Law Students

The First Battle

By Andrea

We just started looking at how we can work childcare for Becca when I start work in August or September. This should be fine, right? I mean, she's six weeks old right now. I felt pretty optimistic when I discovered a wonderful daycare center that actually takes infants and is one block from both my workplace and Dan's, with priority enrollment and a sliding tuition scale for state employees. This place is literally designed for people like us.

Not only are they all full for September, meaning we'd have to get on the waitlist, it is too expensive for us, even with the tuition scale and the usual tax credits for childcare. It would take half of my salary, and it's cheaper than most centers. I mentioned this to another law school mom today and she said some frightening thing about being on the Harvard daycare waitlist (which costs a zillion dollars) and how the one person she knew who got into it got on the list when she was 3 months pregnant. Damn.

Yes, we will have the Jeopardy money, but we thought that was for student debt reduction and a house fund, not for subsidizing daycare. So we'll start calling family daycares, stalking message boards, and I'm not above asking the two Brazilian moms who live on the floors below us if they stay home with their kids (I think so) and if they want to take in an extra baby for a little while. I'm disappointed. You hear politicians talk about a war on the middle class, which I find dramatic rhetoric, but the point is that people work hard and we design programs for them and still, it's hard to keep up with life and move toward a decent home and retirement. This was our first call to battle.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).