“What do you do for a living?”
I dread that question. It forces me to face the reality that I am living a life that I had never dreamed of for myself. I define myself as a researcher and a writer. But I spend the majority of my time being a stay-at-home parent and the primary caregiver of my two young children. It is hard to reconcile the fact that, despite my Ph.D., my days primarily consist of changing dirty diapers, washing bottles, cleaning messes, and simply being “mama.”
I know what you’re thinking: What about childcare? But that’s exactly it. My daughter was born less than a year after I received my Ph.D., and my son followed 16 months later. Yet, due to the high cost of childcare, I have had to put my job search on hold.
In the Washington, D.C., metro area, childcare does not come cheap. Last spring, for instance, I had one job opportunity fall through because my potential employer was unable to pay me an hourly wage that would have covered childcare expenses. According to New America’s Care Report, the average full-time cost for center care for children ages zero to four in D.C. is roughly $15,856 a year — per child. Moreover, an estimate from Care.com augurs that, if we wanted to use a full-time in-home caregiver, or nanny, we would have to pay around $46,800 a year.
[For more of this story, written by Rebecca DeWolf, go to https://psmag.com/america-has-...f6c7c11b5#.ac49zx9a2]
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