re: Daycare cost versus stay at home mom

quote:

---

However, she feels guilty leaving the child at that young age in a daycare.

---

This may be an unpopular opinion on this site, but a good daycare is NOT bad for your kid. Most daycares provide the kid with structure, education, socialization, and the kids learn from a young age to obey their teachers as people of authority.

We kept our first-born home with a mix of my wife and a nanny for about the first 18 months. Once we started at daycare, it was a brutal 6 weeks of sickness b/c the kid had never been sick and had no immune system until that point. The other kids in the class were better at being social and other aspects b/c they had been in the daycare since they were 2 months old. My second child (now 3) went to daycare at 2 months and talks and socializes better than my oldest kid did at this age. While every kid is different, there is a huge difference in most kids in kindergarten and pre-k that stayed home with mom and/or grandma instead of going to a daycare. The daycare kids are almost always more prepared and further along than the kids that stay with mom all day.

Everyone's situation is different, but we were in a similar financial situation as you, OP. Wife didn't need to work and her income was not that much more than the money we spent on daycare. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't hesitate to send them to daycare again. In fact, I'd send my oldest to daycare sooner than before.

quote:

---

why are you lying?

---

Ok, guy.


We must have two different definitions of what cold is.