Chapter 35. Waitlists and Windows

“Hurry up!” I said to Jaime. “We need to be there in seven minutes.”

I had woken up early that day—showered, dressed, made coffee—and was now counting down the minutes until we had to leave, pacing between the kitchen and the door like I could physically will time to move faster.

“Almost done,” he said, emerging from the bathroom, steam trailing behind him, a towel wrapped around his waist.

“You’re not dressed yet!”

“Relax. That’s the quick part,” he said, disappearing into the bedroom.

For years, we had survived on one bathroom and a morning routine dictated by whoever needed to be in the office first. Now we had two bathrooms, which, in theory, solved everything.

In practice, it had simply allowed Jaime’s skincare routine to evolve into a multi-step production.

He took his time.

Except that morning, we didn’t have time. We had an appointment at 8:00 a.m. sharp.

“You should be enjoying this!” he yelled from the bedroom, as I chugged my coffee like it was part of a survival protocol.

“Enjoy what—being late because of you?”

“No! Enjoy that, for a few months, we’re in paradise. Bigger apartment, two bathrooms… and we’re still just two, not three.”

He had a point.

“And I told you—getting dressed is the fastest part.”

I looked up just as he walked out, fully dressed, looking sharp, as if he’d been ready all along and this had all been an elaborate performance.

“See?” he said.

We walked a couple of blocks north, a few more east, and we were there. A sign in big, bold, colorful letters hung above the door:

Bright Beginnings.

We rang the doorbell.

“This would be so convenient,” Jaime said. “It’s so close to home.”

“I know. Fingers crossed.”

The door buzzed open. We stepped inside.

The cheerfulness of the sign evaporated instantly.

The place was dim, the walls painted a tired shade of green that had given up years ago. Harsh industrial lights buzzed overhead, casting a flat, unforgiving glow. A sour smell hit me as soon as we crossed the threshold—something between disinfectant and something it was trying, unsuccessfully, to cover.

“Is this what all daycares smell like?” I asked, instinctively lowering my voice.

“Maybe… lots of kids still in diapers,” Jaime said.

We looked around. A bulletin board displayed yellowing papers—permits, inspection notices curling at the edges. There wasn’t a single window.

“Not sure I love the vibes here,” Jaime murmured. “It’s giving… diaper dungeon.”

“Same. Should we—”

I was about to say leave when a voice called out from the hallway.

“Welcome! Are you here for the tour?”

Jaime and I exchanged a quick look—just long enough to consider lying—before nodding.

“Yes.”

“My name is Lin.”

She stepped into view—a woman in her fifties, maybe, with short, practical hair and the kind of smile that looked like it had been switched on specifically for us. She wore scrubs patterned with faded cartoon animals, their colors washed out from too many cycles in industrial laundry. A pair of reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck, bouncing lightly as she walked toward us with the confidence of someone who had done this tour hundreds of times.

“So, which one of you is the lucky dad?” she asked.

“We both are,” I said, in a tone that translated roughly to: You run a daycare in New York City. Keep up.

“Oh! I see,” she said quickly. “Well, welcome. I’ll show you around—but first, please fill out these forms.”

She handed us a clipboard and a pen.

I crossed out the word mother four times and wrote parent instead.

“You don’t need to do that,” Jaime whispered.

“I know,” I said. “But I’m doing it.”

Lin walked us through the place. It wasn’t big—a narrow hallway with four rooms branching off it: one for toddlers two and up, one for babies over twelve months, one for infants, and a playroom.

“We comply with the four-to-one ratio required by New York State,” Lin explained, opening a door for us to peek inside.

A group of seven or eight kids filled the room, packed tighter than seemed reasonable. One of them sprinted past us, a caregiver chasing close behind.

“No, we don’t lick the walls,” she said, mid-stride.

I squeezed Jaime’s hand, silently asking: Are you ready for this?

As we stepped back into the hallway, I glanced around again.

“I’m noticing… there aren’t any windows?” I said.

“That’s correct,” Lin replied, without missing a beat. “But we do have high ceilings, which help create a sense of openness. The children respond very well to it.”

It sounded like a realtor trying to sell us a home “with character.”

Next was the infant room.

A few cribs, a couple of bouncers. Three babies sat quietly, each in their own small orbit.

One of them looked straight at us as the door opened—wide eyes, alert, taking everything in. She seemed impossibly small. Fragile in a way that made my chest tighten without warning.

How are we supposed to leave our child in a place like this?

The question didn’t feel rhetorical —it felt like a problem with no solution. Before we even knew him, we were already being asked to leave him.

By the time we circled back to the entrance, Lin handed us a thick information packet.

“Our normal hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday,” she said. “That’s $2,600 a month.”

She didn’t blink.

“Those are not work-friendly hours,” Jaime said.

“Oh, for working parents we offer extended care,” she replied smoothly. “Early drop-off and late pick-up for an additional $400. That allows you to leave your child at 8:30 a.m. and pick them up at 5:30 p.m.”

She paused, then added:

“Parents are also expected to provide all supplies—diapers, bottles with formula, and, once they start solids, all meals and snacks.”

Of course.

