When daycare surpasses the expense of college

Generation Z voters who will cast their first presidential ballots face unique challenges. Le Devoir spoke with them in numerous states to discuss their November voting motivations.

One modest sign reveals that the room is a daycare amid a row of narrow business rental apartments in a residential neighborhood in northern Washington. The manager cannot have a desk in the attractive but crowded room with all the furniture.

It’s hard to believe that sending your child there costs 2,400 Canadian dollars per month.

Lily, 2, plays in the courtyard as her mother, Danielle Geong, smiles at the entrance. For two years, her straw hat, thick spectacles, and pleasant demeanor have hidden her anxieties.

Her partner and she pay C$600 a week for daycare for their daughter. Geong expects to spend US$87,000 (C$117,000) on daycare by the time Lily starts preschool next fall.

“Daycare is our second biggest expense, after our mortgage,” says the 37-year-old mother. Before picking up her daughter, Le Devoir met her in a café a few steps from the private daycare.

Unlike primary and secondary school, child care receives little state assistance in the US, forcing families to pay for it.

According to a detailed investigation by Child Care Aware of America, the average cost of daycare in 2023 in Washington, D.C. was $23,432 (C$31,700), double the national average of $11,582 (C$15,700).

“Unfortunately, I see no other option but to pay. Our options? Geong complains that one of us would have to quit or work part-time, which is difficult.

Especially since the couple’s incomes don’t qualify them for the rare subsidized seats, which are for four-person households earning less than $90,000.

Her mother wonders if $87,000 could have gone for Lily’s college education or house upkeep.

Lacking options

Northeast Washington’s Turkey Thicket Center playground attracts young children. Daniel Querejazu watches his daughter in the sandbox through sunglasses in the oppressive heat.

Le Devoir reports that the young father is relieved that his 4-year-old daughter attends public preschool for free.

We spent $2,000 a month on his childcare. Our spending were heavily influenced by it. “Sending him to preschool was like getting a $20,000 raise!” he laughs.

From the start, he acknowledges his luck in affording such a fee.

“My wife and I earn above-average in Washington. It was expensive, but we could afford it. He wondered how $100,000-a-year families do it.

Dwayne Guidey watches his granddaughter at a neighboring play structure. Her outspoken grandfather says he kept her at his house before school.

This childcare costs rent. He shakes his head, “Bullshit. He phones his daughter, also in the park.

“How would you describe the cost of daycare?” he asks ironically.

“Astronomical,” she say, chuckling.

After receiving a US$2,100 monthly estimate a few years ago, the young mother stopped taking her daughter to daycare.

This is absurd. I would have worked to pay for childcare.” She’s grateful for her father’s help, which would have made her condition worse.

Trump running mate and Ohio senator JD Vance proposed this answer to the situation.

“One way to take the pressure off people who are paying so much for child care would be to have grandma or grandpa maybe want to help out,” he remarked in Arizona in early September while touring.

Many parents, like Danielle Geong, whose parents and in-laws live far away, cannot use this option.

“And even if they lived here, they wouldn’t have time to do it full-time because they’re still in the workforce,” adds.

A topic that barely gets noticed

As the presidential election approaches, Daniel Querejazu wonders why the subject is not more prominent. We rarely discuss child care or parent difficulties, left or right. He emphasizes that we are a substantial portion of voters.

I’m liberal, so I don’t always vote Republican. “If a progressive candidate was more vocal about the issue, especially for low-income families, I would prefer them,” he says.

Whitney Pesek, director of federal child care policy at the National Women’s Law Center, says affordable child care has become a political issue in recent years.

Washington-based nonprofit fights public policy on women’s issues in court.

At a Cuban cafe on the Potomac River, the director says bipartisan proposals are growing.

Both presidential candidates addressed the topic in 2020. Vice President Kamala Harris advocated paid parental leave this year. That gives us hope, she says.

Only six countries have no national paid parental leave program, including the US. Some firms have good paid leave programs, but most working parents don’t, Pesek adds.

This prompted Ms. Geong to send Lily to daycare 11 weeks after giving birth.

With two months until the election, former President Donald Trump has made no child care guarantees but stated his plan to charge foreign imports more will “solve” the problem.

“Republicans prefer not investing. They suggest tax credits for parents or businesses who provide child care. Pesek concludes that Democrats feel public investment is needed to fix the problem.

Geong thinks the solutions must go beyond a parent tax credit. A nice start, I suppose. The $87,000 expense and a tax credit that would only cover a few months of daycare make it a Band-Aid on a far larger problem.”

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