I spent nearly $60,000 when 2 of my kids were in full-time childcare. We delayed having a 3rd child because we couldn’t afford it.

Randi Braun had her two oldest kids in day care at the same time. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Randi Braun, a bestselling author and executive coach. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, my first feeling was absolute elation, and my second was crippling anxiety about if I would be able to find and afford childcare.

People had talked to me about the high costs of having children long before I decided to have a family. So, during my pregnancy, I spent so much energy focused on finding the right day care. It was like “The Hunger Games.”

I remember putting my name down on waiting lists, desperate to get into somewhere that would accommodate our commutes to work.

Eventually, we found ourselves having two kids in the same day care, which cost a fortune. I still think it was worth it.

I spent time after giving birth calling day cares

I looked at my husband one night over dinner and said that from researching the costs of childcare, one of us was going to have to get a new job or promotion. We both hustled, and I ended up getting a promotion, and he ended up getting a new job. We were incredibly lucky to be in the financial position we were in, more privileged than many.

My daughter was born, and I still hadn’t heard if we had gotten into any of the centers I had expressed interest in. Even though I was sleep-deprived, I spent every bit of time I had while she was napping, emailing, and calling day care centers.

Finally, someone from a big chain day care got in touch and said there might be a spot. I said I could come for a tour as soon as they could have me. I went later that afternoon with my checkbook ready in my purse.

After the tour, he said he would write up an offer letter and send it over later. I suggested he draft the letter there and then, and I could go ahead and pay the deposit. I was not leaving without securing my spot.

My daughter got in.

Once I was in the big chain’s system, I could more easily move her to other centers under their umbrella. About a year later, I switched her to a slightly cheaper center closer to our house.

I told the day care director I was pregnant again before my own parents

The first thing I did when I found out I was expecting our second child was to go to the director’s office.

“My parents don’t even know I’m pregnant yet, but I really need to get this baby on the waitlist,” I told her.

Once again, my husband and I sat down and had to figure out how we were going to afford to put another child in day care. It was a necessity we had to figure out how to pay for.

Right before giving birth, I found out our second baby, a son, would have a space in the same day care center as my daughter. The catch was that the spot would open when he was only one week old. If we wanted to guarantee the spot, we would have to start paying for it then, so I started paying for him four months before I went back to work.

People couldn’t believe I did it — paid for childcare I wasn’t even using — but I would tell them there was no other option. He either wouldn’t have care, or he would have been in a different facility from my daughter.

Putting them in different centers would have been practically impossible for our family, given our work commutes and the pre-pandemic lack of flexibility for parents.

The cost of day care was double our monthly mortgage

Just when we started to hang of paying a monthly bill for childcare that was twice the cost of my mortgage, I decided to take my part-time business full-time.

A major consideration in being able to quit my corporate job was whether we could afford day care if I did. We ultimately built up a savings account that would take us through six months of their day care tuition.

I remember writing that first check to pay for two children. I handed it to the day care director, and it hurt. It was one of the scariest moments.

For years, we paid a lot of money for our two children to be taken care of while we worked. In the 2020/2021 school year, we paid $59,520 in childcare costs, twice the amount I was paying for the mortgage.

But this amount is the “market rate” in Washington, DC, where the going rate for basic childcare is anywhere from $2,000 to $2,700 per child.

We stopped paying when they got into public preschool

We continued paying this amount the entire time both of my older children were in full-time either childcare or public school.

When my daughter was 5 and my son 3, we were able to access Universal Pre-K, leaving us to only pay for after-school childcare. You have to literally “lottery in” on the schools for Universal Pre-K and it’s not available in all states. When you get it, it feels like you’ve won the jackpot.

The freedom of not paying tens of thousands of dollars each year on childcare felt incredible. It was life-changing. We were able to move from our two-bedroom house to something a little bigger because we knew that a huge portion of our income would be freed up, and we could save more money for the kids to go to college.

Although there were several reasons we decided to wait to have our third baby, childcare costs were one of the factors. It would have been financially impossible to have three kids in full-time childcare.

I enjoy working

When I spoke about the price of childcare on social media, some people questioned why I hadn’t decided to stay home with them to avoid the cost of childcare.

The motherhood penalty was on my radar. It’s a phenomenon in which women’s wages stagnate or decrease during childbearing years. They either leave the workforce and come back later, which impacts their long-term potential, or they stay on and are perceived as less committed. I didn’t want that to be me.

I also saw the long-term value of spending huge amounts of my salary on childcare. Even if everything I made was going back out on childcare, I was still saving in my 401(k) and would have much more money over the course of my lifetime.

But most importantly, I love my job. I want to keep doing it while also parenting, and this shouldn’t be just a privilege.