Daycare Vs Stay Home

---
name: daycare-vs-stay-home
description: "Run the real math on a parent leaving work versus paying for childcare — the second income net of daycare, marginal taxes, and work costs, AND the career-trajectory cost of years out, over horizons instead of one brutal year. Use when asked does it make sense for me to keep working, daycare costs my whole salary, stay-home vs daycare math, or what does leaving work for 5 years really cost. Produces both sides of the ledger from the script, the horizon comparison, and the decision sheet that lets the non-financials vote."
---

# Daycare vs Stay-Home Skill

"Daycare eats my whole salary" is usually computed wrong twice: it compares childcare against *gross* pay (marginal taxes were eating part of that anyway), and it prices exactly one year of a decision whose costs live in the following decade — the raises not compounded, the re-entry discount, the retirement match not collected. This skill runs both sides honestly: what working *nets* this year, and what stepping out costs over the horizon. Then it hands the decision back, because the spreadsheet gets a vote, not a veto.

## What This Skill Produces

- **This year's ledger** — second income minus marginal tax, childcare, and work costs, plus the match: the real net, from the script
- **The horizon view** — earnings forgone over the years out, and the re-entry salary vs. the never-left trajectory
- **The middle options** — part-time, one-parent-flex, cheaper-care mixes — sketched against the same ledger
- **The decision sheet** — money on both sides plus the non-financials, with their explicit permission to win

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:
- **The second earner's income** — and which parent's leaving is actually on the table (the framing "second income" is doing work; make it explicit)
- **Childcare cost** — per child per month, the real local quote; number of kids and their ages (the cost cliff at school age is the model's built-in expiry date)
- **The marginal tax rate** — marginal, not average; flag it as verify-yours, and note childcare tax credits/subsidies are jurisdiction-specific and often large
- **Career shape** — expected raises, how re-entry works in their field (the default penalty is a placeholder; fields differ wildly), and the years-out being considered

## Programmatic Helper

```bash
python3 scripts/daycare_vs_stay_home.py --income 62000 --daycare 1600
python3 scripts/daycare_vs_stay_home.py --income 62000 --daycare 1600 --kids 2 --marginal-tax 28 --years-out 4 --json
```

Deterministic. The re-entry penalty default (10%) is a labeled placeholder — research varies widely; set it to the field's reality or treat it as a sensitivity axis.

## Framework: The Honest-Ledger Rules

- **Marginal, not average, not gross** — the second income is taxed at the household's marginal rate, so childcare compares against take-home-at-the-margin; both directions of error are common and both flip decisions
- **Childcare is temporary; trajectory is compounding** — the brutal net-$1,200-a-month year ends at kindergarten, but the missed raises and match keep compounding; horizons are the honest unit, and the artifact must show both timescales
- **Work costs count, both ways** — commuting, wardrobe, convenience meals are real subtractions; so is what a staying parent's unpaid labor replaces (nanny-share, aftercare, summer camps in the alternative) — the ledger cuts both directions
- **The middle is underrated** — part-time, staggered schedules, and family care mixes often dominate both pure options on the ledger; sketch at least one
- **The spreadsheet votes, the family decides** — wanting to be home, or wanting to work, is a legitimate deciding input; the skill's job is making sure it decides *with* the numbers visible, not instead of them

## Output Format

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# Daycare vs Stay-Home: [household]

## This Year's Ledger
[Script output: gross → net after tax/care/costs+match, effective hourly]

## The Horizon View
[Script output: forgone earnings, re-entry vs never-left salary, the compounding gap — read against when childcare costs end]

## The Middle Options
[1–2 sketched: part-time at X hours → the same ledger recomputed roughly]

## Decision Sheet
Money says: [one honest sentence, both timescales] · Not modeled and often decisive: childcare credits/subsidies (check yours — often large), job-tied benefits, and what each parent actually wants — which is allowed to win.

*Educational model, not financial or career advice — tax treatment and re-entry realities vary; verify the load-bearing numbers.*

---

## Quality Checks

- [ ] The comparison uses marginal tax and net income — never gross vs. daycare
- [ ] Both timescales appear: the temporary childcare years and the compounding trajectory
- [ ] The re-entry penalty is labeled a placeholder and treated as a sensitivity, not a fact
- [ ] Childcare tax credits/subsidies are flagged as jurisdiction-specific and often large
- [ ] At least one middle option is sketched
- [ ] The non-financials get explicit permission to decide

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not run gross-salary-vs-daycare — it's the error this skill exists to correct
- [ ] Do not price only year one — the decision's cost curve is a decade long and mostly later
- [ ] Do not gender the framing — "the second earner" is whoever the household says it is
- [ ] Do not let the model moralize either choice — working and staying home both survive honest math
- [ ] Do not present the re-entry penalty as settled science — it's a field-dependent range wearing a default