The Sprinkler Is Childcare

Let's get into it.

Steve & Kate's Camp is $2,520 for the entire summer, which sounds okay until you realize that's the rate if you commit to a pass that assumes your kid is there 49 days. Most parents can't even do that. Great Outdoors at University of Portland is $475 a week. OMSI day camps range from $550 to over $2,000 depending on what kind of nerd (so cute) credential they're promising. Even Portland Parks' Nature Day Camp, which is supposed to be the affordable option, runs $300 a week for Portland residents. Eight weeks is $2,400. That's not including the extended childcare before and after camp, which adds another hundred or so per week.

Multiply that by eight weeks of summer and you're looking at $2,400 to $4,000. Per child.

I don't have that. I have a sprinkler, a park down the street with a splash pad, and some indoor shit we can do when my eyeliner starts to burn as it melts into my eye.

I started to feel bad about this. Like I am failing some invisible test of motherhood that everyone else was passing. Like there is a checklist of summer activities that real parents provided, and I am falling short. My kid is 5, hes not learning coding at day camp or doing pottery workshops or going on field trips to the science museum. He was getting wet and chasing around kids his age we dont know, for free.

Then I did the math on what I'd actually have to sacrifice to afford real childcare this summer, and I stopped feeling bad.

Here's what summer costs for a single parent with no family/friend/neighbor backup:

If I was working full-time and paying for full-time childcare while school is out, I'd be paying roughly $1,500 to $2,000 a month, depending on the place. That's $6,000 to $8,000 for the summer. I'd also be paying taxes on income I don't have yet, because I'd need to work to pay for the childcare that lets me work. It's a loop with no entry point when you're starting from zero. Let's also throw out there that isnt my mortgage, car payment, insurance, electric (because the first thing I pay is for that A/C to keep on blasting), water, natural gas, internet, and groceries as a single mother.

Yes, there are income-based options. Boys and Girls Clubs has sliding scale rates. SUN Community Schools programs are designed for families like mine and they're cheap. But getting into those requires applications, registration windows, spots filling before you can get off the waitlist, and a level of planning that's hard to manage when you're in survival mode, its doable, but tracking that and its deadlines can be overwhelming to someone who is trying to work, survive, do homework, and life. It's the same trap as Medicaid or food stamps, really. The help exists but accessing it takes time and emotional labor that broke people don't have (ie: me), unless you do it on the weekend and you actually know what you're doing without needing to call, which they're closed on the weekends.

So instead I'm working, doing side work around my son's schedule, or watching my bank account slowly drain while I figure out what the next move is. The sprinkler isn't childcare because I'm enlightened or creative. It's childcare because I have no other option.

And you know what? I'm okay with that now.

The bar for summer has been completely recalibrated. I'm not trying to create magical memories or provide enrichment experiences or compete with the moms who have time and money for both. I'm trying to:

1. Keep my kid alive and entertained

2. Not completely lose my mind

3. Maybe, if I'm lucky, drink a cup of coffee while it's still holding ice without melting.

That's it. Those are the metrics now.

The sprinkler accomplishes all three.

There's something honest about this, actually. A lot of the "summer enrichment" narrative is garbage anyway. It's designed to make parents feel inadequate while also selling them something. Camps, activities, lessons, experiences — they're mostly about managing parental anxiety, not about what kids actually need. Kids need water, sunshine, boredom sometimes, and a parent who isn't completely fried.

The sprinkler delivers. My son runs around for forty-five minutes. He's wet. He's happy. He's not asking for anything except maybe a popsicle. And I get forty-five minutes where I don't have to perform the role of "enriching parent." I can just sit with my iced coffee and exist for a second.

Do you know how rare that is?

The thing nobody talks about is the class structure baked into summer. Some parents have family who can help. Some parents can afford camps. Some parents have jobs flexible enough to work around school schedules, or partners to split the load. Some parents have the luxury of staying home and providing activities.

I'm not any of those people. I actually don't think I know many of those people here in Portland, although I would love to chat with them on what their take on it all is.

And I'm tired of feeling guilty about it.

The parents with real childcare options don't feel guilty. They feel accomplished. They post photos of their kids at camp, at lessons, at museums. Nobody posts photos of their kid with a sprinkler and says "I can't afford better childcare," but that's what's happening. The inequality just gets dressed up in prettier language.

I'm done dressing it up.

My kid is getting a sprinkler because that's what I can afford. He's also getting a parent who isn't working three jobs to pay for something that won't make him smarter or more successful anyway. He's getting me, present-ish, on the days when I'm not completely depleted by the system that decided childcare should cost what a mortgage does.

The sprinkler is honest. It's not a luxury disguised as necessity. It's just: here's water, here's sunshine, here's your mom with forty-five minutes of patience because she's not running on fumes for the first time all week.

That's not settling. That's winning.

Some mornings, before my son wakes up, I set the sprinkler up. I make coffee. And when he explodes out the back door, when he's running and laughing and completely absorbed in the simple fact of water, I sit on the porch with my warm coffee and I feel something close to peace.

This is what I can provide. Not because I'm lazy or unambitious or bad at parenting. But because I'm real about what summer actually costs, and I refuse to pretend that taking on debt or sacrificing my mental health to pay for "enrichment" is the answer.

The sprinkler is childcare. The iced coffee coffee is victory. And my kid is fine.

Actually, he's better than fine. He's wet and happy and completely unburdened by the anxiety that other kids carry about whether camp is the "right" camp, whether they're doing enough, whether they're behind.

He's just running through water.

That's enough. It has to be enough. And I'm finally okay with that. If you didn't realize, the sprinkler is a metaphor.

lol. Happy Wednesday Moms!