Wanted: Affordable Care for the Priceless

The high-stakes search for childcare

Have you ever had that feeling that the next thing out of a person's mouth is going to be difficult to hear? I had that this week, right before our newfound babysitter (who we love) informed me that she'd gotten a full-time job in the industry that had employed her prior to the pandemic.

I'm happy for her and always knew this arrangement was temporary for both of us, but separate from my happiness for her is dread. Now I have to find somebody new. I have a feeling that it's not going to be easy, and am confronting what most parents must: I'm supposed to just hand somebody my baby and then be unburdened enough to get work done? I finally understand why Mrs. Banks was so sad when Mary Poppins flew away at the end of the movie-- shit, NOW who's going to watch the kids? Me, a frivolous society woman? In these fancy dresses? Their unemployed dad? A career banker? That guy doesn't know dick about child development. It's not just flying kites all day!

How do I find somebody to watch my four-month-old baby while I work a job that requires me to be undistracted for long periods of time? I understand that there are books and websites that can provide step by step instructions on how to accomplish this, but I mean, like: how do I do this emotionally? I have a hard time trusting people enough to take care of my old-ass cat when I'm out of town, and have in the past written notes that are several pages long about how to care for her, when really the gist of it is "Her food is located in the shelf beneath her dish. Don't let her outside. Here is the vet's phone number if she gets sick." And now I have to pluck from the ether a stranger to provide a service that is, frankly, priceless?

She must be kind, she must be witty... hell, she must know infant CPR.

Did things used to be simpler or has parental amnesia caused my parents to remember it as easier? When I was a kid, a nice lady named Bonnie babysat me after my mom had to return to work at the local newspaper when I was just six weeks old (my dad got a whopping two days of paternity leave back then, from his job as a social worker). My understanding is that they found her by asking around and just trusting the currents of gossip to carry their want-ad to a deserving candidate like a message in a bottle. Bonnie loved to crochet and loved Jesus and gifted me a subscription of the evangelical magazine Guideposts for Kids when I was old enough to read it (we were Catholic; I'm now agnostic. The magazine didn't work.)

When I got a little older, I'd go to nursery school in the basement of the local Lutheran church on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and some days, I'd go hang out at my grandparents' house and watch old episodes of Petticoat Junction and My Three Sons and the Adam West Batman with my dad's oldest brother, who had Down Syndrome and wouldn't share his Spider-man coloring books with me unless my grandma forced him. They lived less than a mile from us. Bonnie stayed with us when my brother came along when I was almost 3, and then my sister when I was almost 6, and then several short years later we were old enough to look after ourselves (and by "look after ourselves," I mean race downstairs so that I could unlock MTV and the three of us could watch the Backstreet Boys and Korn compete with each other for the top spot on TRL.)

Some things are easier for me than they were for my parents. The internet has made it possible for people like Josh and me to work from home almost full-time, and a bit of elbow grease and online literacy means that we can find answers to simple questions about baby care in seconds. My parents had to use things called "books" and "land lines" to access information much more slowly. The places that employ me are a bit more enlightened than small-town newspapers in the 1980's when it comes to maternity leave. And finding childcare should, theoretically, be easier in an age of information.

Except it's not. My parents had relatives living minutes away by who were willing to pitch in. We don't. The cost of living in small-town Wisconsin meant that even a reporter and social worker in their twenties could scrape up enough money to pay nursery school tuition and a fair rate to a local babysitter. Most people in major cities, even moderate to high-income people, have to move things around to afford what my parents got for a song.

The state of childcare in Los Angeles in the year 2022 is a bit more complicated, as most day cares in our area have waiting lists that are months if not years long, and the financial commitment necessary to fairly and ethically compensate a nanny is substantial. And even people who have the resources necessary to meet those requirements will still have to compete with several other families looking for part-time childcare. There are more people who need nannies than nannies up for grabs. The local parents groups to which I belong on Facebook are probably 50% posts from people looking for childcare. Neither Josh nor I are religious, and so childcare available to members of faith communities doesn't interest us, either-- although I could see myself pretending to be Unitarian or maybe ELCA if I got desperate enough.

This is one of those parenting moments when I've taken a step back and realized I've been stupid.

I naively believed that we would be able to manage without much regular childcare for awhile, but, even with two parents who work from home and have flexible schedules, that's just not feasible to pull off while maintaining some level of sanity. We both have to work, but we've also only been out on one date since Juniper was born. When we take childcare in shifts, that means somebody is always "on," or both of us are engaged in such partnership activities as "sleeping" or "putting dishes away as quietly as possible."

I should have had a backup. I should have planned better. I should have done a better job. But I didn't.

I know that for the next weeks, finding a part-time nanny will be a part time job, on top of the other jobs that I work, that my husband works, in addition to looking after a four-month old that, according to our departing babysitter spent the first hour of today screaming her head off before looking directly at our babysitter and shriek-laughing "like The Joker" before suddenly falling asleep for an hour.

So, yeah. Color me daunted.

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