Great MSN article on the Cost of Childcare

This MSN article discusses the insane cost of childcare in the US today.  Come on, it’s basically paying rent on your kids until they go to high school and 4 years later you really get to pay. (Especially with the financial aid you’ll be enjoying as a dual-income home)

 “With child care for infants running as high as $14,650 a year and care for a 4-year-old in a licensed center as high as $10,920, child-care costs have outpaced what the average family spends on food, according to the National Association of Child Care Resources and Referral Agencies.”

-The child-care crisis   msn.com

When both parents work, families need someone to mind the kids. But with costs as high as $14,650 a year, day care can swallow most of one parent’s wages. 

MomsRising – Militant, but useful

Momsrising is a website dedicated to empowering women as mothers, consumers, professionals and citizens..  They’ve sucessfully organized and mobilized women against companies that are guilty of disriminating against mothers as employees, poisonous pacifiers etc.

They have great Open Flexible work area on their website that can help any woman looking for a family firendly career understand what she needs to look for in a job and an employer.

  

“Open, Flexible Work” is the term we use in the MOTHER agenda to refer to workplace practices that accommodate both work and family needs. Flexible work arrangements give parents the ability to work more flexibly, regardless of the person’s level in the organization. Factory workers, middle managers, and executive level employees all need to be able to structure their work lives in a way that allows them to meet both business and family needs.

Daycare Stat

A study of child care in four states found “child care at most centers in the U.S. is poor to mediocre,” with 12% providing care that could harm “children’s health, safety, and development.”  – Source: momsrising (why don’t they site their source?)

Babysitting according to Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia because it is so elementary that it actually surprises me with some of the topics it will define.  The babysitting entry has some interesting hourly stats, but I’m pretty sure $15 an hour is rock bottom in New York.  Read the excerpt below and check out the entry wiki entry here.

Babysitting is the practice of temporarily caring for a child on behalf of the child’s parents. Babysitting is most commonly performed as an odd job by teenagersfor extra money, stereotypically, but not necessarily, girls. Babysitting can be quite lucrative in some countries, but rates vary considerably according to the location. According to Runzheimer International’s Mobility Report, average hourly rates in September 2005 in the United States of America are $6.04. In New York City, the average is $11.08, whereas in Portland, Oregon, the average is $2.90.[1]