cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
The High Cost of Doing Daycare - Topic
Childcare fees are a major burden for new parents—but the situation isn’t much easier for the people taking care of their kids.
Joan Hallett’s apartment is in a wide, six-story complex on a classic brownstone- and tree-lined street of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. When I enter, it’s full of children. Beyond a leather couch and green armchair, the darkened living room holds two infants in rockers, one of them fussing while being soothed by a staff member and an older one standing in a playpen. Through a narrow hallway is the back room, which used to be a bedroom and is now painted in blue and yellow, with signs displaying the letters of the alphabet and a daily schedule and shelves of cubbies and toys lining every wall. There, six toddlers eat supper under the watch of two young, tired-looking female providers. After eating, they switch to noisily solving big wooden puzzles and looking at picture books.
Hallett arrives a few moments behind me, fresh off her part-time job as a guidance counselor at a nearby middle school, which she's worked while running this daycare center out of her home for the past 12 years. Her curly gold-and-brown braids are piled on top of her head, and she sports red cat-eye glasses above a matching magenta blouse and sneakers. Her face looks much younger than what you’d expect from a grandmother.
Childcare fees are a major burden for new parents—but the situation isn’t much easier for the people taking care of their kids.
Joan Hallett’s apartment is in a wide, six-story complex on a classic brownstone- and tree-lined street of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. When I enter, it’s full of children. Beyond a leather couch and green armchair, the darkened living room holds two infants in rockers, one of them fussing while being soothed by a staff member and an older one standing in a playpen. Through a narrow hallway is the back room, which used to be a bedroom and is now painted in blue and yellow, with signs displaying the letters of the alphabet and a daily schedule and shelves of cubbies and toys lining every wall. There, six toddlers eat supper under the watch of two young, tired-looking female providers. After eating, they switch to noisily solving big wooden puzzles and looking at picture books.
Hallett arrives a few moments behind me, fresh off her part-time job as a guidance counselor at a nearby middle school, which she's worked while running this daycare center out of her home for the past 12 years. Her curly gold-and-brown braids are piled on top of her head, and she sports red cat-eye glasses above a matching magenta blouse and sneakers. Her face looks much younger than what you’d expect from a grandmother.