Daycare Search: Rich vs Poor

(RaisingX.com) Needing to find a new childcare option we are doing a lot of searching, interviewing, and visiting. We have visited daycares in multiple price ranges. Today we visited a daycare because of its proximity to work, home, and school. We didn’t know much about it prior to going but wanted to stop in and ask our list of questions.

Until now we haven’t visited any daycare we hadn’t researched or had personal recommendations about. This particular daycare was priced in the middle, not the most expensive but certainly not dirt cheap. At the daycare, we were there were both turned off for many reasons, most of which had to do with the staff and facilities. Getting back in the car, I said “absolutely not.” And, we both agreed that we would never send Xavier to a daycare like that.

We continued to detail what we didn’t like and the reasons we would never send her there, but then I started thinking about it. Honestly, we could really only have this conversation because we have options? We really only have options because we have the ability to pay for them. By no means are we independently wealthy. Would be nice, but definitely not our situation. We do, however, make a decent income and can afford a range of daycares.

Talking more, we realized we wouldn’t send her there because we thought she deserved better than that. Said differently, we believed she was too good for that. Though I do believe that, it is still hard for me to say. It is hard because as I say that I think about all the little faces I saw today sitting in the classroom and ask myself; then what is it that they deserve? I started to think about daycare not from the parent’s perspective but from the child’s.

Most parents will spend every dollar they have to provide for their kids. So it is obvious why parents who can afford daycare options with great facilities, new technology, and highly trained staff do so. But, what does that say about the kids who aren’t so lucky to have parents with money? We started thinking about what that really means? Are we saying that if I make more than you my child is worth more? A complicated question when applied to adults it is so much more complicated for children.

Regardless of your political economic view of how societies should be organized, the arguments are flawed when applied to children. Many economic arguments are based on choice, a loaded word, but nonetheless, choice. As an adult one can look at me and say my situation is a result of my environment and lack of or access to opportunity. They could also say I am a product of my own choices and could/would transcend my environment given better choices throughout life.

Good. Great discussion and would love to have it in a different forum, but with a background in economics I understand both arguments and really struggle to see how either side tackle this issue in an intellectually honest way. No scapegoats of your parents should have made better choices, or you were simply lucky to be born to this family.

How do I think about this question; Does my daughter deserve better? Or does she deserve better because I can afford it?

What are we setting ourselves up for?

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