Yesterday I spent six hours languishing over just how much money I’m going to have to spend to be a complete disaster of a father to my child that has yet to be born. Or, as I told my employer, I spent the day visiting potential daycare centers. Same thing.

Despite having put it off for as long as possible, The Wife™ and I finally scheduled time to have a look at a few places. She had done quite a bit of research and narrowed the list down to eight potential centers. And when you remember that the kid will spend 10 hours of each day there, you realize with a renewed sense of nausea that “crucial” is not a severe enough word to accurately describe the importance of this decision.

All of the places were fine. None of the daycares were sketchy in the slightest. Yet like a bad episode of Pop-Up Video (blooop!), the nagging feeling that recurrently dominated my thoughts at each new place was just how much of a failure I am to this kid. I do not make enough money and therefore am not successful enough to support my wife on my salary alone, thus forcing my child to spend almost all of his/her time in the care of complete strangers. It’s that simple.

No, my wife doesn’t think this way. Nor do my parents or in-laws, or anyone else who knows me for that matter. But the self-imposed fact still remains that this is how I see myself. And it kills me.

Is daycare inherently evil? Of course not. In fact, many would argue that the good points far outweigh the bad in relation to social development and even resistance to leukemia. My wife comes from a daycare background and thus does not fully understand my dramatic aversion to it. But can’t help it, as I come from a household where my mother sacrificed an exceedingly promising government career for her children, and could do so because of my father’s job. I want to be able to offer my wife that same choice.

“But the self-imposed fact still remains that this is how I see myself. And it kills me.”

It’s said that today it’s almost impossible to do it. All I know is that in our household, with my current job, we can’t. And simply saying those two words rings a deafening bell of failure for my being, an indictment of my dereliction as a father and husband.

So soon we’ll have to make the big decision, choosing which Bleach Odor Academy will take our money dampened with the tears of both guilt and necessity. And we better get a move on if we don’t want to be double-failures and not able to get on the right waiting list.

Sigh.