Hard-Working Mom with $5K Monthly Child Care Costs Explains Why She Doesn’t Stay Home

This mom took to the internet to defend her decision to work instead of staying home with her kids, even though child care costs her $5,000 a month

Every parent knows the math it takes to justify child care. With daycare and school costs reaching unfathomable heights (and still rising), it often makes more financial sense for one parent to stay home with the kids—the salary they would have earned is often less than the cost of professional child care. But one mom, who pays $5,000 a month for care for her four kids, is explaining why she chose to keep working rather than stay home, and it makes perfect sense.

In a viral TikTok video, mom-of-four Paige Turner defends her decision to be a working mom—and shell out $60,000 a year for her kids’ care.

@sheisapaigeturner

The value in my career outweighs the cost of childcare for the next 4 years. My life is long and I am not just planning for today but planning for my and mt familieis future in mind. #costofchildcare #childcarecrisis #daycarechronicles101 #daycarekids #millennialmom #workingmoms #wfhmom #daycaremom

♬ original sound – Paige

“The question is almost always directed at me,” she says. “The question is, do you make enough to warrant that? How do you have any money left over? Doesn’t it make more sense for you to stay home?”

But when she explains why she and her husband have chosen to pay “astronomical” child care costs that allow her to continue working, it’s impossible to argue with her logic.

“At the same time, the question as to why I work, one, always directed at me, is somewhat insulting, but two, negates the next steps in my life,” she says. “In four years from now, my youngest child will be in full-time school. I will still have the cost of school, after-school programs, kid’s activities, enrichment, [and] camp. But I won’t have the cost of childcare.”

Turner explains that she’s just thinking ahead to a time when she and her husband won’t have to pay super high child care costs, when the benefits of her current decision to “struggle and grit” her way through these early years will pay off.

“I know that where I wanna go in my career and the compensation that I’m able to have, is there. It’s at my fingertips, and me stepping away from work for five to ten years would throw me back,” she says.

She’s absolutely right. Women already face a gender gap in their pay, but for moms, it’s even worse—working moms earn, on average, 73 cents to every dollar a man earns (compared to 84 cents per dollar for women in general). Should Fisher be expected to sacrifice her career goals because she has kids? Of course not! If this is a way that she and her husband have found that works for them, power to them. But to level the playing field for all families, we really need affordable child care and better systemic support for working moms.