When Karen Erickson weighed the possibility of placing her daughter into day care versus staying home, she came up with a plan that not only benefited her, but other families as well. She launched a home-based day care for children ages 15 months to 2-years old, but soon discovered that more and more families are unable to afford the expense.
“I did it for about a year,” she says.
Erickson, who was certified as a childcare facility operator, and had worked with Smart Start, an area agency dedicated to promoting safe and educated childcare programs, had several children in her charge. But the families, she says, soon became victim to a volatile economy.
“I had one family struggling because they got laid off at the floor plant (in Virginia Beach, Va.),” she says. “It was a husband and wife and they were struggling with their income.”
Other families, she says, backed out as well, citing economic difficulties. Eventually, Erickson lost her business because she had no children to care for other than her daughter.
Erickson’s experience is by no means limited to the Albemarle region. In fact, according to a recent Associated Press report, it’s a national trend, and families from coast to coast are looking for alternatives to the high cost of childcare.
These days Erickson, a 35-year-old wife and mother of three, is drawing unemployment while looking for a job in a market that apparently has little to offer in the way of employment. While her husband works for Pepsi Cola, Erickson says she is required to apply for at least two jobs a week.
“But I’m not seeing two jobs each week,” says Erickson.
Here at home and across the country the trend in declining day care rolls is climbing. More and more parents are finding themselves unable to pay for childcare or have determined that it is more feasible to work nights while a spouse at home cares for the child.
“People are making decisions to stay at home or continue to go to work and have relatives take care of their children,” says Denauvo Robinson, president of Smart Start.
Robinson says this trend can be traced back to last summer when gas prices were at an all-time high. Families, he says, were forced to make decisions on spending that in many cases left childcare off the budget.
“It’s the economy,” says Robinson. “It’s people having to make some decisions about the cost of childcare and the amount of income they can make.”
Krystal Spence is a 24-year-old college-educated mother of a two-year old, and one on the way. She says her children’s father is now out of the picture and she’s on doctor-ordered bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.
In order to qualify for childcare assistance through the Department of Social Services, Spence must be working. Since she’s on bed rest she cannot afford the more than $500 a month cost.
“The only way to afford (childcare) is with Social Service’s help,” Spence says.
She explains that she has been working at an area restaurant and the benefits there are not enough to keep her children covered by insurance, much less pay for day care. Once she gives birth to her child, and the baby is old enough, she will return to work and hopefully have her childcare assistance reinstated.
Spence says childcare not only helps her care for her son while she is at work, but also gives him a social outlet that is now missing in his life.
“He’s a lot happier when he’s going to day care,” she says. “He looks forward to it everyday.”
Childcare advocate and day care center operator Patricia Pledger says she is seeing more and more families drop out of childcare due to the economy. And she’s concerned about the trend because not only does it signal difficult times for families, but she also believes in the benefits of early childhood development programs.
“You want to have something safe and secure where children are learning and have fun,” says Pledger who owns Pledger’s Palace Child Care in Currituck County.
As a childcare advocate, Pledger says she believes that parents who are pulling their children from childcare facilities are making a mistake. She says she understands and sympathizes with concerns over the economy, but she sees this as a priority for children who are in need of care and, “Some people don’t feel like it is a priority.”
“Quality care is a top priority,” Pledger adds. “But parents seem to want premium, quick care set at the lowest price.”
The price for childcare can run high. According to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Parent Referral Agencies, day care costs nationwide can run from $3,380 to $10,787 a year for just one preschool-age child.
For Krystal Spence to pay childcare out of pocket, at her current rate, she must come up with $6,900 annually. Pledger says one thing parents must understand when looking at childcare centers and cost is that the state has a star rating system and the more stars required, the higher educated childcare employees must be in order to meet the standards.
“You can’t hire a teacher with a bachelors or associates degree and pay them $6 an hour,” she says.
Smart Start’s Robinson says one concern is that families with little-to-no resources for childcare are turning to young family members to care for young children. He cites an extreme incident this past summer when a 9-year-old girl in a nearby county was caring for infants while the parents were at work.
“We’re concerned about the infants,” says Robinson. “But also, what kind of message was this sending to that 9-year-old girl in terms of her feeling that she could care for infants at 9? Would she think she could be a teen mom?”
Both Robinson and Pledger do offer solutions.
Pledger says one solution may be for families to look to lower cost, in-home childcare facilities. However, Karen Erickson was offering that and while she says her rates were very reasonable, families were still having difficulty finding money for the cost.
Pledger also emphasizes that parents who are concerned about the current cost, and can scrape by, should remember that once the child hits school age the working parent would regain that regular income. She also tries to work with parents to find ways to handle the costs.
Robinson says for short term solutions families that qualify for subsidies should look to agencies like the Department of Social Services for assistance. For the long term, however, he believes society should rethink its approach to families. Hopefully, he says, the growing economic stress will prompt businesses to find ways to be “a bit more family friendly” and find ways to work the parents of small children.
“We need to pull together as a society and a community,” he says.
In the meantime, families continue to find alternative means to care for their children, or are forced to stay at home. But like Krystal Spence, a single mother, there are few alternatives and staying at home, not working, isn’t an option they can afford.
“The only way to afford (childcare) is with Social Service’s help,” she says. “If they didn’t help me I wouldn’t be able to take them (to childcare).”
As for Karen Erickson, her family is surviving on a string and hope. She says that while childcare is an issue, if it weren’t for the unemployment benefits she’s currently receiving, her husband’s income would not be enough to keep the family afloat.