The Best $80,000 I Ever Spent. (On Childcare)

/ 3 Comments / /

James, at daycare "graduation," circa 2008

I was just talking over the weekend to an acquaintance, a childhood friend of one of my cousin’s, who’s started her own in-home childcare business. After years as a pediatric nurse, she shifted gears, and good for her! As we talked, I fell into a host of sweet memories of Kozy Korner and Harbor Kids, the (related) daycares my sons attended.

I’ve written about childcare before here (in fact I just re-read that old post and realized I used a photo from the same day as the pic at left!). Most recently I wrote a blog post for DailyWorth.com, this time on the specific subject of of childcare for work-at-home moms, and the value of it as an investment in one’s business. Now, I know plenty of moms who managed at-home work with babies in arms or toddlers underfoot. I get it, and I’ve done it that way, too, on temporary bases here and there. It never suited me.

For me, as for nearly all the freelance/work-at-home/sole proprietors I know, work and life blend and swirl and overlap, and while I can tolerate a large amount of that (I can juggle work so I can get to the holiday concert at school, say; or I can take a break between assignments to defrost some chicken breasts and fold some laundry) it can’t be my main M.O. I needs me some boundaries.

So for this Daily Worth piece, my editor came up with the brilliant idea of having me sit down and calculate how much I’d actually spent on childcare over the years. It’s one thing to write that I feel the cash was worth it (and it was!), it’s another to actually look at the number. (And when you read that number bear in mind: for most of the time I had the boys in childcare, it wasn’t five days a week, apart from the last year James was in preschool — but it also doesn’t take into account the ongoing childcare expense of summer camp).

Here you go — and tell me what you think!

In the seven years that my sons were in childcare—a period that began when my oldest was three months old and ended when my youngest hit kindergarten—I shelled out upwards of $80,000.It was worthevery penny.Handing over that last check, I felt as if there should be champagne, or at least balloons falling from the ceiling. Because child care will remain one of the best investments I ever made.

Moms who work from home and use child care often get judged: Can’t she work around the baby’s schedule? Isn’t she throwing her money away? Is it a teeny bit selfish?!

For me, child care was never an indulgence but an investment in my business, no different from a decent computer and reliable broadband.

And it also made me a more relaxed mother. For his first five months, my youngest son was home with me as I launched my freelance career. I had to work—that wasn’t an option. But did I have to work with my baby in a swing, ticking like a metronome behind me?

That $80,000 sounds steep, but I wonder: How much less money might I have earned if I hadn’t invested it? It’s worth pondering…over a glass of champagne.

You can read the piece and comments on it (mostly supportive!) here.