Child care is crazy expensive if you have two working parents with full time jobs. Most schools or day cares let out around three. If you normally get home between six and seven like most people do then you still need to figure out a few hours of care which means hiring someone. But finding a good person who only wants those hours is hard. And even if your daycare has late hours many people don’t want their kid in daycare for that long, since they don’t get individual attention and if you can afford it you probably don’t want your child in daycare from 8-6 every day. So unless you have family nearby who help you raise kids, it can cost a fortune.
> Child care is crazy expensive if you have two working parents with full time jobs.
Childcare is expensive, but it's still a fraction of the after-tax compensation of most professional jobs. Recent tax changes have made it even more affordable.
> Most schools or day cares let out around three. If you normally get home between six and seven like most people do then you still need to figure out a few hours of care which means hiring someone.
Every daycare we toured was open until 5-6PM. I don't know anyone who hires additional help for a couple hours in the afternoon. If you're in tech, it's not hard to find a job that allows both parents to stagger their working hours so that one can pick them up.
Around here, it's very common for parents of young children to come into the office early and leave early to pick up kids. It's a common practice and plenty of companies support it.
> So unless you have family nearby who help you raise kids, it can cost a fortune.
Again, this hasn't been my experience nor that of any of my parent friends. Also keep in mind that kids grow up fast and daycare isn't something you need to do forever.
Frankly, most non-parents I know have vastly overestimated how expensive and painful it is to raise kids. This is especially true of those who grew up reading Reddit, where angry /r/childfree posts used to hit the front page with regularity.
