Utah bills itself as 'family-friendly' even as lawmakers have long neglected child care
by Nicole Santa Cruz, photography by Sarahbeth Maney
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For nearly a year, Melanie Call struggled to balance working from home full time with caring for her new baby.
Her job as a project manager for a Salt Lake City health care staffing agency required spending hours in video meetings. If her son was awake, she would turn off her camera. When he woke from a nap while she was already occupied in a meeting, she would feel her guilt grow as she heard him cry through a baby monitor.
Call, who is married to an architectural designer, had an older daughter in elementary school and a younger daughter already in day care, and wasn’t sure she could afford to send another child.
Having two children in day care would have consumed nearly 20% of her family’s take-home pay, despite her and her husband making six figures combined. Eventually, she put her son on three waiting lists for day care, but before she could find an opening she reached a breaking point and quit her job. A week later, a day care slot opened up.