For years, I’ve organized New York parents to fight for affordable child care. I’ve heard countless stories of families crushed by steep annual bills, watched friends choose between careers and children, seen working families flee the city they love because raising kids here costs too much.
So when I got pregnant late last year, I thought I was prepared. I knew the statistics, knew the policy, had spent years demanding better from City Hall. How hard could it be?
I was completely wrong.
Nothing prepares you for the shock of giving birth. For a 55-hour labor. For weeks of recovery when your body feels foreign. For how much you suddenly need other people when you’ve always prided yourself on independence. Your apartment fills up with baby gear you didn’t even know existed. Your carefully organized life dissolves overnight.
Then you venture outside with your newborn, and the city you thought you knew becomes hostile territory. Restaurants that welcomed you for years suddenly feel unwelcoming with a stroller. Bars where you met friends are off-limits. Even finding a clean place to change a diaper becomes an ordeal.
You realize New York wasn’t built for families – it was built despite them.
But the real shock comes when you start looking for child care. The inconvenient center that requires a 30-minute walk each way? For my family, $1,200 a month. The bright option near our apartment that would let me work normal hours? $2,700 a month – that’s more than $32,000 a year. Even with two jobs and careful budgeting, these numbers are near-impossible. A second child feels completely out of reach.
And my husband and I are the lucky ones.
Most New York families can’t make this math work at all. The average cost of care for a 2-year-old is $23,400 annually – more than many families pay in rent.
The result is predictable: families with children under six are twice as likely to leave New York City. In 2022 alone, the city lost $23 billion in economic activity because parents cut their hours or left their jobs entirely.
We’re hemorrhaging working parents who would rather raise their children elsewhere than go broke trying to raise them here.
When Bill de Blasio won universal Pre-K and later 3-K, it transformed hundreds of thousands of families’ lives. But these programs only cover ages 3 and 4, leaving parents to navigate nearly three years of staggering costs before relief arrives.
It’s time to finish what we started. 2-Care – universal child care for all 2-year-olds – is the next frontier.
This year, parent organizing delivered a breakthrough. We not only won $167 million to protect and guarantee free universal 3-K after years of annual cuts from Mayor Adams, but parents also secured $10 million in the City budget for hundreds of non-means-tested child care seats for children two and under, making New York the first big American city to invest in universal care for infants and toddlers.
Now it’s time to scale up – and make 2-Care permanent.
We can follow the same path set by Pre-K and 3-K, starting with targeted neighborhoods with the highest needs and building outwards to make the program truly universal. New Yorkers United for Child Care has estimated that 2-Care would cost $1.3 billion – not couch change, but a bargain compared to the billions we lose each year when families leave.
Some will say Pre-K and 3-K are enough. But telling parents to be satisfied with partial solutions is like telling them they don’t deserve a clean place to change a diaper or restaurants where they can park a stroller. It’s accepting that New York City simply can’t work for families.
I refuse to accept that. Having a child has opened up my world in ways I could never have imagined. Everyone who wants to be a parent should be able to have this experience without sacrificing their financial future.
That’s what this fight is really about – not abstract policy, but about whether New York will be a place where love and family are luxuries only the wealthy can afford.
I’m back from maternity leave, and I’m not backing down. Every parent deserves to raise their children in the city that we love.
Join us in demanding that New York’s mayor make 2-Care their first priority. Our city’s future depends on it.
Rebecca Bailin is the Executive Director of New Yorkers United for Child Care.
