EP 10: The Joy of Catching Up

What does it really cost to raise a child?

In this episode, Candace Powell and Jacqueline Kuiper have an honest conversation about the financial and emotional realities of parenting. From the rising costs of childcare to the invisible labor often carried by mothers, they explore the challenges families face when making decisions about work, caregiving, and family planning.

Together, they unpack the societal expectations placed on women, the value of unpaid labor, and why open conversations about money are essential for healthy decision-making.

This episode isn't about finding one "right" way to parent; it's about creating space for honest dialogue, understanding, and support for the choices families make.

🎙️ In this episode:
• The true cost of childcare
• The emotional labor of parenting
• Financial planning and family decisions
• Societal expectations placed on mothers
• Why honest money conversations matter

🎧 Listen now and join the conversation.

Follow us on Instagram: @wtf_womentalkfinance | Spotify, YouTube & Apple Podcasts: WTF! Women Talk Finance | The Founders Office: foundersoffice.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I'm Jackie. I'm Candace. And this is WTF.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Grab your coffee, wine, water bottle, emotional support snack, no judgment. And let's get into it. Hello! And we're back.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

And today it's just the two of us, which I love. I love having guests on, and we've had such high-quality guests, but every now and then I love when it's just like me and you catching up. What's going on? It's so fun. This is how we actually started. This is how it all started. It's because we just like chatting with each other.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

But I have to remember we're like recording. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Because we're so used to just chatting.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

The nice thing is we definitely have an editor that if like we say something we shouldn't, it can get like thank goodness.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

There's that. I try not to swear. I try not to use too many accents.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

I don't. I mean, I don't try to not do either of those things. I let the swears come right through. I do let the swears come through. But I don't think. Well, and there's a difference because you have little ears that listen. And oh there's that's gonna be kind of our conversation today is the little ears that surround you and what what it costs to have little ears.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, so um I am coming to the end of paying for early child care this in the next couple weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Congrats. I feel like I should have brought streamers, balloons, a bottle of champagne, like a saber, you know, to like a cork. Um, what am I missing? Uh cake. No streamer. Nobody tells you a card.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah. Nobody tells you the excitement that you will have when, and we we our children are in public school. We are we specifically uh chose where we live because we're zoned for really, really great public school. Um, and so we're not paying for private school, which is amazing. And our our last kid is is graduating, graduating from preschool. They do little cap and gown and everything. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's so good. When I get the picture, I'll send it to you. It is so cute. It's the cutest. Um, and so that that's coming to an end. And literally, my husband and I looked at each other and we're like, oh my god, we're gonna have so much money.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Okay, put a number on this. What did this cost you?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

So this prompted me to kind of do the math. My oldest child is nine doing the math. Um, between uh all of our child care expenses for nine years, it was over a quarter million dollars in child, just so I can work, right? I do want to say one would do it again a million times over. I I love I love my kids, I love being a mom. Great choice. I also have one of the dearest people in my life because we she was our nanny.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

You've had a very unique and wonderful, just from the stories and just from meeting her. You've had yes, fantastic child care. Oh my gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

And my kids have done preschool as well. Uh, one of our nanny was with us all the way through her um through her education. She is a dear friend. She uh we didn't know her when we when when she first started working for us. Um and she is, especially my youngest, she is her person. That is her, like the just like just absolutely in love with her. Um we still see her all the time. Like, she is just such an important part of our life. Um, and what she gifted me is beyond just even being my friend and and being through COVID, she was sometimes the only other person I saw as a human, um uh outside of like my immediate family. Um she gifted me the security of knowing my kids had a safe person to be with. She loves, loves my kids. It made it easier for me to do what I needed to do professionally. Um and I just am like endlessly grateful for that whole, I mean, I had truly the best of all experiences, right? Um the the interesting realization I came to with this, with this kind of like, oh my gosh, we're coming to the end of uh now our child is in preschool because our our nanny is off doing incredible, incredible work in social work. She's amazing. Um we realized like, oh my gosh, we we actually like a huge chunk of our budget is is that we've been doing for almost a decade is now no more. And I thought of that, and at the same time, there's this big messaging going on, and it's it's always been there. I always feel a little like zinged by it when I see women are having fewer children, women aren't, you know, having babies at the same rate. It always seems like it's really women aren't doing something right, we aren't replacing our wonderful selves as quickly and as efficiently as we need to. And I'm sitting here, and obviously I made choices that not everybody's gonna be able to make, or not everybody would want to make, but I was like, man, that is a very big financial. There, there's so many financial decisions to be made. Um, this is a huge, huge decision to make.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

