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Topic: Company-provided daycare
| Author | Message |
| jb960305 | Posted – 3/16/2006 12:12:13 PM | show profile | email poster I am an expecting father (ETA July 31) and my girlfriend and I are moving to NYC Sept. 1. As the move date gets closer, we start worrying about new things. The most recent is daycare. I was wondering how many parents here (or others in the know) have children in company-provided daycare (whether paid by them or paid by you). We want to have our child close (preferably in the same building) so we can check on him throughout the day. Anyone have any experience with this or any other daycare advice in general? P.S. I'm looking for an EA position, preferably in magazines. |
| Cyrus | Posted – 3/16/2006 3:15:36 PM | show profile Congrats on your upcoming arrival! NYC can be a tough market for daycare, especially preschool. People and their children have to interview to get into a decent one, for Pete's sake. Do you already have a job lined up? If so, find out from them whether they provide on-site care. A lot of financial services institutions do, as well as major companies, but I wouldn't say it's common. ------ Cyrus Afzali Astoria Communications www.astoriacomm.com |
| mumbo jumbo | Posted – 3/16/2006 3:52:23 PM | show profile The only publishing company that I know of that has company day care is CMP at their headquarters in Manhasset, which is outside of NYC. The company produces high-tech trade publications. |
| jb960305 | Posted – 3/16/2006 6:44:12 PM | show profile | email poster Neither of us currently have jobs lined up. We're still finishing up school. We're not really looking for employers to pay for daycare, but I guess my question is how common is it for companies to be in/near buildings with daycare. We'd like to be able to stop in on our son throughout the day during lunch/breaks/etc. Or I guess if anyone has any advice on daycare in general, that would be great. I'm trying to figure out if it would be worth it to send our son to daycare or if one of us should just work part time at first to save money and, more importantly, spend more time with him rather than hand him off to a stranger. |
| willwriteforfood | Posted – 3/16/2006 8:03:50 PM | show profile I have no idea about NYC (I am in FL) but my husband and I decided I will work freelance from home so I can look after our daughter (due May 27th). Daycare here is expensive and I don't trust the quality in this particular area. It just isn't worth it for us. My husband works full-time so my income is more of a supplement. It might be different if I could get a well-paid full-time job, but this area is ridiculously low paid. I am lucky to be on long term monthly contract with one company so I know I will have that guaranteed income as well as any other freelance stuff I do. I would look at the specific numbers for you and your girlfriend. Good daycare facilities are not cheap and usually have long waiting lists. If you can get into one really easily, I would be very diligent about checking their credentials and that of their employees. Look at what you each realistically expect to make, and the average cost of daycare in that area, and you will quickly see if it is worth bothering with daycare. If you are trying to find a daycare close to your work you are severely limiting yourself. It may be better to go a little further and not be able to check in on him like you want, but know that the facility and its staff are better. Remember, whichever route you choose, you can always change your mind. It isn't something that is set in stone. Good luck with your move and the birth of your son! |
| fourfold | Posted – 3/16/2006 8:06:48 PM | show profile Congrats on your impending parenthood. One thing to keep in mind about childcare: many childcare centers DO NOT accept newborns. Many have a minimum age. It can go as low as 6 weeks in rare cases, but often it is as much as 6 mos. You will want to keep this in mind when making your plans. |
| jb960305 | Posted – 3/17/2006 9:31:25 AM | show profile | email poster We talked more about it last night and I think what we'll do is have her work full time (should would most likely make more than me starting out anyway) and I'll work part time nights and weekends. Otherwise, if we both worked full time 9-5, one of our salaries would be going toward daycare almost entirely. So it wouldn't be worth it anyway because we'd also be spending less time with our son. What we'd like to do, granted things work out, is wait until he's about 18 months until we put him in daycare. We'd feel much more comfortable with daycare once he's older and feel that at that age is a good time for him to have much more social interaction with others. I plan to find a decent paying call center job and try to freelance as much as I can (which is a lot more difficult for me considering I'm coming straight out of school). I've seen a few freelance, on-site proofreading, copyediting, fact-checking, etc. jobs on here and some are at night. Does anyone have any experience with those? I'd much rather be doing something similar to the field I want to go into rather than answer phones. |
| willwriteforfood | Posted – 3/17/2006 11:29:05 AM | show profile I think you are wise to wait until your son is a little older before putting him in daycare. At 18 months he can tell you if there is a problem there. On the freelancing, my advice is to start pitching for assignments now. It's amazing how things follow on sometimes. I wrote an article for a magazine, they came back to me and asked me to write another one which was essentially a company profile tailored to their readership, then that company came back to me after the article was done and submitted and asked if I would consider doing some PR work for them. Out of one lead, I got 3 assignments in the space of 2 months. That's also how I got my monthly contract with a different company. The quicker you can get your foot in the door, the more likely you are to get onto a contract with the company. So I would suggest starting now. Again, all of my work is done remote via my laptop which means I will have more time with my daughter and can work at whatever hour I need to. Good luck! |
