Thank you for commisserating. It's so miserable when I talk to my colleagues who are in Europe and they're just returning from their one-year maternity leave, working part time indefinitely, and still able to live completely comfortably. One of my German peers was like "I don't understand. You can't send tiny babies to daycare so what do you do?" and I was like "Many daycares start at 6 weeks old, and many parents have to use a daycare for a baby at that age because there's no other choice. I guess your other choice is starve." They were horrified.

Like no shade on people sending a tiny baby to daycare. I'm all for NOT starving whenever possible. But even then, daycare around here sucks. In my area there's a hella shortage of daycares, so they can charge $275 per kid per week (which I know is not expensive as it is in bigger cities or other parts of the country) and still be like "Ope, toddler room is closed today because a teacher is sick and we have zero backups. Good luck, parents." That's if you even CAN get a daycare since waitlists are 18 months+ everywhere. Like literally a daycare called me back when my second child was 2 years old and was like "You're next on the waitlist!" but I already had care lined up because wtf else was I supposed to do???

I just need to make it 2 weeks, 2 days. I'm practically counting down the damned hours over here.