I remember reading somebody blogging about an article about a single mom who couldn't afford childcare, but was having another child, and the person she was writing in to suggested that she split the cost of a nanny or au pair with her in-laws and have her watch all of the children. I don't remember how many kids the in laws had but I would hate to be that nanny - watching at least 2 toddler age children and a brand new infant, all at once? The suggested amount to spend on the nanny was about $20,000 - I think they were in Boston, so that wouldn't go very far. I wouldn't want to know that my nanny had to go home every day to her crackerbox apartment because I couldn't pay her enough to live someplace as nice as (presumably) my house. I guess that's the employer's dilemna though, for businesses too. You want to pay them more but you can't afford to, without sacrificing your own security. But being a nanny is definitely a hard task and I think they should be generally paid more. At least daycare providers have other people around to help, and can call off sick without causing serious problems for the family, because she is the only one there.
Another mother I met recently at a playgroup recently was saying she wanted to find an illegal immigrant to hire as a nanny because then she could pay them less. She felt that since she was doing the person a favor by taking a risk and hiring them illegally, they didn't have the right to ask for more money. Smoke started coming out my ears. I barely got out of there without causing a scene.
The fact that salaries for child care workers are so low just goes to show how much we really appreciate the people that have to do this for a living. It's absolutely awful. Also taking into account that moms that stay at home don't count towards GDP for all their sweat or get social security points either.
Child care providers do such incredibly important and difficult work...
Unfortunately, the median hourly wage for child care workers is $7.34. Benefits are usually minimal; it varies by region and by type of child care center, but typically less than half of centers offer health insurance, and at many of the ones that do, few workers can participate because the employer pays very little so it costs too much. Benefits packages are often light on paid vacation, sick days, holidays, let alone things like retirement benefits. Turnover at child care centers averages about 30-40% a year. (I have no idea what things are like at your particular center, obviously, but those are the stats for the industry as a whole.)
And all this at the same time that most families struggle with the high costs. There's a slogan that goes, "Parents can't afford to pay, teachers can't afford to stay, there's got to be a better way." When you add up the numbers, it's just really hard. The only way I can see to help things work better for parents, kids, and child care providers is to crank the public investment way up...
I'd rather live on what I pay them than have to do the horrible job of watching the bratts 24 hours day!
ROFL
Very interesting post that brings up a lot of thoughts. I was a partially nanny raised child. My parents paid her as much as they could in addition to starting a savings account for school later now. Right now we have a part-time nanny and we pay her ten dollars an hour but I cringe everytime she jokes about not having money for gas because I know that although shelling out $1,500 a month for childcare is a lot, it's also hardly enough to live on.
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