To get care for our baby when my wife returns to work, we are going to pay through the nose. Part of the answer is that many barriers to starting a childcare business have been erected by state and federal governments. Going far beyond the necessary rules to ensure the health and safety of our children, state regulations make opening and operating a childcare business incredibly difficult. Anybody wishing to open a daycare center for more than three children first faces a mountain of forms and fees in order to get a license to operate. In the playground, they have to scrutinize every nut and bolt on the play equipment, and meet precise requirements for the minimum distance between swings and the angle of the slide.
Some states go even further.
In North Carolina, daycare operators are forbidden to have any playground equipment wide enough to block the view of a child even for a moment. Good-bye to playhouses, giant truck tires, crawl tubes, and other toys most of us played on as children. Zoning rules also weigh in, often forbidding childcare facilities in the neighborhoods where working parents reside. These zoning restrictions ignore some important benefits of locating childcare facilities in the parents neighborhood. For one thing, it is far more convenient for parents.