And I just think it's not spoken about. Like you hear about the joys of motherhood or the joys of having children. And when it comes to like any other decision, we talk about the financial impact first, or you weigh the pros and cons. What's the cost? What's the cost before I decide, or before we decide to like redo the house or sell the house or buy a new house? What's the cost of this trip? What's the cost of whatever? You assessed cost first, and I don't think that's the case. Um motherhood, parenthood, having children is more just a going expectation, and then you kind of just realize the cost later. There's no, there's not, I shouldn't say no, there's not a lot of significant discussion about what it costs up front before the decision is made. And there's this is a fortune.com article from April 12th, 2026, so only about a month old, and the title is Almost Unmanageable. Raising a child in the US now costs more than $300,000. And it's really great. They um they break the total cost, they break it down state by state because the cost can vary widely by state. For example, Hawaii is the most expensive place to raise a child. Um, Alaska and Maryland follow. I wouldn't have guessed those two. Meanwhile, New Hampshire is the cheapest state to raise a child, costing $201,000 yet, which is half the price of Hawaii. So Hawaii is over $400. Um, Washington, D.C. offers free preschool for three and four-year-olds, and South Carolina came in second and third. Uh, DC and South Carolina for the least expensive places to raise a child. But this, these numbers are like hard costs. Daycare, education, health costs, right? There are so many other costs, like opportunity costs, that doesn't get factored in. So it's really just it's an it's an interesting conversation. And who do you have this conversation with when you're thinking about having kids?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Well, absolutely. I mean, typically, if you are in a partnered relationship, it's it's your partner. But outside of that, I don't it feel it's it's identified really as like this, this is your private family business. I will tell you, when I filled out the like, we're we're done with preschool in a couple weeks, I I text you right away. I was like, Jackie, I'm rich. Um I text my friends right away because now we're normalizing this idea of financial conversations with women. And it was really this like excitement of oh my gosh, like there's um and and one of my friends was like, What is the thing you're gonna do now with that, with that? And she like it was called a she called it a savings, like with the savings. I was like, man, what an interesting like way to to put it, right? Like to me, I was like, oh my gosh, I got some of our income back. Yeah, a little bit. Um it's a huge, huge financial decision and one that you can do your best to budget. You can do your best to try to guess how much it's going to be. Um, there's no way I would have assumed that that's that our number would be where it's at at nine years. Again, we're very fortunate to be able to do that. I was very fortunate to have the ability to choose child care that fit my lifestyle and what I wanted. Um, and um, I know not everybody, most people don't have that choice. Um, it's a really, really big decision. But like you said, healthcare, we just looked at our premium, like what our premiums are for the um for insurance. And it's a very different insuring yourself as an individual. And then when you add your your family to it, um, you know, I've I literally have friends who are working just to pay for health insurance. I mean, at the end of the day, their entire check pretty much goes to cover their insurance.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Well, and did you know there's this forture.com article, same thing. Did you know that there's an affordability factor? Meaning, like, someone's already done the math for you, and the the statement is that childcare is affordable, affordable, if it consumes no more than 7% of household income. Did you know that that stat even exists? No. So, how are people supposed to like, oh, let me look at my household income? Can we get childcare for 7% or less of whatever that number is? Um, and then boom, I'm gonna check the box and go, okay, it's it's affordable.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

