Child care, mental health and job searching

Motherlode shared two stories on October 5, 2009 - one tragic and one ridiculous - about mothers solutions for temporary child care. 

So many parents struggle with how to job search while providing responsible care for their children.  In California, childcare easily runs over $1500 per month for an infant - an expense that is out of reach for many families where both parents incomes (if there are two parents involved) are required to support the family. 

The idea of temporary or drop in child care is interesting - but it's very expensive to staff and run such facilities. 

Which is why the second story in the Motherload entry about two UK moms trading extended play dates during school vacations so that they could work and their children would be supervised that then resulted in prosecution from the UK for running a day care facility is ridiculous.  Parents have been helping each other out for ages.  There is a difference between a day care facility and babysitting/play dates.  I expect my day care facility to be licensed, have a curriculum for pre-school (play based) and run on a reliable and predictable schedule.  My relationship with my friends and sister to help each other out is considerably more haphazard and certainly curriculum free.  We call it "co-parenting".  And during school breaks, if there aren't camps readily available or affordable, every parent does the play date scramble.

Parents need to be supporting each other and talking about how to do that and working with employers to be flexible on working hours and locations more than we need more taxes and more government solutions (something suggested by commenters to the Motherlode post).  No one should be afraid to ask for help - even if it's only for a little mental health time or as important as a job search or hospital visit.