’We're scared': Michigan parents can't find childcare, so they're turning to Facebook

When Casandra Scott, 41, earned a promotion at work, she should've been able to celebrate. Instead, she and her husband found themselves worrying about who'd watch their child when they’re at work.

Now a manager at Meijer, Scott has a good set of benefits to provide for her family. But her husband may have to leave his career of 30 years to stay home with their 6-year-old son this summer.

“My husband is panicking,” Scott, an Alanson resident, said. The couple can't support their child on a single income. "We don't know what to do."

Across Michigan, finding childcare is a challenge many can't overcome. They turn to summer camps and nannies, or get help from family members.

Scott doesn’t have those options. She and her husband can't afford the $16-30 rates some in-home sitters charge, and less expensive summer camps fill up quickly. Scott tried signing her son up at the YMCA of Northern Michigan, but found spots were already filled at 7:37 a.m.

Hannah Steele, branch director of the YMCA of Northern Michigan, said the spots were full within an hour of the application opening.

“We're frustrated," Scott said. "We're scared."

According to the Economic Policy Institute, infant care for one child takes about 19 percent of a median family’s income in Michigan. For a parent making minimum wage, childcare would cost more than half of their earnings.

In other words, Scott isn’t alone.

As a surgical technologist at War Memorial Hospital, Kayla Khadija is often on-call, meaning she has to be prepared to go into work if she's needed — adding another layer of difficulty to finding childcare for her 9-year-old son, Owen.

“Using the local Facebook groups, I was able to network and find people that would watch him," she said. "But then it got complicated because I work on-call. So, not only is it my regularly scheduled shifts, it’s now my on-call shifts.

“That's trickier because you're not guaranteed to (get called in) and you only make three bucks an hour when you sit at home. So, you've got to pay someone for 15 and a half hours of their time when you're only making three bucks an hour. It's very difficult.”

On weekends, Khadija’s boyfriend helps watch Owen while she's on-call, but even with his help and the time Owen spends in school, Khadija is still spending $1,500 to $1,800 on childcare every month.

“That's an entire paycheck for me.”

Khadija said her employer and co-workers are understanding when she has to be late or miss a shift, but it's still anxiety-inducing.

“It's like walking on eggshells every day,” Khadija said. “I shouldn't have to be like that. (I'm) not saying my employer would fire me ... but it's just that feeling like, ‘Oh my God, how many times are they going to allow this?’"

The demand isn't lost on Steele, who was hired by the YMCA just a few weeks before summer camp began last year. She found herself working to ensure as many kids as possible could join.

“If it comes down to a kid not being able to get childcare or me having to work in ratio every day of the summer, I would much rather work in ratio every day of the summer to make it happen for a family,” she said.

Steele says required ratios are dramatically different for summer camps versus after-school programs. Due to licensing requirements, YMCA is able to accommodate 18 students per worker for their after-school programs. But summer camps have stricter guidelines, requiring one worker for every 10 students.

Because of the expanded staffing requirement over the summer, camp is only open to 60 children. If they’re able to find more staff members, the YMCA will open a second location with more availability.

The weekly rate for families sending their child to the YMCA program from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. is $150. There are additional costs for pre- and post-camp options, Steele said. The organization is one of the largest out-of-school time childcare providers in the region, and children from as far as Gaylord come to the camp.

But finding people willing to take on childcare roles can be difficult when wages are rising in other industries. While the group has been able to raise wages without raising tuition, thanks to grants and funding, it can still be hard to incentivize others to enter the childcare sector.

“It's tough because childcare, historically speaking, isn't a high paying field,” Steele said. "For us to be able to offer our programs at an affordable rate, but also get enough people to work at it — it’s a balancing act.”

Petoskey’s Dasha Egan, 27, used to work in childcare, a natural fit because of her love of kids. A bonus? Each place she worked had a spot built-in for her own daughter.

She left childcare, in the end, because the pay was too low and the drive too much.

“I feel like at this point, if you're going to work in a childcare setting, you're either desperate for a job or you're a parent who has a kid and there's an easy way for you to get care for your child,” Egan said. “Nobody's going to take a job that doesn't have benefits, that's paying less than minimum wage, works full time.”

While she has support from her mom in helping take care of her daughter, Egan still has challenges.

“She's a very active child, and she thrived in childcare,” she said. "It's been a little rough to try to find activities for her to do. I've been lucky — I've been taking her to Boyne Area Gymnastics for open gym. She has a little friend that she's occasionally able to play with, but I really do think that it takes a toll on kids who aren’t in daycare.”

Egan said she can see a difference in the social skills of children who go to daycare centers and thinks her daughter could use more of the stimulation those spaces offer.

“I would really like to get my daughter back in daycare if I could, because I think she's bored,” she said.

As desperation to find someone to care for their children heightened, Scott, Egan and Khadija all took to the same place to find help: Facebook.

When Khadija moved from Milwaukee to Sault Ste. Marie at the end of October with her son, she took to the social-media giant, hoping to find other parents with whom she could build up a support network.

It turned out to be more difficult than expected. Khadija created a private Facebook group for Sault Ste. Marie parents to communicate, but didn’t find the support network she needed. Without childcare, she had to push back her start date for her new job.

“Having very limited family up here, I had to rely heavily on Facebook groups," Khadija said. "I had four people lined up, all four bailed. So, right now, I have four or five random people that watch my kid. I had to make that Facebook group in hopes that other parents were in the same situation as me and we could help each other out.”

As a single mom of a child with ADHD and autism, Khadija has trouble finding steady childcare for Owen. Back in Wisconsin, she had an arrangement with two other moms. They'd take turns watching the kids while the others worked — but so far, she hasn’t been able to create a similar arrangement in Michigan.

Egan also posted on Facebook looking for support, and multiple people reached out — but she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her daughter with unlicensed professionals.

“If you’re desperate, yeah, you’re going to let a stranger watch your kid,” Egan said. "But just being in the childcare industry, I’ve seen some stuff and you really should have somebody that’s licensed watching your kid, because stuff happens.”

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Khadija feels the opportunities lay in investors' hands.

"I know getting licensed is expensive, however, there's quite a few vacant buildings up here," she said. "If I had the financial means to do it, I (would take) a shot. If an investor came up here and bought one of the buildings, got it up to code for licensed childcare so these people can apply for assistance, this place would be great.

"There's a lot of employment opportunity that can't be filled until we get to childcare that's licensed."

— Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey. Contact reporter Karly Graham at kgraham@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KarlyGrahamJRN. 

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Michigan parents can't find childcare, so they're turning to Facebook