And also, is it a is it good?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Is it I have a fenced in courtyard in my backyard, and like it's a fence. It is yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Well, it's interesting you say for less than 7%, the US Department of Labor found that full day care for one child, one child, consumed between 8.9 and 16 percent of the median family income. So that just tells me there is disparity between what affordability actually is versus what's actually available. Yeah. Um, and let's say the quiet part out loud, this is viewed as a women's issue.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Yeah, I don't like that.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I I mean, women are the ones typically leaving the workforce or making that choice or comparing their income to what it costs for childcare to determine whether or not it's worth it for them to stay in the workforce or leave because the cost of childcare is close to what it would be for them to just, you know, stay at home. Uh the average, this was 2024 numbers, the average annual price of childcare was estimated at just over 13,000. Um, it's risen substantially. Um it's child care prices rose uh substantially from 2020 to 2024.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Um and part of this is because of inflation, and then part of it is just there's lack of options, and that's coupled with high demand. I have several friends who, you know, baby just got here, and they're like, Where should we get ready to send them to preschool? Like, we need to get on a list, right? So babies born, you better be on a list knowing you're gonna have X number of months at home and then you've got to return to work. What's your plan? Where's the kid going? And um, yeah, from what I understand, you can be on a list for months and months before your kid is eligible to be enrolled in the daycare that you want.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's it's easy to say that you know, this was my my number is higher than average, but when you look at these numbers, and I even look at you know uh what I know other people are paying, and you've got a a great thing that we wanted to share, which is state by state. Um it actually still came out to with two kids, you you know, you're paying well over um a hundred thousand, hundred and fifty thousand dollars for those early years of of childcare and preschool. So this is a big number, it's a real number to talk about. Who do you talk about? And then where's this pressure coming from for us to you know procreate? This idea, I think it's ironic that one of the biggest reasons that a lot of us struggle with the idea of when or if how to have children and pay, the pressure's also coming from the same site of its economic reasons that the push is to have children. Um it's it's the um completely global economy's gotta grow, baby. The global economy needs to grow. We need you to have more children. Well, at the same time, the economy is exactly the reason we may have resistance in having children.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah, so double-edged sword, or what do you call that? And it's certainly not the only reason.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

I don't want to say that. There's many reasons, and I'm very much in the camp of I am a mom, I love being a mom. It is hard. I'm gonna say it is it is hard. It's uh it's not the most glamorous. I do not think anyone should have a child who is not 100% certain that is the pathway they want to go down because it is a it's a full commitment. You are you're in it, you're in it, and it's not just financial, it is uh it's all of your time, all of your spare time.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

It is physical, um it's different, right? Different costs other than monetary or financial. It's opportunity costs, it's social costs, it's physical cost, it's well, and the the bigger conversation is this isn't about like working moms versus stay-at-homes moms, stay-at-home moms. This isn't even about having children or not, because everything has a cost. Working has a cost, staying home has a cost, hiring help has a cost, not hiring help has a cost, doing it all yourself has a cost. So the goal is not to like shame any person's choice on anything. The goal is to make sure we all feel like we can support each other in any sort of choice, and the choices do have real numbers, not like guilt or not pressure, not assumptions, just real numbers of different things, and then let us talk about them. And let us not be left out of those conversations because women are often the ones that have more of the consequences of whatever the choice may be.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah, I mean, so there's still to this day motherhood penalties, I mean, in in our earning potential. Um, and you know, I'll be honest, when the school calls, are they calling me or my husband? Probably you. They're calling me.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Although your husband is on school board, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:06

My husband is a unw uh he was voluntold he was going to be on the PFA. Um, but they're they're calling me. They're calling you. We know this. Um, they do, it's just kind of that natural thing. And the reality is I don't like it. It's not okay. Employers know that too, and there's a penalty when they hire mothers. Um it's it's still so problematic. We still have not really made much progress. Um uh this is from uh the Institute of Women's Policy Research. Employed mothers were paid 62 uh.5 cents for every dollar paid to fathers in 2022.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

