Sharings

The biggest challenge was the initial year of daycare - as a new parent, you think you have obtained reliable childcare, but then your child (and the rest of the family) gets sick every few weeks and it throws a wrench into all of your plan…

One of our biggest challenges was the rigidity of my work schedule. My son was born during a semester in which I was teaching three course sections, with the final section ending at 6:20 p.m. Although my employer formally offered six weeks…

long waiting times. I can imagine affordability being a major issue for many families.

Long waiting times at quality day care centers was the primary challenge for me. I have had to reduce my work hours or work late in the night to provide child care in combination with a part time nanny. Also, when the child is sick (which h…

I paid a deposit for a spot at the daycare when I was about 4 months pregnant, as there could have been a significant wait had I not. Fortunately for those living in my area, the current daycare that we use is expanding to a second location…

No such issues in Konstanz.

The childcare quality was fine. It was a bit pricey but not overly so.

Location. The daycare is a bit far from my home; it took 1.5 hours per day on the road to drop off and pick up my child. Expenses. It's not cheap.

In the US, the biggest childcare challenge was long waitlists, which left us stressed until the last moment -the semester was about to start and we still had no solution in place. There is also enormous variation between daycares in terms o…

As I mentioned, affordability was a problem/challenge but there was a state-wise support for low income families.

Hours, location and quality. I had to compress my work days to accommodate drop-off and pick-up.

We decided to be a single income family.

Affordable and experienced nannies are increasingly difficult to find. Created much stress for us, the nanny who we finally found was constantly trying to make us pay even more (though we were already paying her well).

The biggest challenge was facing the uncertainty of not knowing if/when the childcare was going to be available.

Having a child in May 21 implied that a lot of daycares had shut down with the onset of COVID. Finding a daycare in time for starting with work was a pure gamble, there was no choice. I took the first non-private daycare I could find (and l…

While there are many options for day cares, such as day-care centers, it is still very challenging for the working parents to find coverage outside the 8~9 hrs of day-care coverage. Consider a tenure-track AP job which usually requires more…

Quality. It's hard to navigate work stresses and teaching responsibilities when kids have a tough time at the childcare place and then have tough emotions to process at home. The hours are also not suitable for evening teaching or Saturday,…

Even with the support of a strong childcare system, I still face significant challenges. Childcare does not depend solely on institutional support; it also requires a considerable amount of parents’ time, energy, and emotional attention. Ma…

Long waiting times ( in Canada), some teachers are not caring and difficult to switch class/daycare

Probably waiting times. This essentially forced us away from a nearby affordable center toward a more distant (and more "high-end") option. This cost is OK, but the pick-up/drop-off time becomes a little cumbersome, which makes me work from…

Quality is important. In Hong Kong, kindergarten is linked with elementary schools, which are linked with middle and high schools,

All of those, plus (limited) hours and (unlimited amount of) viruses of childcare centers.

Quality of care, lack of back up, hard to find reliable babysitters. Luckily both of us are academics and we had to rely on flexible schedules to cover gaps, but that also meant working strange hours

Affordability

Waitlist uncertainty, parenting at home while teaching during COVID

Cost and hours of availability were our biggest issues. As an academic i had to be the one to leave early since my job had more flexibility but it meant I'd have to make up the time elsewhere

Combination of nanny, preschool, and family. I have three sons, all under 7 years old. Nanny is from 7am-5pm, M-F. She gets sick at times, which causes considerable disruption to our lives. Similar disruptions occur when our kids are sick (…

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