Day Care Enrollments Plummet as Families Struggle to Pay the Bills

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:13:00 GMT

New Horizons daycare center just outside of Chicago has seen its enrollment cut by 50 percent in the last three months. And a San Gabriel, California daycare saw its enrollment go from 51 kids last year to 15 this year.

As the economy goes from scary to terrifying, parents around the country are being forced to cut back on childcare or pull their kids out of daycare altogether, relying instead on extended family or drastic changes to their own work lives.

"It is not about people making choices to drive a second car," said Diane Stout, who is the executive director of New Horizons. "For many low income people it is making a choice for food." And, with yearly day care costs averaging between $3,380 and $10,787 for childcare for one preschooler, even middle income families are being faced with the need to cut back on childcare.

Providers say they are seeing increased disciplinary problems amongst kids who are stressed by their families’ financial problems and by the loss of many of their friends in daycare.

And many fear that kids will be placed in dangerous situations as their parents’ desperation increases. Even families who qualify for aid often don’t bother applying since the waiting list is so long, being forced instead to put their children in questionable situations while they work to pay the rent and put food on the table. One woman, was instance, was leaving her four-year-old daughter in her car while she worked at a shoe store, checking on her every hour.

As the executive director of Child Care Solutions, a New York referral agency put it, "We are driving people into an unregulated system."

Photo: AP

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Day Care Enrollments Plummet as Families Struggle to Pay the Bills