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Rising Child Care Costs Force Parents to Choose: Career or Kids?

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Annie Malekzadeh, a mom who quit her teaching job to save on childcare and is now pursuing her master’s degree in mathematics, walks her kids through the rain after school in Pleasant Hill on April 1, 2026. (Tâm Vũ/KQED)

Rising child care prices leave many Bay Area parents with little choice but to turn down career opportunities, cut back hours, or even quit. As part of KQED’s new series on affordability, early childhood education reporter Daisy Nguyen introduces us to one mother who left her job as a teacher after the birth of her third child.


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Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.

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