| nandy | Posted – 3/17/2006 2:47:23 PM | show profile I've worked for a handful of publishing companies in Manhattan, and none of them offered ''on-site'' daycare. The best they did was offer help finding services through their Employee Assistance Program. Since I went back to work almost immediately after the birth each of of my children, and my husband was also working, we went the private child-care route. I put up a notice in my apartment building and a neighbor responded. She ended up watching our children (along with one other) for over nine years in her apartment. She never had more than two children full-time (by the time our second child was born, the older one was in school), which meant it was a home setting. My husband, who worked from home, could go up and visit during the day. Other advantages were not having to schlep the kids out in bad weather, her ability to pop downstairs to pick up a forgotten toy, and in nice weather she would walk the younger kids over and pick up our oldest at school. And I made a lifetime friend. When we moved away ten years ago, it was like leaving a family member behind, so much so that we've stayed in touch and visit each other throughout the year. |
| Printingman | Posted – 3/17/2006 3:35:33 PM | show profile | email poster jb. You gotta be kidding about finding employers that have a day care service in NYC. Your best bet is put an ad in a Russian newspaper and find a great Russian or Uzbek babushka that can take care of your kids for a reasonable rate. They are gems. You may want to try a Polish newspaper as well. |
| making cents | Posted – 3/17/2006 4:00:04 PM | show profile I hate to be the negative one in this, but am I reading this right?? You're planning on moving to NYC with no jobs lined up with a one-month-old? And this is your girlfriend, not wife or even fiancee, so there's no shared employee health benefits when one of you lands a job? If that's true, what's your backup plan? Kids are VERY expensive--I have two--and I can't imagine taking a risk like that. How are you two going to support your family if jobs don't flow in as you plan? Is your girlfriend in media as well? I hope not...EA jobs are brutal to come by in NY, and if both of you are going after them, you're going to be in trouble. If I were you, I'd take the next 1-2 years to stay where you are, build experience and a bit of a financial cushion and then make the move. Doing the whole up & move to NYC and let fate take over when you're single is one thing; it's entirely different when you've got a baby to take care of. |
| Cyrus | Posted – 3/17/2006 5:47:12 PM | show profile Just a brief note about the insurance issue. NY, NJ and other Northeastern states do recognize domestic partnerships. So in many cases, you CAN get on your significant others' health insurance once you provide documentation that the 2 of you live together AND you share financial responsibilities for your household. Of course, your company would also have to offer that benefit as well, but again many larger companies in the NY area do. ------ Cyrus Afzali Astoria Communications www.astoriacomm.com |
| making cents | Posted – 3/17/2006 7:41:39 PM | show profile Cyrus-- Good to know...I live in the South, where progressive thinking is virtually unheard of. =) It's still pretty risky though since there's no guarantee that the company will elect to follow that guideline. Kids--they make things so much more complicated than they need to be... |
| jb960305 | Posted – 3/17/2006 8:12:18 PM | show profile lissa- I agree with you on having your child be old enough to tell you if something is wrong. My gf isn't in media (she's the smart one) and while we do not have jobs lined up yet, we hope to by time we move. We're going to up in June/July to look at places and apply at temp. agencies just so we have something right away and have something to fall back on. I know having a child is going to cost much more than I anticipate, but we'll have some money saved up, we have student loan money available to us, and as long as we work enough and live within our means, I think things will work out fine. Of course it's going to be tough at first, but that would be true no matter where in the country we lived. |
| argh | Posted – 3/18/2006 11:26:08 AM | show profile JB -- I'm wondering if NY is really the best place for you to start... I think if I were in your position, I'd try living somewhere with somewhat lower cost of living (and remember moving is a MAJOR expense too) and try saving up as much money as possible. Working for a regional or trade pub wouldn't be such a bad thing -- EA jobs can take FOREVER to get, especially if you don't have a great list of fabulous contacts at your fingertips and a solid bunch of internships under your belt. And they don't pay well. But you can freelance from anywhere... Perhaps there are other compelling reasons to move to NY (her career? family? I don't know) but it just seems like you're taking a difficult situation and stacking the odds even farther against you... I moved to NY without a job and spent four very painful months looking for a job wondering if I was crazy... but I always comforted myself in knowing that at least I was only making myself suffer -- if I put myself into ridiculous credit card debt and ate only baked potatoes for a week, at least I was the only one who'd be suffering those consequences... |
| bubs | Posted – 3/18/2006 10:25:50 PM | show profile Adding my two cents... JB, I need to caution you on several things. First, as you are well aware, the magazine publishing field is EXTREMELY competitive. If you come to NY without a job lined up, it will be quite some time before you find one. And the pay will be VERY low and NY is VERY expensive. Major media companies do provide on-site BACKUP care (in case primary care falls through) but you can only use the site for approx 10 days per year. CMP is the ONLY major media company I know of that provides on-site childcare, but it's on Long Island and technology-based content. And a very difficult company to get into. Plus -- because of my experience with two children -- it would not be the greatest idea to wait until 18 months to start daycare. Why? Your child will be in the midst of big-time separation anxiety. It will be a really TOUGH transition for all of you. There are other options to think about, such as home-based daycare that is affordable and more like home (it's what I've used for almost 10 years). One suggestion is to stay where you are, get used TO BEING A PARENT (believe me, that's a big change in itself) and once you guys are comfortable emotionally and financially, make the move. In the meanwhile, you could start establishing contacts in NY. I would also caution in regards to working at home with a baby. NOT as easy as it sounds. I tried it, as well as some other moms I know, and it's usually a disaster. Sorry to throw cold water on your plans, but believe me, you need to take this one step at a time. That's one of the realities of parenthood. |