You can have a board, investors, advisors, and still have nobody you can actually talk to about what is really going on. That is not unusual. That is the founder reality, and we step in right there. I'm Tom Powell, and at the founder's office, we're proud to sponsor Women Talk Finance.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Yeah, that's wild. And and also it matters because not only on every dollar is a woman paid less, but it matters because think about like leaving the workforce even temporarily and coming back, reducing your hours or taking those little steps out. Um, pausing your career is not just a short-term paycheck issue. Um, it can affect promotions, your long-term prospects, raises, your social security, your retirement, uh, your confidence, and your long-term financial independence or long-term plans. Again, it's opportunity cost. If you are paying for this, necessarily it may be more difficult or impossible to pay for this.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Yeah. It's a shift of priorities and determining where how you are going to prioritize your spending and time, right? And I don't think there's any one right solution. I know what I know what I needed and what worked for me and what I was able to do. Um, and again, look at I'm saying I, it was obviously a joint decision with with my spouse, but um, you know, it really did kind of come down to what it was that I needed. I was a nursing mom for a long time too. And so that played a huge part into the what was going to work for my schedule and my needs. Um his his needs didn't shift all that all that much. Um, but I have friends across the spectrum who've picked every really possible scenario that there is for everyone. It was everyone that I have in my my pod of parents, it was the mothers who shifted or drove the decision on which direction they go, whether they shifted their their career, and many are I mean thrilled, and and I I'm fully supportive, but it is a conversation that needs to be had.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

And it's even it's an architecture and an infrastructure question because without child care, without child care options, the reality is that moms stay home, women stay home. So for women to work, necessarily, there's got to be a child care infrastructure in place.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Absolutely there has to be. There really needs to be. You're also thinking of not only have you let's say if moms are staying home, it's no longer dad's income, maybe stays the same, but the Expenses have still gone up. Dad's income may actually look different when you've added the child on to insurance. Or if mom was have on her own policy before and dad was on his own policy, and then you add mom, it's actually more expensive. Employers don't need to pay for your spouse, um, often don't. Um, and then your dependents. And so you're now paying several hundred dollars, maybe even a thousand dollars out of pocket now, um, or it's you know, it's coming out of your paycheck for adding them onto your insurance. So you've gone down an income to save money on the child care, but now you've also taken down the other income by 800, 1,000 bucks for insurance.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

I'm super curious. You are a budget girl. We've talked about having a budget, like you know how to budget, you know how to pop those numbers in a spreadsheet and do the formulas. Love a spreadsheet. I can see by your face, you're dead serious about that. So I'm really curious. Before you had kids, did you ever run some sample numbers and go and have that conversation? Go, what is this gonna look like, even roughly, even if we're just guessing right now, what's it gonna cost per month or per year to have one child, to have two?

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Sh yes. And like all things with parenthood, there's nobody smarter about parenthood than the the person who has no clue about it, who's not in the trenches, like truly, like I didn't even know the questions to ask, right? Like, I didn't know. I knew a handful of things that I could kind of guess, right? I knew to figure out child care costs, and I knew what I wanted. Um uh I knew to check our insurance and see what that change was gonna be. I did know that. Um, did I know how expensive uh swim lessons and gymnastics and um all the I mean, you want to know who can eat? Nine and five-year-olds can eat. They are uh there's just it's almost it's really hard to know actually, and you think you're gonna do it a certain way, you think you're going to be really, and then it's like you you aren't. So I think we did pretty good on sticking to things, but the reality is I also had no clue. I had no clue, and I think most people can also relate to that, whether it it's to child care or anything else. You have a plan, you think it's gonna go this way, and then you get into the thick of it, and you're like, Well, never mind, I didn't even know. I had no clue.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

What would you suggest? So, um, I don't know. I I don't know the solution to childcare costs, especially right now when there's high demand, not many options, it's very expensive, inflation's happening, it always will. That's how the world works. What would you offer to someone weighing this decision? Um, and they say they want to look at the financial costs. What would you suggest someone consider or think about?

