i know the feeling about daycare. when working - daycare can take up to half or more of my earned income. If I am not working, I dont have any extra cash if i stayed home and watch kids myself. Damned if you do, damned if you dont. This is esp. true if your kids are 4.5 years old or younger due to fact they are not in school all day. NOBODY wants to watch kids afterhours, weekends unless you have a crappy sitter to do this and they ar eno consistant either. Why do I say this ? when both deaf parants works - we tends to take "any job due to lack of manpower to fill in the off hours with regualr people" and usually its a job that is not at a decent hour. nothing M-F 6 am to 3 am so you can be home when kids get out of school. SO WHAT TO DO ?! sigh .. catch 22. It's really a struggle to get a sitter flexible enough so my wife can work retail hours that changes weekly and its never predictable and me working 24/7 shifts. It's very tiring and energy draining. There were times I literally would get 4 hours of sleep daily for 3 months at a time and then change hours for next 3 months so we can juggle the kids, school, work and kids activities and daycare provider hours. NOT a good way to live.