More than our mortgage: Kentucky parents share child care struggles in new survey [Video]

FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) — As lawmakers make final adjustments to the budget, advocates are hoping to see more money for child care. Just over 13,000 parents with kids in child care were surveyed across the state by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, asking how much they are spending on child care and what kind of changes they’ve made to their lifestyle or finances to make ends meet.

“We, the parents, are all acutely aware that Kentucky is not only a big old child care desert, but the child care that we do find is expensive and often unsustainable for us,” Kelly Taulbee said Wednesday when the survey was released. Taulbee is the director of communications for Kentucky Voices of Health but spoke of her own experience as a mother seeking child care.

“I was on more than a dozen waiting lists at one point, several before my babies were born in 2022, and the first …