[xrayagent]

In America, our consumerist culture pushes both mother and father to work, except for the rather well off. Poor folks work to make ends meet, middle class works to have just a little bit more…whatever it is they think they need. Thus, is the need for childcare created, even for very young children. Poor folks often have a network of friends and family that share the chore of caring for a group of children (as is the case in the rural community in which I teach.
My wife and I had very differing views of daycare. My early life was split between daycare and my grandparent’s home; in her life, her mom quit work to raise three children, as did her sister-in-law. When our kids were born, she took off the maximum allowed time off (3 to 4 months).
As a teacher, I take care of the kids after school, and for almost two months off in the summer. My kids are in a daycare run by the school system for which I work, so I feel very confident about it. When we were looking, however, we did go to a few places that were only slightly above a crack house; one was run out of a family’s basement and the other out of an old convenience store; there were very few windows and I didn’t want to leave the kids in a cave!