SPEAKER_02 25:34

One, I think the pressure needs to be taken off women to make this decision, and it needs to be a team decision, right? Like it really does. Um, and I'm I'm guessing most uh if if they're in a partnership, um you need to have the hard conversations. The times that I think it um hasn't gone well in in situations I know was because some of the conversations weren't had. Um there was also the added invisible labor. So beyond the financial, there was the added pressure of the invisible labor that was added on to the person who took the step back, maybe from the workforce.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

And meaning like scheduling appointments, keeping the fridge full, tracking homework, just keeping track of logistics as one piece of additional labor.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

We're getting through currently as we're recording this, getting through the end of the school year, and I will tell you, it's like it's a joke at what we're what we're supposed to keep in the old noodle. Um, I needed to finish the yearbook, I needed to order all of the pictures of their that they both had different school picture days and had to get those. And oh, teacher appreciation day, and I can't forget this teacher and that teacher. And I mean, has the computer teacher ever even received a gift on that day? Like, you know, the okay, gotta think through that.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

And birthday parties, end-of-year birthday parties, gifts, school recitals happening, what outfit do we need?

SPEAKER_02 27:05

And like, all I mean, um activities, get them signed up now.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

It's already the end of May.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

That is a full-time job.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Yeah. Did someone get a dental appointment? Did we miss a dental?

SPEAKER_02 27:18

The appreciation for the job I do is low. The unsolicited employee review is absolute garbage, and I would like to speak to HBO.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

I'm giving you five stars because without being in your home right now, I know your floor is vacuumed, I know your dishwasher is loaded, I know the dog is good. The dog's been walked and fed and watered, and and again, they'll go back to the vacuuming. We've vacuumed up. Like, all of that does not happen on its own. We are not magic wanding here. I wish we were. Someone's responsible, and I can guess. Again, your husband is fantastic. So good. Wonder you have a wonderful partner, but also I I know what you do. He's a physical labor.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

He does, he does his very fair share of the physical labor. Absolutely. That man is he cooks every meal, he grocery shops, he does uh all of that. We divvy up um pickup, drop off. He actually does the lion's share of it. Um he does a handful of the the appointments and things. That is his wheelhouse. Like he's on it, he's taking one of them to an appointment here in a bit. Um, there are things, and I think this is a societal kind of pressure thing, that he's not always thinking about like, okay, it's summer. Did the kids have enough shorts this year? I didn't even look to see if the swimsuits fit right now. We're going, we're leaving on a trip. Do we even have the right things? Okay, so it's a three-day weekend coming up. We should probably plan a play date because if I don't plan a play date for one of them, they're going to kill each other by the end of the three-day weekend. Um, you know, like those pieces aren't always um registering or like, okay, did this one make their reading goal for the year? That day has to be coming up soon. Let me go check the app and see. And then I need to see if, like, check and ask her if she got enough points to do X, Y, and Z. And but um, so that's the stuff you can't think through in advance. I'm gonna tell you right now, people will tell you, you'll see Instagram things on it. Um, and it may also be Instagram things that it looks like somebody has it all together, and I will tell you firsthand they do not.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Or if they do, they've got assistance, help, a staff of 12.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Yeah. Nobody even prepares you for when so the big big loss for me was when our when our wonderful nanny, and I would literally I'd say, like, she she like and I still do, co-parent, such a critical part of our home and our lives. I love her so much. Um, it was devastating for me when she left, and there there was a shift in the labor that I had to take back on, and I would say it was disproportionate. Um, and my my spouse and I have had conversations about this, um, but it did, it meant that more pressure was coming back on to my plate. There were things that she did naturally that I didn't have, oh my god, we were such a such an easy team. She was thinking it before I even said it, and it was, it's so good. Um and you know, she's doing amazing things now, and and so when she got her new on her new career path, I I picked up, I had to pick it up. There, you know, there were so many things. It's like I I took on another job, which is a bummer.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

