Daycare, WTF

I had never realized how expensive daycare was as this is not something I had heard most of my parent friends discuss before I had my own child. But because there is no national childcare subsudies and public daycare like there is for elementary school later, we were forces to pay over $2100 a month for 3 days a week of daycare. The place we have our daughter going is not even a fancy place, this is pretty standard nationwide. If instead, we had gone with 5 days a week, it was $3000 a month. When you are paying that much, you wonder whether it would be more cost affective to stay at home and do your own child care, before remember that even with 2 incomes, you would not be able to pay the mortgage and other bills. Only paying basic necessities, I always wonder how the working class is able to survive and why its so important to struggle against the owners of capital and wealth for a better life.

Parenting is difficult

Ever since I can remember, I always thought I would make a good father and hoped that I could be anywhere as decent a parent as my own parents were in raising me and my brother. So it came as no suprise when I was settled down with my partner and we thought ourselves financially able that we also decided to have a kid. Despite having such a nice, precocious, funny, and cute baby, the whole process is still exhausting. Sleepless nights, getting pooped on (both when changing diapers and sometimes in blow outs), having to plan childcare during all waking hours and having limited time to pursue other hobbies is hard. I still find the whole process worthwhile, as our daughter has quite a funny personality, but there is a general attitude that every generation has troopered on without a whimper so there is nowhere for existing parents to kvetch and complain. (other than to therapists). It has to be one of the most difficult responsibilities there is, so it is always nice bumping into friends with kids and discussing the madness and chaos of parenting. That being said, I do feel that the experience is different when my mother came to visit as for once there was an additional hand in watching Elena while one of us cooked or napped and I can see how large extended families willing to help out really ease the burden of childcare. How anyone can attend to twins, triplets, or other multiple kids of the same age, seems like a massive achievement, haha.