This episode is sponsored by Babysitting Connection. Babysitting Connection is an affordable membership service matching high-quality babysitters with Austin families. Babysitting Connection currently covers the Austin area, from Georgetown to San Marcos. Through their online booking system, members can schedule a babysitter any time day or night. Babysitting Connection offers several different packages, allowing you to choose the package that works best for you and your family.  They pride themselves on identifying diverse sitters from a variety of backgrounds to help meet the needs of their members. Learn more about their membership packages at babysittingconnection.com. Stay tuned for a special discount for Top Knot Squad listeners at the end of the episode.

On today’s episode, we talk about childcare. As working moms, we know the challenge of finding reliable, affordable, and safe childcare. But our experience comes from a place of privilege - we are fortunate to have jobs that allow for flexibility and partners who are able to work from home if needed. The average annual child care costs in Texas are around $14,000 a year for center based care. Average annual costs for home-based childcare in Texas is around $10,000 annually. Nearly half of all Americans live in what’s referred to as a “childcare desert” - “any census tract with more than 50 children under age 5 that contains either no child care providers or so few options, that there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots.” A 2019 study from the Center for American Progress found that mothers who were unable to find a child care program were significantly less likely to be employed than those who found a child care program, whereas there was no impact on fathers’ employment.So where does this leave single parents or families that do not have the nearly $1,000 per month per child for childcare? Today we are here to discuss accessible and affordable childcare with Taylor Huntley.

Taylor Huntley is a Black millennial mother, a wife, a birthworker and an advocate for accessible and affordable childcare. She is the creative founder of Mama Mangos Care, a platform for millennial motherhood and spiritual self care practices.  She works for a local reproductive justice non-profit by day as a program coordinator and facilitator and is a self-studied community herbalist by night. She believes women thrive when supported by birth workers and community advocates that have shared life experiences. Taylor is a trained birth companion, postpartum doula and lactation educator. Her lifework centers around supporting womxn and their families wholistically and she believes an identified need is accessible childcare. 

The ATX Community Childcare scholarship was born out of need. The ATXCC scholarship is a grassroots, community based project. From the raising of funds to the process of picking the recipient. Our goal is to be able to pay full tuition for an individual applicant, every month and to have emergency funds for parents that need to attend job interviews, vendor markets and other income driven opportunities.

Resources:

• TANDEM Teen Prenatal and Parenting Program
• Any Baby Can
• Mama Sana Vibrant Woman
• Babysitting Connection
• Mama Mangoes website
• Mama Mangoes Instagram
• ATX Community Childcare Scholarship Instagram
• ATX Community Childcare Scholarship Website