Don't you love when you go on an interview, you feel really confident, you get a callback and you end up getting the job! It's like finding a $20 randomly in your jeans pocket. But....for all of you parents you once the joy has settled, you now realize the REAL-ness of getting that job is you need to factor in a lot of factors. First of all, the pay definitely needs to be discussed. No surprises here! That conversation goes a little like this... You: "So, what exactly is the salary for this position?", Manager: "Well, that's negotiable, but due to budget restraints we're not going to able to go above X dollars, but what are you willing to work with?" You: "Well, I will need enough to pay for my household bills, maintain groceries, pay for my drycleaning to have decent clothes to come in here, pay for my monthly commute to come to work, AND definitely enough to pay for someone to watch my children while I work a strenuous 8 - 10 hours a day, and possibly some spare change to do one nice thing for myself every 2 weeks! Okay, well maybe you won't say that exactly....but you'll be thinking it.
The Real Deal is hard out here for a parent! (you like where I was going with that one? lol) You really end up becoming a hustling mama/daddy in order to maintain these days. I read an article this morning in the Washington Post titled "The parenthood trap". It's that serious out here that we are reading articles about how people ALL OVER are running into the tough predicament of trying to maintain having a job and to be able to pay someone to provide quality care for their children while they work. I mean when you really break it down it almost seems like you're literally working just to pay someone so you can work! When I just said it like that it sounds very silly to me. lol But, that's life. You have to work to live and so on.
But, back to the facts....in the article it talks about how many mothers/fathers have decided to pass up working in order to raise their children. Sounds foreign to some, but this is the reality many are faced with when having children. And I know what some of you non-parents are thinking "Why have kids then?" and to you I say Touche', lol. But, no really you choose to have children for your own personal reasons, but I'm sure for many the baseline is you want someone to love and to provide for and no matter how hard it gets, you do it because you were meant to. So if you don't feel that divine reason to, then please don't choose to!
When you think about childcare....these days it's almost like thinking about a mortgage! I remember when I first began a job and I inquired with a daycare that was near my soon-to-be place of employment. I got to the part about the tuition and the nice receptionist began to so happily explain to me that for my daughter's age group at the time (1 year old) would be $1700 per month. This was not including the meal plan and some other fees tagged on! You can probably imagine the look on my face when I heard that price. I mean come on....was my 1 year old getting a full-ride to her choice of a University when she finished preschool??
There are lot of people paying these type of prices. And yes, childcare CAN be that expensive. In the article it shared results from a Census Bureau survey that the annual cost for infant care in Louisiana is about $5,600 and in Washington, DC it's about $22,000. A big difference right?! I guess metropolitan areas are lot steeper when it comes to the cost of living.
I know for me there was a time when I thought I'd be one of those stay-at-home moms or at least a working-from-home mom! Especially when I had a 9 year old, 6 month old and 1 more on the way. There was no way I could imagine paying before/aftercare costs for my school-aged child and infant childcare prices for 2 babies! Lawd, help me! I mean, I literally almost died when I did the calculations. So it was a "real life" debate for us to consider what's the best way to go. Unfortunately, we lost our littlest one at 5 months pregnant. After, that happened, we still talked it out to figure out what would be best for our family overall and things worked out the way they were meant.
So the dilemma here for us all is what can you do? Should one of you quit and stay home to care for the kids and help save on the childcare costs? Should you find inexpensive, less quality care? Or should you continue in the struggle with all other working parents out here and make the best out of it?
