Going the extra mile
Changes all the time
The workforce
Family decisions
These stories talk about key life decisions made because of access and affordability of child care: decisions about where to live, how many more children to have, or how to afford the type of care important to them.
Click on images below to learn about a family's experience on this issue
When I started to have children of my own, I knew I needed to find child care in a facility with multiple employees so that I would not experience waking up for work and finding myself without care for my child. When I started looking, I quickly realized it was not that easy. Tell City had nothing; the few facilities I knew about were full and had waiting lists. I eventually had to go out of my county for child care. This made me very nervous because I was so far away if anything happened, but I could not afford to miss work. When I was blessed with my second son I contemplated not going back to work because they were so far away, but we just could not afford it.
When my second son was 4 months old, Perry Preschool and Childcare opened and I was ecstatic. It was a state-licensed facility with curriculum, structure and multiple caregivers, and best of all, it was in my county. Then I learned how much it was going to cost and I was in disbelief. When I compared the cost to other in-home care options in the area, I realized I would be paying almost $150 more per week for licensed care for my children. I honestly could not have afforded it if my parents did not step in and help those first few years.
When I had my daughter and had to return to work, my husband and I had to really crunch numbers to make sure we could afford child care and provide what we needed to our children. At this time, I decided that it made more sense to stay home than to work, as nearly my entire paycheck would have to be used to pay for child care. Thankfully, my parents stepped in again and continued to assist with the cost until my sons entered the school system. It was humiliating, but it was my only choice if I wanted to continue to work and have a career for myself.
I have been employed with the same company for over 10 years and currently serve as the office manager. Had I been forced to leave the workforce until I no longer needed child care, this would not have been possible. In this role, I have also seen the impact of lack of access to child care. We have lost out on good employees because they could not find care and if they could, it didn’t make financial sense. Like so many businesses, we are experiencing staffing shortages and it is often because the cost of child care is more than what an entry-level job seeker can afford.
I guess I was naive because it never crossed my mind that we wouldn't have multiple options for child care, much less struggle to find even one. When we first got pregnant and started looking into child care options, there were two good child care centers in operation at the time (2015) in Rensselaer.
We weighed the options and went with the one that we felt would fit our needs the best, and we were very satisfied with the care that she received in the infant room. She was meeting and often exceling with developmental milestones, including some milestones that as a first time parent really weren't even on my radar. The teachers in the infant room were amazing at helping her transition to the next phase. When we struggled to get her to take a nap flat on her back, they were able to do it. When we struggled at home to get her to transition to baby food, they were able to get her to eat. We even joke about how the first time we gave her a fork to use at home, she knew exactly what to do with it because she'd been using it for months in the infant room at the child care center. Soon after, the other child care facility in town shut down and we were just thankful that we had chosen the one that we did.
In 2017, we welcomed our second child who had the same great experience in the infant room, while our first continued to flourish in the toddler room. What they both were learning continued to amaze me. It was such a relief to be able to focus on our jobs during the day, knowing that our children were in good hands. However, just shy of our second child's first birthday, we were given a four week notice that the center was shutting down due to lack of funding – despite recent price increases. I panicked.
Not being from the area, I had no idea who to turn to for in-home day cares, and after our experience at the child care center, our standards were pretty high. Several in-home day cares that I checked into were no longer providing the service, while others were full and not accepting anymore children.
Thankfully, we connected with one of the teachers from the child care center who was interested in starting her own in-home child care service. She has been amazing, and we have continued to still use her today. Our kids have learned so much: from their letters, numbers, shapes, etc., to social skills and learning to be kind to others, and caring for the earth. They do science experiments, arts and crafts – you name it! Our kids are more than ready for school, and we are so incredibly thankful for this experience. I honestly don't know what we would do without her. One of us would likely have to significantly change our job to accommodate for the lack of child care, or we would have to relocate to another area that could offer care.
Having said all that, it's still not the perfect setup for either party. She does not get the benefits of working in a center, and always has kids in her home. There are days we pick up early so she can enjoy her own children’s activities. And if she or either of her children are sick, we are out of child care. At times, my husband's job or my job can be flexible to accommodate that. But there are some days that we are completely reliant on close-by family to help with pick up or drop off.
Since I have become involved in Appleseed Childhood Education, I am constantly getting questions on what the options are for child care around here, or when the new center is going to open up. I honestly don't know how some families are able to manage, and unfortunately some are not managing it very well. This creates a lot of stress on families that parents shouldn't have to worry about. I hope that we can change this to help lift this burden from so many families, and focus on children starting at birth to set them up for success in the future.
We began our child care journey in September right before I was due to return from maternity leave. Our daughter would have been about 3 months old. The biggest challenge for us is having to rely on someone else to care for our child while we're working. It was especially difficult to be trusting that she would receive the same care she would get at home. It was a big peace of mind right away interacting with the friendly staff and knowing how much they cared about the children.
As a full-time working mom of two, juggling child care and work was always ranked in my top three most stressful moments before my kids entered the school system. I remember many moments where I weighed the option of staying home compared to the constant stress of child care, or lack thereof.