“And if we can’t get here at 5:30 sharp?” I asked.

“Then there’s a late pick-up fee,” she said. “Fifty dollars for every five minutes.”

I felt my eyes widening.

“When will your child be born?” she asked.

“Early June,” I said.

“June 2027,” she said, writing it down.

“2026,” Jaime corrected.

She looked up. “Oh. That’s four months from now.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

“Well…” Lin said. “Our waitlist is typically twelve to eighteen months.”

“Eighteen months?” I said. “What do straight people do—call you as soon as they’re done having sex?”

Jaime nudged me with his elbow.

She didn’t laugh.

“You can place a $250 non-refundable deposit today,” she continued, unfazed, “and we’ll contact you if something becomes available.”

“We’ll think about it,” I said.

“Of course,” she said, her smile snapping back into place. “Give us a call.”

We left and headed toward the train.

“That place is insane,” I said, as we started down the stairs.

“The cost, the schedule, the waitlist,” Jaime added.

He turned to face me.

“Do you think they’re all like that?”

“Well,” I said, “there’s only one way to find out.”

Over the next few weeks, we did our research.

The good news was that Long Island City had a high concentration of daycares. Whereas other neighborhoods in New York City had one or two if you were lucky, here they seemed to set up shop on every other street.

The bad news: they were all booked for months.

Some had waitlists stretching two years. Getting on those waitlists always required a hefty, non-refundable fee. One place had “Academy” in its name and offered curricula instead of schedules. That one had an estimated waitlist of thirty-six months.

Three years.

Waitlists were opaque, too. Once you signed up and paid, they wouldn’t tell you your position.

“You just have to call us closer to the date and see,” they would say.

It started to feel less like looking for childcare and more like joining a pyramid scheme. In a very New York kind of way, it wasn’t “first come, first served.” It was a competition everyone else had apparently entered years ago—and we had just been told about it, with the expectation that we’d still somehow win.

And for working parents like us, it felt like we were competing with one leg tied. We had to return to work just weeks after birth, which made the window to secure childcare even narrower. But infant care was its own, even more complicated category.

The city required a special permit for daycares to take babies under twelve months. Providers had to prove they had the right facilities, that caregivers had specialized training, and they had to pass stricter inspections.

The consequence, however, was predictable — most daycares didn’t bother. Many simply set a minimum age: one year and up.

We started looking for alternatives.

“What about a nanny?” Jaime said.

I looked at him. “Like… full-time?”

He nodded.

We looked into it.

It didn’t take long for the idea to lose its appeal.

Most nannies in New York were asking around $30 an hour. Depending on hours and overtime, that worked out to roughly $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

“That’s a lot,” I said.

Jaime did the math in his head. “That’s basically what we each made when we first graduated.”

We kept going.

At least with daycares there were rules—licensing, inspections, some external structure that meant someone other than us had checked they were allowed to operate. With a nanny, it was references, interviews, and whatever you could piece together from a couple of conversations.

“Feels like a lot of trust,” I said.

Jaime nodded. “And a lot of faith in references.”

Still, there were advantages.

No daycare closures. No surprise holidays or teacher training days that seemed to appear right when you needed childcare most. No summer shutdowns where you were suddenly expected to become a full-time logistics coordinator.

“And if the baby is sick,” Jaime said, “we’re not trying to figure out whether they’ll take them.”

That part made sense.

But it still didn’t feel like an answer. Just another option that was expensive in a slightly different way.

So, we kept looking.

“How do all these people manage?” I asked Jaime as we walked through Gantry Park on a Saturday, the East River moving steadily beside us.

The winter cold was finally breaking. That weekend, as it did every year, New York gifted us a completely irrational seventy-two degrees. People had pulled out shorts and tank tops like they’d been waiting all winter for permission.

The park was full of parents, many pushing strollers, others sitting on benches, babies bundled or bouncing or sleeping.

“I dunno,” Jaime said. “Maybe some of them are stay-at-home parents?”

“Is that even feasible?”

“Our parents managed.”

“They did—in the eighties and nineties,” I said. “That’s impossible now. No family can afford to live on a single income.”

“Unless that income is ridiculously high,” Jaime said.

“Are you sure you don’t want to give up on your career and join the ranks of Big Law?” I asked. “I’d be happy to stay home, take care of the kid. Make sure my hubby has a warm meal when he gets back.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said. “Unless you want your hubby working twenty-hour days, seven days a week. You and Jaidan would never see me.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “Just send the checks.”

“We’ll ask ChatGPT to photoshop you into all our family memories.”

“Lovely,” Jaime said. “Let me know when I need to start sending money for college.”

“Hey, look,” I said, cutting through the banter.

Between the rows of buildings, the sun was beginning to set. The sky pulled in every color it had left—orange, purple, streaks of pink—spilling them across the clouds like it had nowhere else to put them.

Jaime smiled and reached for my hand.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “We always do.”

I felt his fingers tighten slightly around mine.

“I know,” he said. “I just wish life figured things out for us once in a while.”

I let that sit for a second, watching the light fade between the buildings. Most of the windows were still dark, but a few had started to glow—little squares of warmth turning on one by one.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That would be nice.”