The Cost Of Children

The other day, while in the grocery store, I checked out the price of diapers. Not too bad - just a few cents per diaper. I can live with that. A jar of baby food - a little too high. I could make ten jars for the same price....plus the cost of the jars...plus time and effort.

Anyway I decided to check the cost of childcare these days. Although I didn't have to put my kids in day care until they were about 5 months and 3.5 years respectively - it cost me $8,000.00 in the first year. That was probably half of my wage at the time. I should have just quit back then. Live and learn.

So now the costs have gone up and it will be $8,112.00 for the first year just for this one little tiny baby. Ok, anywhere from $7,250 to $8,112 depending on the number of hours. This of course is not considering time off, holidays, vacations, etc. It is $4.55 per hour and I get a discount because it's my company's daycare center. It has to include travel time so I drop him off early enough so that I can get to work and I have to travel to pick him up afterwards.

So we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% to 37% of my income depending on whether you consider gross or net and how many hours I have him in care.

Is that worth it? Consider of course that my whole entire income right now is NECESSARY to our family. Plus I provide the health insurance and the AFLAC for unreimbursed medical expenses to cover dental, eyeglasses, and co-pays. So if I weren't working where would all of that money come from? So if my income is necessary right now, what happens when it's cut by 25 to 30 percent? Then I don't have enough income even to pay the basic expenses I'm paying now.

So I guess my options would be:

• Get one hell of a raise;
• Quit my day job and work nights in some factory for half the wage....and who knows what that means to insurance;
• H has to get an additional job (HA!);
• H has to quit school - just not a good idea because he'll resent me and the child for the rest of his existence and everything will "suck";
• Have my mom watch the baby on Mondays when she doesn't work;
• Possibly have my sister watch the baby sometimes on a scheduled basis if she hasn't moved out of state by then;
• Just throw in the towel and live in my car

Not sure which one(s) I'll choose. Actually I'm not that keen on my family watching my kid. I just don't like the way they do it. My sister gets way too stressed and has a medical condition so sometimes I know she just wouldn't be capable. She's no longer able to coordinate and facilitate enriching activities either. Plus I'm TOTALLY not comfortable with either her or her husband driving my kids because of both of their medical conditions. My mom would probably just shop and watch tv all the time - but I guess she'd be ok.

I mean what choice do I have really?