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Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Those prices are weird. Why would somebody ever pay that much rather than just hire a private nanny?

> Why would somebody ever pay that much rather than just hire a private nanny?

In my experience the price distribution for nannies and infant/toddler daycares in the same area are largely overlapping bell curves so the decision typically comes down to logistics rather than cost.

Also, a nanny is not the same ecosystem as child-care. It's not nescessarily a substitute. If what's desired is a private-private child-care, I suspect you'll be paying a lot more than the price of a nanny.

One challenge with hiring a nanny is if they need to take a sick day (or if they quit!) you can end up in a tough spot. In contrast a day care center usually has backups built in so you don’t end up scrambling.

Because a nanny in Seattle charges $30/hr.

Something's not adding up there unless you mean 30/hr/kid

At $30 an hour, $6,000 would cover 10 hours a day for 20 days per month.

A private nanny isn't realistic for 4 kids. You need 2.

The few people that I've known with private nannies (usually au pairs) have had only one and also each had 3 or more (up to 6) kids.

$30 / hr + federal payroll taxes is 5,700 / month ($30 / hr x 40 hrs/week x 4.33 weeks in month x 1.1 for federal payroll taxes). Who has this kind of money on top of mortgage, car payments, food, utilities, etc...? In my circle of friends only one family affords this (the dad is a Director at Meta)

The trick is that au pairs are nowhere close to that expensive. (Though the US becoming radically less attractive of a place for foreigners to live and work may be changing the availability of that option.)

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