SINGLE PARENTS AND DAY CARE Whenever one listens to radio talk shows about parenting in today’s world wide recession one hears horrific tales from working parents who are being squeezed by the shrinking job market and other economic concerns. They say that they are cutting back on the amount of money they spend on child care. Because of the self-imposed, but highly necessary cut backs, they are also worried about the safety of their young children. Day Care Problems Most often the cut backs involve making the older siblings that they may have, watch the younger siblings, or at worst, leaving the kids home to fend for themselves. There are even situations where the parent has had to leave the child in the care of unlicensed day care centers which often prove to be dangerous for the young child. Job Loss This is now compounded by the fact that because of the downturn in the economy many of these single parents are now even seeing their jobs evaporate. Thus now a single parent is forced to leave the children with neighbors while they look for work, but they also say that if they find a job, they are much more reticent to pay for child care again since they are already at the bottom of the financial barrel and it will take a long time for them to financially recuperate. Au pair If ever you’ve heard of the au pair system whereby a foreign national domestic aide comes to the US to help take care of the home as well as the children, you may have thought that this was a fantastic idea, but out of your price range. Chances are you were correct due to the fact that an au pair, by law, receives a steady salary, and you are even responsible for her to have a certain amount of education in the US besides providing for room and board. Affordable Alternative If an au pair is out, you may think that there are no other alternatives, however this is why Host & Care came about. This global community found at website http://hostandcare.com/ connects single parents needing to find affordable day care with those seeking to travel who will gladly exchange day care for simple room and board. Non-Cash Exchange The fact that this arrangement is made by the care giver agreeing to perform a few hours of day care in return for room and board as a guest in the home, perhaps occupying the guest room, this is not considered a full-time or even part-time employment by the US government. This negates all the troublesome problems of needing a work permit, paying the worker a salary and other problems associated with hiring someone from another country. As you can surmise, there are also no tax problems associated with this means of satisfying both ends of the exchange. This becomes an ideal situation for the single parent to be able to look for another job, or even a better paying job, as the care giver gives the children the kind of safe, loving care that the children deserve.