Well said. It's hardly ever as simple as making sure dollars and schedules line up.
There's a very real difference between raising kids vs raising a family.

I grew up poor in the ghetto east side. My ma worked all day and my dad worked when he could get work. I didnt go through any of that daycare bullshit and I turned out okay. We didnt even have any other support network as all the family is back in shanghai. I think if you have strong core family values, daycare or no daycare, your child will be okay. They'll learn to adapt and thrive based on your living standards and circumstances. Im sure if we had money growing up, it would have been easier, but hell i dont regret it and i had a pretty decent childhood for only 30k combined family income for the first 20 years of my life.

My batshit parents even bought 2 houses with their meager wages and put me through university.

Dont pamper your kids, let them see how hard life is and they'll learn early on that it aint all rosy and money doesnt fall from the sky.

Its hard to say, but you just have to sit down and really look at your finances...

For me personally, my wife is now full time stay @ home, I am so close to my income bracket that even a "lucky" bonus from work may tip over (haha I know, first world problems right?), but it does mean your universal child care benefit will drop every time you go up a bracket. So it made sense financially to have my wife at home.

And I totally agree with raising up the kid your way than throwing money at someone else.

But to cover the point of social skills...I've sent my daughter to pre-school for 2 hours a day, 4 days a week, most schools just needs your child to be potty trained to quality which for my daughter was 2 years and 7 month. (I think we registered her when she was 18 month?)

You would want to spend as much time with YOUR CHILD as possible. So I want to say you should avoid a second job and only consider it as a last resort. I just work a normal 40 hour week and I already find myself not really spending enough time with my kids.

As mentioned, there is no right answer to something like this, just have to weight out your options.

Cheers

lol, raising a child is so tricky and there's so many variance.

You get one shot, one route, and how they develop can also play a factor on just how the individual child themselves learn and absorb information. I feel there are pros and cons to every method, and any method you look into, you'll find an example of how a kid ended up smart or stupid.

It's really just all theories IMO. There's no formula to obtain the "perfect" child.

^ So true.

I know a ton of kids who had it all - St. George's, parent-funded university, and still became a loser. While other kids with both parents working minimum wage, eastside school, put themselves through university, and are now doctors, engineers, pharmacists, etc.

End of the day, it's up to you and what you instill into the child as a parent. I'm still a few years out from children but if I were in your shoes, I'd try to spend as much time with my kid as possible.

if you can't afford daycare... wouldn't it be wiser just to become a daycare. LOL.

If you're reputable, I don't see why not.

lol, some parents aren't suitable to being "daycare" for their own children. Poor kids...