Our struggle started four weeks after I had our oldest. An extended maternity leave was not an option due to the financial need of both parents working. My husband is a teacher and at that time I worked an hour away. The school corporation provided day care for staff, which was a blessing. Unfortunately, kids had to be picked up by 4 p.m. I didn't get off of work until 5 p.m. and my husband coached sports after school. We paid another person to pick up our daughter until we were home.
We had our second daughter 17 months later, and the stress only grew from there. The day care at the school was not a good fit for us due to frustrations with our infant at the time and the care she was receiving. We were lucky enough to find an in-home babysitter to care for our 12-week-old and 1-year-old.
I consider us one of the lucky ones that we were able to find a babysitter accepting infants; however, like any situation it comes with pros and cons. Pro: our children were loved unconditionally and always had friends to play with. Con: there was no structure or education.
For us personally, I'll take the hugs and kisses of boo boos over learning their ABCs.
My husband and I always knew we wanted to have kids, but living in rural Perry County we felt it was necessary to hold off a few years due to the lack of child care options that fit in with our needs. Neither of us have secondary care readily available to us so it was extremely important to find somewhere reliable, as opposed to an in-home sitter with only 1-2 providers. We were thrilled when we heard that Perry Preschool and Childcare was opening its doors in 2015.
Not only do we live in a rural area with limited options for child care, we both as parents work in neighboring counties which are even more limited to child care. Perry Preschool and Childcare has had everything we were needing in those early days of parenting: safety, early hours and reliability. Better yet, we found that in their care our daughter is loved by all of her teachers and she has built lasting relationships and learned more than we ever imagined in her years there.
In addition to living in a rural area, we also had a time barrier working against us. We live close to the time zone line which means in order to continue to work without looking for a new career we needed to find early care that would allow time for me to travel from Central Standard Time back an hour to Eastern Time. In our time at Perry Preschool & Childcare, their early 5 a.m. start has tremendously helped mine as well as a number of other families keep their careers to support their families. The in-house preschool program is a wonderful addition, as we do not have to find alternative travel arrangements to get her to and from preschool, and she can get the same great education and childcare all in one building.
It is our hope that Perry Preschool and Childcare can continue to grow and thrive in this community. Not only is child care an asset to the families in this community but also to the businesses that are trying to survive in and around rural Perry County. We look forward to adding to our family in May and being part of the Perry Preschool and Childcare family for years to come.
I am a CPA and, along with my husband, a parent of three boys. We lived in Crawford County, Indiana for five years, when all of our children were born and until my oldest was 4 years old.
In those four years of parenthood, we had very limited local child care options. Within the county the only options were Head Start locations, for which we did not qualify. As a result, we commuted my children to New Albany every day – at least a 45 minute drive each way. It was inconvenient at all times, but especially when you're trying to potty train a child who now has to be strapped into a vehicle with no potty options for at least one and a half hours each day.
In early summer 2019, my husband got a new job offer located in Owensboro, Kentucky. When we began considering where to relocate our family our first choice was Perry County. I grew up in Perry County and dreamed of moving home someday, but before I could even call my parents to tell them I had to find out if it was even a possibility – my very first call was to Perry Childcare. The absolute first hurdle to moving back to my hometown was finding high-quality child care for my children.
During that call I learned that there were no open spots for my children, but I set up a visit to tour the facility and complete paperwork. Although our weekly fees were going to be almost $500 per week, we joined the waitlist. We sold our house in Crawford County and moved home.
Still, without child care spots in Perry County, we drove our children from Perry County to New Albany each day – about an hour and a half drive each way – for four more weeks until our waitlist spots came through at Perry Childcare. Had there been no options or a much longer waitlist, we likely would have chosen to move to Owensboro or my husband would have turned down that job offer. Child care, or lack thereof, was truly the "make or break" of these major life decisions for our family.
When searching for child care when we first had our daughter in 2016, we went with an in-home child care provider and she only attended one day a week. We are very fortunate that we live close to our parents and they helped watch her the other days. Sadly, at the time we lived in what I would call a “child care desert”.
When we were pregnant with our second child we knew we needed to look for another option for our family. We enrolled at the Growing Patch in Remington and it was the best decision we could have made for our family. The staff, the hours, the care, just all the things made us feel so much better about sending our children to a center. We absolutely loved it.
We have since moved our youngest to Right Steps in Goodland (much closer to our home and run by the same provider) and he is thriving there! The communication and the overall compassion for our little guy is something we are so thankful for. He is genuinely excited to go to his “new school” everyday!
We do live in Kentland and there is no child care center in our town – it's something I’m hoping to change in the coming years.
As an educator, the impact a quality early childhood education has on a child is irreplaceable. It is essential to the quality development of children as well as identifying any concerns for a child at a young age – and hopefully giving help to assist families with early interventions. I am incredibly thankful for the dedication and the initiatives being done to help foster the growth of early childhood education in rural areas. It is essential, especially during these ever changing times in our world. We are so blessed with quality early childhood education within the Right Steps network!