Skip to main content

Stories

As a single mother and a social worker, I am still within 200% of the poverty limit. Unfortunately, my gross monthly income has always been just enough to exclude me from receiving food stamps and subsidized child care. Effective 8/1/11, the income limit is being raised and I will finally be...Read more
Shannon
In September 2010, I gave birth to my first child via c-section. I had arranged for 12 weeks of maternity leave at 2/3 pay, using vacation time, sick leave, and taking four weeks unpaid. I worked for a small nonprofit that lacked resources for paid maternity leave. Fortunately my husband's company...Read more
Jennifer
As a social worker (Child Protective Services) low or no cost child care is the difference between my clients working or staying home and continuing to collect TANF. Child Care also provide a safety net where children are seen everyday by mandated reporters instead of spending 24/7 with their...Read more
Larry
I have been laid off three times in three years due to the economy - this has caused me to lose all of my savings and other hardships I'd rather not list. Childcare/Preschool in the Bay Area is expensive and it's necessary so that I can find a job. I had to take my daughter out of her preschool and...Read more
Anonymous
I have been unable to afford childcare for over a year now. Because, childcare is so cost prohibitive in Los Angeles, it is more cost effective to stay home than to work. I have many friends in the same position and all of us had to give up our jobs because childcare is more expensive than we can...Read more
Jen
Having no paid maternity leave from my waitressing job threw my husband and I into financial chaos. It was so stressful - on top of having a newborn, not even knowing how we were going to make what little savings we had last, having to stress about buying diapers and basic survival items. We had...Read more
Melissa
The cost of childcare is an enormous burden to my family. Both parents have to work but the cost of childcare ($13,000 for childcare/preschool and $3,000 for aftercare) has meant that we have fallen deeper and deeper into debt. For the past year I have been unemployed, so even though my daughter...Read more
Jennifer
As two professionals living the American Dream (well, sort of--too bad about that mortgage thing and associated housing bubble) we need to work. We have a pre-K and an infant. Finding decent day-care is like scouring the classified ads for '58 Buick parts--you got Chrysler parts, Chevy Parts, '52...Read more
Anonymous, Washington
I have had all the emotions when it has come to day care for my children, I had refused to pay all the little extra on top of my weekly fee for day care when my two older boys where in day care, so because of it, I went to pick my kids up on a Friday evening and the daycare provider had let them go...Read more
Latosha
I was coming back from maternity leave in a couple of weeks and work and myself already had arrangements for me to work three days a week and work from home or bring the baby to work two days a week until I could secure full time daycare in about one to two months. In our town, there is only one...Read more
Anonymous

Pages