The High Cost of Child Care

Ainsley Stapleton, 36, an accountant based in Arlington, Va., describes herself as middle class. But with three children, all of whom are in preschool or day care, she calculates that she spends 87.6 percent of her take-home pay on day care.

“It makes me want to cry a little,” Ms. Stapleton said by phone from her office. In the past, she said, she and her husband have bounced around the question of whether “he should quit or I should, but both of us enjoy working.”

Working parents are increasingly finding the cost of child care too much to handle (as we’ve seen from stories reporting the idea that parents may want to take out subsidized loans to pay for private preschooling). The costs often generate discussions among couples on whether or not it’s worth it for both parents to work, and if not, which parent should stay home with the children. Usually, it’s the mother, and sociologist Joya Misra calls this “the motherhood penalty.” It’s also a penalty against single parents and the working poor. According to the Times, childcare is the single greatest expense among low-income families in NYC — greater than food and housing costs.

Photo: Mark Baylor

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