My husband was recently laid-off his primary job. He does have a second part-time job that he could work more hours at, however, because of the cost of childcare, it would actually be BETTER financially for us for him to stay home and collect unemployment. If he tried to work more hours at his part-time job, the cost of childcare would put us "in the hole" each month because his part-time wages are not enough to equal what he was making at both his primary and secondary jobs. Whereas, if he stays home, and we are not shelling out money for the cost of childcare, the amount of money he collects on unemployment will be enough for us to get by.

It is a pretty sad state of affairs in our nation when a person who wants to work & could work more at a part-time job until he can find another primary job cannot work more because he cannot afford for his children's daycare. So, we have become a drain on our state's resources in two ways, not only collecting unemployment but also not providing a job for someone else (our daycare provider). It is not something we enjoy and hope that another job comes up for him soon, but with the state of the economy right now, we know that this could be our new reality for awhile.

Not only is it disheartening to be out of a job, but we risk losing the great daycare provider we had to another family, so that when my husband does return to full-time work it is possible that our children will have to be put with a different daycare provider than the provider they have all had since they were 8 weeks old. In fact, our provider is like a 3rd grandmother to our children and that kind of love and caring is hard to replace. I was literally in tears when I had to take my children from their daycare provider on that last day, knowing that my children love her and knowing that they would ask why they weren't going to her anymore and thinking of how I was to explain the situation to them. It is definitely a low point in our lives right now and cutting funding for daycare and early childhood learning will definitely not make anyone's lives any better.