Why can’t the low income people do what I did. Get a family member to watch the kids. Also I worked a different shift so I could be home when the wife worked.
You argument fails on two points.
not everyone has available family to babysit. I’m in this bracket. My family lives out of state and those here work, including my aging mother. My mother in law has serious health problems and is not available on a regular basis.
Not everyone works a job with such availability. Unless you are suggesting someone scrap their career or seek out such a job, it simply is not realistic. We rarely get what we wnt and instead take what we can get and make do. That’s reality. We are free to try and find jobs that better meet our lifestyle needs but it can take time. It took me 5 years to land a permanent position.
My fiance and I are deep in this issue. We both work and both want to work. Our daughter is 2 and we have swapped roles between working and staying home. Our child was in daycare but she was constantly sick and someone had to be able to take off to get her if the need arises. At the moment my fiance is not working and was laid off a few weeks ago so now she is at home. Our combined salary was around 80k. Now it has been cut almost in half.
daycare is not a right but I wonder how some people make it, especially single parents. Daycare is expensive. We have heavily struggled to make ends meet and to keep our jobs. When you do contract work, they don’t give a crap about your kid or your reasons for not coming in. If you don’t show up you get let go. Thankfully I found something full time and perm so I’m not dealing with the use and abusive, zero hour bs that is contract IT work.
That’s what we are doing. DH and I are working opposite shifts. There’s somebody home 24-7.