I had a financial advisor come to my house and help me to go over some financial planning. (Confession time, this is one area of my life where I am a total and complete nerd) Somehow, the idea of a stranger sitting in my living room and asking me questions about my short term and long term goals didn't faze me at all and I responded that in five years I would like to run a web and graphic design business from my home (which we would own) and look after the kid(s). It seemed like a normal answer. Who doesn't want to be their own boss and own a home? I did a quick google for "mom blogs" hoping to get some insider information on moms who might actually do this. Now I know motherhood is like a little club where the members share secrets about breastfeeding and grape juice stains, and as someone who is pregnant, I am a junior member, but damn! do grown women really sit around blogging about little Taylor or Emma's bowel movements?
So, like a lot of information that is supposed to be out there on the web, there is a lot of chatter about parenting, along with a ton of huckstering, but finding actual, real and useful information is like finding a nugget of gold. At this point, I am still employed by an actual company, so I thought that the responsible adult thing to do would be to set up some kind of daycare in case I am not earning enough to pay the bills in a few months with freelance work. What I've discovered: there are a few sites out there that act as resources, but most of them just go for a simple alphabetical listing of every licensed provider in a 50 mile radius. Every daycare center that may actually have a website, will have lots of big photos of cute kids playing with clay and coloring or "exploring" but not list their rates. Almost every facility has it set up so you have to call them and even then they won't tell you the flat rate, you have to give them a "profile" and then they call in a while (days, weeks, months) with a price quote. Most of them charge almost $300 bucks a week. If they charge any less, it's because they are open "bankers hours" and any money you would save would be eaten up by the work hours you would lose leaving work early.
So www.masskidcare.net wins a "Webby of the Day" award for being easy to navigate and providing a well thought out search function to find the nearest daycare in a particular zip code. All I had to do was print the list out and then start playing with map quest!
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