Child Care

Lately I have been considering putting Hayden in day care for some socialization and also because I am thinking about finding a job that is not at home. Mostly my grandma or sister watches him when I have sometime to do, but I just don't feel right leaving him on them for 8 hours, 5 days a week. I got a card for a daycare and thought it was pretty cheap when I saw the card saying 7.50 an hour. Then I started thinking, silently calculating what it would be for a month. My mouth dropped when I realized how much it would be a month. I have heard from many family members and friends the numbers they pay out for daycare: my aunt, who only has one child, was paying 900 every month; another friend was talking about how she was paying 800 a month for each of her kids, she has two. I thought maybe these people were overdoing it. I mean, why would child care be that high when people know that for many women child care is a must and making it affordable would be commonsense. But at 7.50 an hour for 8 hours is 60 dollars a day, 600 dollars for 10 days, there's 30 days in the average months so that is 1800 a month! And that doesn't include a meal, each meal is 3.75. I was "wow." 1800 is a lot of people's entire paycheck and you're paying that in child care, why work? Okay, say a person makes 3600 half of their paycheck is going entirely on childcare! Ridiculous!
Okay, I know the whole two person income thing, but think of how many single mom's are out there too. But even with a two person income it makes little sense to pay so much in childcare alone. I even checked out another day care and while cheaper, it still blow my mind that it was still in the thousands every month. For that daycare it was 215 for 5 days for a child Hayden's age, that is a total of 430 for 10 days, and 1290 for the month. Not including the 20 dollar administration fee and the 20 dollar co agency fee they charge every month. Oh, yeah did I forget to mention that that was a discounted rate! And these prices are for only one child, to enroll a sibling there is a slight discount but not by much.
So I am calling all working mommies, how much do you pay in child care? And all stay at home moms/ work at home moms, how much are you saving in child care? I want to know are these prices normal or is it just Fresno, California? I know that there will probably be a little difference in price because California is probably the most expensive state besides New York. But come on! That is some high prices when you realize that the average person in Fresno, Ca makes 34,000 a year. That is only 2800 a month and 1400 every 2 weeks. Of course, some make more, but still others probably make less (California is also the state that has a big welfare population). Out of all the money that is put into welfare for the entire USA Calfornia takes 30% of it. Big percentage of it, huh, considering we are only 1 state and some states are bigger than us.
Is going to work really a good decision, when I have to pay so much in child care?