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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

I have so many thoughts on this from my own life experience. Latchkey kid, YMMV.

When I was a child, it was normal for neighborhood moms who didn't work to just watch kids for favors or a nominal fee. My memories are fuzzy, but I seem to mostly remember watching daytime TV soaps and eating PBJs probably more often than a child should.

Now that I'm older, I'm flabbergasted by regulations and costs for simple daycare. I've met numerous people who spend more on childcare than they make in a month. Not to sound trad anything, but that just doesn't make any financial sense to me.

I've no idea what the solution is. NM recently announced free child care, interested to see how that plays out. For everyone else... there's gotta be a saner solution.

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In my kids' lives, I've spent about $160k on childcare. So crazy to think of how hard we've worked to not be with our kids. I'm going to guess my parents spent under $10k in all of my childhood, inflation adjusted.

This model doesn't really make good sense. On one hand, I'm glad my wife and I can have careers. On the other, I doubt I would care much if we lived in a society where we didn't need to so badly. $160k of childcare doesn't pay for itself.

Out of curiosity, whay are the regulations? If you leave your kid with a friendly neighbor, what laws are you breaking? How would you get in trouble?

That I don't know exactly if it's just one on one, as I've not read up on it when it's a more personal relationship.

I do know that my own wife, who was home all day watching just one child, was open to taking on more for free, but regulations around it made it way more of a headache than it was worth. There are laws about how many kids you can watch, how long you can watch them, licensing, child to adult ratios, state visits, etc.

Basically, if you wanted to be open to watching 5 kids for a working day, doing so would be illegal in every state I've lived in.

Every state has regulations and laws that at face value most people would agree with, but together end up in a system where you have to pay thousands per month for a facility to watch a child.

My wife had a very successful "farm school" in Mississippi by staying under the limit for required childcare licensing. At the time one could have six children (in addition to one's own) and not have to be a licensed childcare facility.

Is it really illegal for your kid's friend to come over to visit every day, or do these regulations only apply if you're doing it commercially?

By the talk of "ratios", it sounds like it's fine if your kid's friend comes over every day, but if your kid's four friends come over every day you could get in trouble.

Probably only kicks in for paid providers. There would be all sorts of laws around safety (making sure the areas are child-proofed, no dangerous items (knives, guns, medicine), background checks, temperature maintenance, emergency plans, etc.).

> If you leave your kid with a friendly neighbor

That's perfectly legal where I live, but... There are no friendly neighbours with that kind of time on their hands. My entire townhome complex of 34 units (ranging from 2–4 bedrooms each) has only one single elderly woman who's retired. Everyone else is young people in their 20s (working), or families with their own kids and—in all families but one—two working parents.

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