By Melissa Manno | Times Union, Albany
As she approached her due date, Mariah Fuente had more on her mind than childbirth and baby names. The single mother from Cohoes also worried about how she would financially support her newborn daughter and who would care for the baby once she went back to work.
From the moment she discovered she was pregnant, Fuente knew she would have to return to work at six weeks postpartum, the earliest obstetricians recommend, in order to make ends meet. “I thought I was prepared for that, but I obviously wasn’t … waitlists for day cares were six months to over a year,” Fuente explained. “We had to settle on at-home day cares, but then we would be there for a few months and then something would happen.”
The 22-year-old’s first job after giving birth was at a big box retailer, where her inconsistent hours often didn’t match up with when her day care was open. She was ultimately fired because of the amount of time she needed to take off when the home-based day care was unable to watch her daughter, Fuente said.
It was the first of five day cares where she would place her baby in just 22 months.
“Throughout all of this, I lost jobs and started new jobs, and it became that my job had to fit with whatever the day care schedule was,” Fuente said, adding that a subsidy from the state Division of Child Care Services covers her child care costs.
Fuente’s experiences as a parent underscore one aspect of the continuing child care crisis that was laid bare by the pandemic. While parents continue to face a lack of affordable care that meets the needs of modern day work schedules, child care providers either close up shop or struggle to maintain their own low-wage workforces amid other challenges. All the while, employers are failing to hire and retain the workers they need, and even though some are finding novel solutions to help relieve child care pressures, advocates say more needs to be done.
As part of the 2023 state budget,…
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