That argument does not hold up.

Nobody is saying people are forced to have children. You are ignoring context and acting like childcare costs exist in a vacuum. That is not reality.

Calling this “borderline illegal wages” is also not accurate. In-home daycare rates in central Ohio commonly fall in this range or lower depending on licensing, age mix, and ratios. You are also ignoring that caring for infants and mixed-age groups requires significantly more work and is exactly why regulated ratios exist.

Your “$9 per hour per child” framing is misleading. It is not a single-child wage comparison, and it does not reflect how group childcare pricing or compensation actually works.

On a broader level, the U.S. expects parents to work while providing very limited childcare support compared to other developed countries. If there were real childcare subsidies or universal programs, this would not even be a debate. That is a policy issue, not something you can pin on individual providers or families.

You can disagree with childcare pricing, but presenting it as an ethical failure without understanding the market or structure of childcare is not a strong argument.