Shaunna Hafford wanted to work, but it didn’t make sense financially.
“It was cheaper to stay home and collect welfare, and the best that they could tell me was ‘yeah that happens,’ ” said the Windsor mother of three kids, who are now 3, 6 and 11.
Luckily, Hafford was able to connect with a one-time child care grant that helped her afford to work. When her son started kindergarten last year the numbers were again in her favor, and Hafford was able to continue working full time, which is what she wanted all along.
“I love my children, but I don’t think I can be a stay-at-home mom,” said Hafford, who is a single mom after her children’s fathers passed away.
Hafford is a financial counselor at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, where she connects people with financial resources to help them pay their hospital bills. But despite her expertise in that area, she said that finding child care — and the means to pay for it — is a huge stress.
Hafford is far from alone. For many families in the Upper Valley, affording child care is a burden. According to research from the Economic Policy Institute, the average child care costs for a child under 2 is more than $11,200 in Vermont and New Hampshire. A typical family in these states with an infant and a 4-year-old can expect to spend more than 26% of their annual income on child care.
“Parents get put in a bind of determining whether or not it’s affordable for them to work,” said Nancy Bloomfield, executive director of The Family Place, a parent-child center in Norwich.
Sometimes, in order to maintain their career trajectory, parents may continue to work, despite the fact that his or her whole check goes toward paying for child care. Others drop out of the workforce until their children are in school and child care costs are diminished.
Some, including Tabetha Dimick, of Lebanon, work opposite shifts from their partners, sacrificing family time to save money.
“I never get to have a warm meal with my family,” said Dimick, who works as a server. Although the schedule is trying, it allows Dimick and her husband to minimize child care expenses for their 4-year-old.
There are programs designed to help with the cost of child care. The Child Care Financial Assistance Program is administered in every state and provides subsidies to eligible families in need of child care. Some centers offer sliding scale tuition based on parents’ income.
Still, for most families the cost of care remains overwhelming. It’s such a struggle for many families that it affects family planning. Last year, the New York Times polled people age 20 to 45 who had fewer children than they considered ideal; 64% of respondents blamed child care being too expensive for not having the family they envisioned.
Lisa Williams of Newbury, Vt., understands that well.
“We went back and forth for four years deciding on whether we should have a third child, the cost of child care being our deciding factor,” she explained. Eventually Williams and her husband had another baby, but they waited until both of their older children were in school in order to reduce child care costs.
“We actually planned it so he was born at the end of the school year and I would be on maternity leave with the children so that we did not have to pay for all three kids to be in child care for the summer,” said Williams, who works as a registered nurse.
Even people who are able to afford child care worry about the social implications of such an expensive system.
Kim Smith, of Piermont, pays about $1,300 a month for child care for her toddler. She can budget for that amount, but worries about parents who can’t swing so much money.
“It scares me to think how many people have to compromise their child’s care to afford it,” she said. “No one should ever be in that position. It’s a heartbreaking situation, really.”