I'm gonna be able to do it. We have enough jobs. I have enough. I have enough.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Knowing that the wipes are almost out is not the job I was like wanting to take on.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

We I joke about it like not even joke about it. We're on a lot of calls together during the day because we work together for people that don't know or don't have that background. Um, we're on a lot of independent calls where we're not on the same, but I can think of so many times when I've been three minutes late or you've been two minutes late, and it's because we both have this belief that like I can fit 15 minutes of things into two minutes. Let me just do it now. This is lunch for me. It's 3 46. I made this at 11:30, but it's oops, it's full because we've been on video back to back to back, and it takes you can't do this in two minutes. You can't. Your household stuff, your other jobs, checking the backpack, making a quick callback, looking into something, like answering the door, signing for a package, getting the dog a treat. Like it's these are all other little jobs, and we've talked about these invisible labors, and you and I both have um room to like correct our own expectations of what can be done in two minutes. And at the end of the day, self-care is an additional job, and that's the one that like that's not the hat we're always wearing. It's that that's the job we do last. I think too And that's the eating is self-care, PS, like PSA.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Eating is not self-care. That's what I did. This is how I've sustained myself. I'm running off of one chomp stick and my emotional support water bottle right now. And it's almost two o'clock in the afternoon for you. Almost two o'clock here. Yeah. I think for me, just to like bring this full circle, because this is how our conversations go. But did we get off track? I don't know, did we?

SPEAKER_03 33:04

There's like a different train on this track right now, and I love it.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Choo choo. Um, for me, I think the number that I was able to like kind of put to just the child care was a number I was craving because I can't really put a number to the work I do on the side. So I felt like that number felt like there's there's so much, there's the sacrifice like not, I don't want to even say sacrifice, but it does feel like that. Like I'm gonna be real, I'm gonna be honest. There's times where, you know, it is, it's it's a big number, it's a big time. That's why I don't take it lightly. That's why when people are asking me about if they should, you know, friends, if they're considering it, I'm like, be a hundred percent. Yeah, be a hundred percent. Yeah, um, it kind of felt good to have an a number to it, and in a weird way, it kind of felt good to have a number to it that was a sizable number that I could be like, yeah. Think about this. That's that is that is that is a reality.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

Yeah, it is a reality, it's often ignored reality, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Um, and in a way, I had a lot of gratitude. I in a big way, I had a huge amount of gratitude, so much gratitude, uh, because I was able to do it in the way I wanted to. I was able to just have a great person in my kids' lives and then find great school solutions for them after she went uh, you know, went on her career path. And I um, you know, was able to still be in my career in a way that that I wanted to be. Um, I've I have flexibility in in what I'm able to do, so I think there's a lot of gratitude there. Um, but also it kind of felt like a little bit of a big hill that I I climbed, and I could look down at the bottom and be like, Whoo! I did that. Wow. Um, so yeah, and I don't take it lightly, and I'm also very aware that I'm in a hugely privileged position. Um, and I hope that this conversation brings up like other doors for people to have the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

That's I think the most important thing is like we were talking about before, other financial decisions that you make, you look like what's it gonna cost? Okay, then decide. This one is the decision where it's like you decide and then evaluate the costs on the back end. I think it's super empowering just to go in and go, okay, it's a decision like anything else. What will this cost? Let's get realistic about it. And then when you've got information, you've had those conversations, you feel more empowered, more thoughtful about your choice heading in. Yeah, absolutely. Whatever that choice is.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

And all of them are great as long as they're what you want. Yeah, all of them are great as long as they're what you want. Like they really, like a hundred percent truly are. Um so I feel like that is definitely part of the conversation that has to be had. It's like just if if you can if you can afford the situation you want to have, whatever, whichever one it looks like, that is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

What if I want a situation that I can't afford?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

