“He’s having to grow up a lot faster than he wants to, and quite frankly, than I want him to.”
This is Krystal, a single mom of two young children speaking to us about how her older son has had to step up to help her look after her other, younger child, when childcare proves to be too challenging to access. Krystal shared with us that when she was initially looking for childcare for her two young children, she had also just started a new job – which in part was some of the reason why she needed childcare. She found the process to be long, confusing, and incredibly stressful.
“I don’t know how these parents do it, I was in tears.”
When she moved to the area to start a new job in the summer several years ago, Krystal especially found it hard to navigate summer programs. Both children were waitlisted, eventually one got into a program but it proved too challenging to coordinate one child being in a program and finding care for the other. At one point she found a program that looked like it could work, but they unfortunately didn’t accept the childcare subsidy that many community members use to help them place their kids into programs. Additionally, she ran into hurdles where the summer program her son was in ended before school started again, leading to another gap that Krystal had to patch herself.
There is something about a shared challenge that brings people together though, and Krystal referenced that she’s involved with a great community of single mom friends in the area that have an ad hoc network amongst themselves. Finding childcare seems to be such a universal challenge for folks in the region that it seems anyone you ask has a story. In fact, while we were talking, Krystal motioned to her coworker off screen who faces a similar challenge finding childcare. She says that her place of employment has had some conversations about how they can better support employees who need childcare, but it’s hasn’t come to much yet. There’s hope for a continued conversation, as she works for Capstone and they have HeadStart in the building, and in theory could discuss having someone come and hang out with kids in the office while their parents work, but the trickiness is that no one is in the building on snow days or early release days when parents still have to work. Additionally, Krystal pointed out that while it could be a partial solution, it still wouldn’t be the best environment for kids to have to be in their parents’ office instead of a childcare center designed with them in mind.
Scheduling challenges for parents working to access childcare isn’t unique to just the summer either. The main thing Krystal mentioned again and again throughout our conversation was the challenge of navigating childcare program’s hours. If a program closes at 4:30 or 5, and you’re working a 9-5 job, it’s difficult to manage that schedule. Additionally, Krystal’s found herself contemplating trade offs, such as the fact that while she’s happy with her current job, she could be working a third shift job and making more money. The problem that arises with that possibility is that it’s very hard to find childcare outside of the standard 9-5 business hours. This means that Krystal must trade off making a larger salary that she could support her kids with, instead sticking with her current job, making less money, but knowing her kids are in a safe and secure place when they’re not with her. If there were some expanded options for parents who work different hours, Krystal thinks that it would address a huge need in the community.
The last thing she wanted us to take away from our conversation and that she wants more community members to know about, is the ability to receive a subsidy for childcare. If you live in Vermont, chances are you could be eligible to receive support paying for childcare. Krystal said that even though she now makes more money with her new job, she still qualifies for an incredible amount of assistance. She urges all parents she talks to to look into their eligibility, and what they may qualify for, because it’s an incredibly underutilized resource that many more people have the ability to access.
If you’re interested in sharing your experiences and story with early childhood education and childcare in the Upper Valley, reach out to Anna Hubbard at ahubbard@vitalcommunities.org