Having a second child in New York City felt like a far away dream to Allison Lew.
But after Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced plans to expand free child care to the city’s 2-year-olds, Lew felt that dream inch closer to reality.
“Our son has asked for a little brother, he said to me, ‘I’d love to have a bunk bed in my room and I can be on the top bunk, and he can be on the lower bunk, and then we’ll go to the park, and I’ll be in my scooter, and he’ll be on the bicycle and it will be just so great to not to be alone,’” said Lew, 37.
“We do feel a lot more hope about having a second kid,” Lew said.
Many New York City parents have hesitated to grow their families or have any children at all as child care costs feel increasingly out of reach. Some parents say they’ve taken on debt, gone without health insurance or left the workforce just to afford to care for their kids — and they just can’t afford to do that again for another child. But for some, Mamdani is starting to change that calculation.
“It's not making me be like, time to start trying now, let's go, let's start having this second kid,” said Paola Rodelas, 38, who lives in Bushwick with her 1-year-old son.
“But it is a huge, huge, huge thing to add on the pro column,” she added.
Mamdani promised to move the city toward free universal care for every child, regardless of income, starting at 6 weeks old. Currently the city offers parents free child care beginning at 3 years old, though many families have struggled to find seats in their neighborhoods.
Earlier this month, Mamdani added more than 1,000 seats for 3-year-olds in the city’s existing 3-K program to alleviate seat shortages. And this September, the city will launch free care for 2,000 2-year-olds in select neighborhoods, scaling that up to 12,000 toddlers by 2027 using state funding.
Parents say there are many factors that go into budgeting for a child, but having to only pay for two years of child care would be a huge relief, rather than counting down until their children qualify for 3-K. New York City parents pay an average of $20,000 a year for child care, city officials say.
“The rhythms of our lives really can be affected by a single policy decision,” said Lew, who works as an organizer for New Yorkers United for Child Care, the advocacy group that helped catapult child care to the political forefront.
But she said parents need a long-term funding commitment from Gov. Kathy Hochul — who only promised to fund the first two years of the program using existing revenue dollars — to ensure these nascent child care options are something they can rely on in the future.
‘There is some urgency’
For Rodelas, an outstanding question for the mayor’s plan for 2-year-olds is whether the city will cover care year-round or only for the school year and whether free care will extend the whole work day or end after 2 p.m. like the city’s existing 3-K and pre-K programs.
Paola Rodelas says finances are top of mind as she weighs whether to expand her family.
“Ideally, if it expands so that there could be those aftercare hours, that would be a huge help,” she said. “ Neither of us can afford to stop working.”
Rodelas is fostering her 1-year-old son, who is in day care. She currently receives a voucher to cover the cost of care which is about $1,200 a month. Her and her partner want to eventually adopt, which would mean they would be fully responsible to cover their son’s child care. They also have been talking about having a second child.
“We would have to wait until our child's old enough to where he is in school and he's got his care covered,” she said. But she’s also running against time and knows getting pregnant might be more difficult as she gets older.
“It really should be now or never,” Rodelas, who is also a member of New Yorkers United for Child Care, added. “I don't know if I could wait like three or five years, but at the same time if we can't afford it, then we can't afford it.”
‘I could work again’
Silvia Silverio, 44, has a 6-month-old and says she’s done having children, but free child care would allow her to return to the workforce.
“It would be fantastic for us because I would work again,” Silverio said in Spanish. “ What worried me was how to help my family and being able to work to help with the household costs.”
Silverio, who lives on Staten Island, said she had to leave her job cleaning houses because she couldn’t afford child care, and what she earned wouldn’t cover the costs.
About a third of women leave the workforce in New York City because they can’t afford child care, according to state data, and thousands of other families are fleeing the city because the costs are astronomical. Families with children under 6 are twice as likely to leave the city as those without kids, the Fiscal Policy Institute found.
‘All the pieces fit to the puzzle’
Lew said her family was paying $3,000 a month for child care when her son was in day care. Her family went into debt and opted out of health insurance to afford to make ends meet, until her son was finally old enough for the city’s free 3-K program.
She doesn’t want to do that again if they have another kid.
“ We'd love to have one more, but we want to make this decision really thoughtfully and make sure we can afford it,” she said.
Lew said even though her son is in pre-K, they’re still paying about $10,000 a year for summer camp and after-school care since the city’s programs end at 2:50 p.m.
“Families are calculating, ‘OK, I can afford one private or fee-for-service child care arrangement at a time,” she said.
She said the promise of free child care for 2-year-olds shortens that timeline for a lot of families.
“We talked to people who were like, ‘yeah, we're actually pressing go on our plans,’” she said. “That hope is a little bit infectious.”
