We visited Seattle a couple of times before we moved here and fell in love with the city. Not too huge, not too small. When thinking about where to live, we decided we wanted to have a real city life experience for the first time in the States. Besides, we still feel too young to move to the suburbs. We have a kid, but that automatically doesn't categorize us as true, true grown ups yet, right? Our apartment is in what I consider prime location, not to close to downtown chaos, but just walking reach of everything. I love it! A 4 minute walk to Nordstrom, Macy's, Zara, 'The Rack', Saks Off, and many other stores I like. Plus, it works wonders for our visitors, steps away from the Amazon Spheres, stroll to the Space Needle, shop at the cool Pike Place Market, it's all very close. Friends, if you are reading, visit us now, we won't live here forever.
Me staying at home with Victoria wasn't the preset option. I was looking to go back to school and getting my Washington Teaching Certificate and Masters in Special Ed. or in Primary School teaching. However, when I started crunching the numbers, I felt I would be investing too much money, in a career that won't give me a return on investment. I already have a masters degree and I honestly feel I'm not going to reinvent the wheel at this point. I love teaching and feel pretty confident in my skills as an educator, but I'm a little tired in feeling like the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to compensation. Particularly comparing it to the MBA salaries I now see my friends making. Seriously, it's not fair. I find my job to be quite as challenging and to be honest hundred times more impactful than working for corporate america.
Once we moved here, we learned that the process of getting my work permit could take significantly less time than we had prognosticated. I decided then, that I would try to find a job once I had the authorization, preferably a teaching job, and then maybe seek for certification through an alternative route. That way, I feel I'm not investing as much. Then, came the question of: what do we do with Victoria. Well, childcare of course, right? We had heard child care here was expensive, but I didn't imagine it was THAT bad. Apparently, Seattle has one of the priciest childcare in the nation. The cost of childcare alone would be higher than my yearly tuition if I were to go back to school. Not only that, there is a waitlist in most of the childcare centers near our home (at least a year I've been told).
I visited a childcare center this week, conveniently located walking distance from my apartment. It was nice, I'll just leave it at nice, it wasn't: OH MY GOD this is the coolest educational facility I've ever seen, I would rate it more like: 'meh, it was pretty standard'. Looked safe, clean, and the children seemed happy. I would say the only wowish factors were: they have a STEM room, for science and Mandarin once or twice a week. But that is for the bigger children anyway. As I was waking through the hall and peeking inside the classrooms and trying to see what food they were feeding them, I thought: yep, I would feel comfortable leaving Victoria here. The only minus, was the fact they take the toddlers for an exploration walk around the block, in the streets! My latin american brain just screamed red alert, red alert! But even then I thought, well, all the kids are doing it and seem fine, and this is a pretty safe place, right? Eventually, I could see myself being OK with that, hubs, on the other hand, would need some serious convincing. We probably won't want Victoria to be the only child left in the classroom while all the other kids are out in the real world having fun. At the end of the tour, I was pretty convinced it was a place that could provide decent care for my child.
As I was about to leave they hand me out some vital information, this center would cost us almost 3,000 dollars a month. Yes, you read correctly, three thousand dollars a month (for 5 days a week). Now, let's remember, I want to teach. I wonder if I would even make enough money to pay for daycare! Basically, I feel I would be working for free. #toughbeingamom #thougherbeingateachermom! We're obviously not even aiming for the 3,000 dollar one, but staying at home taking care of Victoria might actually be more profitable for our family. Isn't that insane? Sorry, but I feel a developed country should not have this problem.
So, yeah... I'm a little shell-shocked right now, after that one visit to that one childcare center. I know thats not the only option, I know, I know. Nevertheless, according to childcareaware.org the average childcare center tuition in King County is $1,456 a month (this report is 2016, I can only imagine that number has significantly increased). The cheapest one I've personally heard about in our area is around 2,000 dollars. That is still a lot. I'm not even taking into consideration the waitlist issue. If I had to go back to work, getting Victoria in daycare by August might not even be a plausible option. If that happens our parents might have to send us a lifeboat in the form of themselves and come take care of Victoria until she is off some crazy waitlist.
All this is giving me a headache. I can't imagine how it is for single parents. I feel selfish just complaining because a lot of people have it ten times harder than us. Having one parent stay at home isn't even an option for many families. I read this article on ParentMap.com and it gives a good overview of the childcare problem in this city. Basically, its a big issue. As for me, I'm not sure what the plan will be. I guess we'll take it one step at a time, so far I'm going to consider that this 'blogging' fake job is saving me three thousand dollars a month because it allows me to look after my own offspring. Not too shabby, when I think about it that way. Plus, I consider it's some pretty high quality and personalized care. Let's forget about that time I had her do exploration of our home on top of the Roomba (she loved it by the way, but we stopped because I was concerned about the health of our robot).
Maybe I should put on a few waiting list just in case? I'll have to sleep on that for now.
:)
Comments