I think then it's about shifting. I no, it's it's totally valid. Uh then it's about prioritizing. And I think I, you know, I notice there's times all of us do it where it's like, ooh, can't afford that. And it's like, no, I didn't prioritize. I I'm not prioritizing that.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Shifting it to, I think when you say I can't afford to do it that way, or I can't afford that, it's such a negative connotation. And like you're telling yourself that you it the problem is you, that you can't do that, that you you don't have it in you, or you don't, you're not making the right amount. And really, if you shifted it to, ooh, I need to sh I need to look at the priorities of these costs and these expenses and determine which is the most um, which is the one I want to prioritize, it shifts the conversation and it gives you back the ownership of that. And I catch myself doing it too. All of us do.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

I would love to hear from our listeners as a takeaway point, um, again, what they would suggest as far as like someone who's weighing their options, thinking about it, trying to make a good decision. Um, for those that have chosen one way or another, whatever it's been, what was something that was really you were you really wish you would have known like the cost of it, whatever that cost was going into your decision?

SPEAKER_02 38:08

That's it. Yeah, I think that's great. We I want to share the link too to the um website you had. I don't um know if you want to mention it. The you could put it on the list.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

It was fortune.com. The link is longer because it was a specific article at fortune.com. So let me not do the whole fortune.com backslash 2026 backslash 04. Let's not do that. We'll um put it in show notes. Put it in the show notes, but you can actually look state by state and see what those expenses click on your state and you can see what the trust the cost of childcare there is.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

So taking the national average of 13, I know that's not what my preschool cost is. I'm gonna tell you right now, that's not I don't even know that that's that's reasonable in our area at all.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Um let's see, if I go and use this link and I click on Nevada. So again, high to low. The low was 200,000, the high was 400,000, and again, the high was Hawaii. No, fortune's doing me so dirty right now. It says I need to subscribe to keep reading. I I used all of my free clips.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Remind Fortune. We're not gonna tag you in the show notes. We might. We'll see. I don't know if it's there, click on it.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

I think Nevada was Nevada was somewhere in the middle high. Yeah. Um meaning well above $300,000 a year.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

And I would say just because there's child care available that's maybe more on the affordable side, which again doesn't seemingly exist. Is it really because is it within the area that works for you? Is it in your like can I does the I know for us, you know, our traffic pattern, it limited where the places that made a ton of sense for us to put our child.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

And the number, these numbers, your number that you opened with is child care. There's more expenses coming, baby.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

So many expenses, so many expenses, pre-paid tuition, pre-paying their $529 plan. If you're not on a baby swim class list yet, you're behind because those things are years, years in the weight you have to get on so far in advance. Um, gymnastics, my kids love to dabble in a in any sort of sport.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Well, that's a good parent. You really need to be signing them up for every sport just to make sure we're not um you're not failing them on a hidden talent.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

This is not a dig on our gymnastics studio. I do love them, but I have concerns. My five-year-old has been in gymnastics for three years, and she can't skip. She showed me skipping the other day, and I was like, what am I paying for? I didn't know gymnastics is supposed to teach skipping. They do skip, and I've never really paid attention to her skipping, and then she skipped, and I was like, huh. It's something.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

I need a video of the adult.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

I will send you a video of her skipping because it's actually pretty hilarious. Now she's into skateboarding, so now I'm currently sourcing a skateboard instructor because I'm certainly not qualified to teach her how to skateboard.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

YouTube. We need to get back to educating more kids on YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Or even better, I'm just taking her to the skate part and letting Mother Nature teach her how to skateboard.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

Yes, gravity, fantastic teacher. Gravity with wheels, good combo for kids. Awesome. Well, I've enjoyed this conversation. It's super interesting. I hope that us having this conversation helps others normalize the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Absolutely. And just know that whatever decision you make, we support you. Girl, we are here for you. We are cheering you on. Thank you so much for listening.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Yay. Bye. Bye. Okay, that was today's episode of WTF.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

If you laughed, learned something, or felt a little less alone, make sure you hit follow and send this episode to a friend who might need it.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Women don't geke, especially not the good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

We'll be back next week with more real talk, more stories, and probably more over sharing.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

See you next time on WTF.