State Senator Zellnor Myrie listened to Brooklyn parents talk about the high cost of child care on Saturday and emphasized the need for affordable after school help.
Parents, Myrie and Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of the nonprofit group New Yorkers United for Child Care, chatted in the corner of Park Slope Playground in what was dubbed as a "playgrounds and parenting town hall" to talk about the high cost of raising a family in the midst of New York City’s ongoing affordability crisis.
As children frolicked and played, parents spilled their administrative headaches and anxieties over their inability to afford day care or after school help.
"Some of the parents that I've spoken to already this morning have communicated to me that they pay materially more than $20,000 a year for childcare, and that's unacceptable," Myrie said. "You should not live in a city and a state where you cannot raise your family.”
Bailin said New Yorkers United for Child Care began campaigning in the city and Albany for free universal child care late last year.
“I was thinking about having my own family and realizing that I might have to move, and that felt really unfair,” Bailin said. “I realized I'm not the only one, and so that's why we're organizing families.”
Ricki Guberman, a mother to a four-year-old and an eight-month-old, said she worries about figuring out childcare and aftercare for two over the next few years.
New York City has an affordability problem, even for the upper-middle class. A 2023 report by the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York found that childcare is unaffordable for 80% of city families. Mayor Eric Adams was under fire just this year for roll-backs to the city’s preschool program amid planned budget cuts, the worst of which were avoided in a last-minute deal in June, Chalkbeat reported.
Andrew Bennett is a Park Slope parent with a three-year-old and a one-year-old in childcare, which costs him $5,000 per month. Not only is the cost a personal burden, but their daycare has faced financial difficulties, he said.
“Rent is so expensive for the daycares, and then staffing ratios are really high,” Bennett said. “The providers are not even making a ton of money, and they're commuting from super far to make it all work. So it's just a tough situation.”
Myrie, who has served in the state senate since 2019, formed an exploratory committee earlier this year to consider a run for mayor in 2025. He has championed a universal after-school program, a policy he would implement first in the poorest school district in each borough.
“I grew up on the other side of the park, and I would not have been able to become a state senator, to become a lawyer, if we didn't have after school programming,” Myrie said, referring to Prospect Park. “That provided some relief for my mom, because like most New Yorkers, she didn’t come home at 3:00pm. But there's a first part of that – that’s our early childhood care.”
