Cost and quality are generally two things on the top of a parent’s mind when it comes to child care and after-school activity options for their kids.
Unfortunately, finding child care and after-school activities for the kids that are both high in quality and affordable is something that can be quite challenging for parents here in the United States. This can be seen in a recent report from the Pew Research Center.
According to the report, when it comes to parents of children under six years old, a majority of them reported that locating child care in their community that is both high quality and affordable is hard. This was the case for all income groups.
The report also found that a good chunk of parents of children in the 6-17 age range, around 39 percent, reported it being difficult to find after-school programs/activities in their community that had both high quality and affordability. Reporting such difficulty was particularly prevalent among low-income parents, with over half of parents with a family income under $30,000 reporting such difficulty.
Given this, worries about affording quality child care and after-school activities can arise for parents in all different sorts of contexts. For one, they can arise for parents who are going through a divorce. A divorcing parent may worry about whether they will be able, following the financial unrest a divorce can bring about, to meet the financial challenges related to getting their child the right child care and providing their child with the right after-school opportunities.
Skilled divorce attorney understand this. They can help divorcing parents with taking these concerns into account in proceedings and negotiations involving divorce matters like child support. This is another of the reasons why an experienced divorce lawyers’ guidance can be such a valuable thing for a parent to have during a divorce.
Source: Pew Research Center, “5 key takeaways about parenting in changing times,” Renee Stepler, Dec. 17, 2015