid was out of school (again). Given this, it’s vexing when I’m told to just ask a grandparent to help.
But moms are resourceful! I’m learning from the parents around me and through my own experiences to find alternative solutions that have helped my family stitch together a solution that we’ve been happy with without breaking the bank or our sanity.
1. Public School After, Before, and Summer Programs
Most childcare programs offered by the public school or the town are the most affordable, coming in at a fraction of the cost of private options. But they can 1) be hard to sign up for, since it’s in-person sign-up (no website) or 2) have limited spots because demand outpaces supply (usually in dense cities).
Honestly, I didn’t know about these programs until one of my kid’s friend’s mom randomly mentioned it at a group playdate. They are not widely marketed and rarely pop up on internet searches, so parents would need to ask around the school and community (ideally in casual talk with other parents) to figure out how to sign up.
2. Local YMCA, Community Center, or Gym with Drop-In Daycare
This is a hidden gem. A gym with drop-in daycare has been a pure gold mine for me, providing up to 2 hours of drop-in childcare daily Monday thru Saturday. There are a few caveats though. Most of these locations are not necessarily licensed as a daycare facility and may require parents to remain onsite, while the children are in the dedicated kids space. Some may require advanced scheduling or may have additional fees. In our situation, the drop in childcare is just a feature of our membership, so in some ways it’s a free perk, and it suits my work needs of ad hoc hour coverage.
3. Rely on Other Parents in Your Community
It takes a village to raise a child is an apt saying. In small communities, parents coming together to help out with pick-up, drop-off, and a few hours of after school play dates is a natural development from building out a local parent community.
To set this up, both families would probably need to know each other well and are comfortable with the adults and children in both families. The school will require the appropriate forms to be completed for authorized adults, and each family must be equipped with the appropriate transportation requirements like booster seats and car seats.
4. Join a Team Sport
I never thought that team sports would give me dedicated work time, but it does. Most kid’s afterschool activities range between 30 to 45 minutes until the kids get older. However, kids in various team sports can be there 1.5-3 hours per day for 2-3 days per week starting as young as 5 years old.
This has the added benefit of getting all of the energy out of the children before bedtime. This might not work for everybody, but for some families this may be a great solution, especially families with high energy kids.
Remember, the goal here isn’t for the kid to turn pro, but rather to get them to be kids, build a skill, hang out with friends, and burn that immense, boundless amount of energy that they have after a day cooped up in school. While giving their parents much needed time to log some work hours.
5. Bring Your Kid to Work
Desperate times call for desperate measures. My last (and now most frequent) resort has been bringing my kid to work. That being said, I have switched to 100% remote work to make this feasible.
COVID has normalized kids popping up on work calls, so I’ve felt less concerned with having my kid at home when I work. New clients would usually ask if I need to reschedule when my kid is at home which used to make me feel awkward. However, now I just say “no, let’s keep going”, briefly introduce my kid, and then proceed with the call as I shoo the little one away after a hug and a bribe (like a chocolate cookie).
Over time, my child and I are now both much more comfortable with me working while they are at home. They are still somewhat disruptive, but things generally work. Sometimes they can run errands for me while I’m stuck at my desk, like grab mommy a drink or a snack.
Even for my spouse who works in the office, my kid can now on some days go into the office with him so I get a dedicated work day at home. The kid can now spend the day reading books and just hanging out quietly drawing in a notebook while listening to a podcast or an audiobook. They are mature enough to handle themselves in an office setting because they understand their parents’ work enable their livelihood.
Not a Chore, but Partner in Crime
As our childcare solutions has evolved over time, I’ve found that engaging my child in our childcare solution has been the most productive, at least for our family.
They would be open to a team sport but opposed to an after school program. They would be willing to engage in independent play at home as opposed to having to get up early for a before school program. They have input within the parameters defined to operate as they see fit, giving them a sense of autonomy and control, while also lessening their resistance to whatever program they’ve been signed up for. It’s much easier to get cooperation from “You signed up for this” versus “Because I said so”. Finding childcare has become less of a chore, and my kid is more of my partner in crime. We’re figuring out: “how is mommy going to make money today?”
With the sign off from my partner in crime, I stress less about childcare when a snow day, a sick day, or a random holiday pops up now. I still get annoyed at how disruptive these schedule changes are, but I also know I have an arsenal of solutions at my disposal with my partner in crime in tow.
Work can still get done, and we’ve got a not so bad day ahead of us.