RETHINKING CHILDCARE
Employees already cobble together multiple childcare arrangements to make it work. It's time for companies to meet them with a childcare stack of support.
FROM THE FOUNDER OF SITTERSYNC
By Drew Chambers · April 2026
Our family juggles pre-school, elementary school, numerous sitters, grandparents, and a community-shared sitter group. Multiple arrangements for varying needs - and we still scramble. After building SitterSync and talking to hundreds of families, we realized the problem isn't always finding care. It's that companies don't see the patchwork employees piece together to make it work. Companies need to provide a stack of care options and funding tools to address the varying needs of working parents.
We talk to benefits brokers every week, and nobody in the employer world thinks about childcare this way yet. Most offer a DCFSA, a Care.com or Bright Horizons partnership, and call it done. But the companies paying attention are moving beyond that. Meijer recently started reimbursing employees not just for daycare, but for personal network care - paying grandma, the neighbor, the trusted friend. That's the stack in action. Daycare alone isn't the answer. A DCFSA alone isn't the answer. The answer is layers - and this framework maps them out.
THE PATCHWORK PROBLEM
Every parent we talk to describes the same feeling: you're supposed to have this figured out, but nobody does. The data confirms it - this isn't a personal failing, it's a structural one.
Care.com 2026 Cost of Care Report · 3,000 U.S. parents surveyed
THE FRAMEWORK
Childcare isn't one problem - it's a different problem at every stage. An infant needs FMLA and full-time daycare. A kindergartner needs sitters, after-school care, and summer camps. A 10-year-old needs holiday coverage and on-call sitters. Families patchwork all of this together on their own. The Modern Childcare Stack is the framework for what employers should provide to support them - and how to fund each layer.
The point for employers: Look at this chart. Your employees are already patchworking all of this together. The question is whether your company meets them with a real stack of support - DCFSA, backup care stipends, summer camp subsidies, community care reimbursement (like Meijer offers), and tools to make it all tax-advantaged - or just a checkbox. (Tax savings vary by situation. Consult a tax professional.)
THE MATRIX
We spent a lot of time reading IRS Publication 503 so you don't have to. The short version: most types of childcare qualify for pre-tax funding through a DCFSA or post-tax credits - but almost nobody uses more than one funding column. Below is the map we wish someone had given to employers seven years ago.
| Care Type | Out-of-pocket Most are here |
DCFSA Move here |
Tax Credit Move here |
Employer benefit | Gov't subsidy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daycare / center | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◔ | ✓ |
| Nanny | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◔ | - |
| Babysitter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◔ | - |
| After-school | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◔ | ◔ |
| Summer camp | ✓ | ✓ | ◔ | - | - |
| Family & friends* | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ◔ | - |
| Co-op / sitter-sharing | ✓ | ◔ | - | - | - |
| Au pair | ✓ | ◔ | ✓ | ◔ | - |
Most families pay for all of this after tax. They don't have to.
The "conditional" marks (◔) in the employer benefit column are where it gets interesting - and where employers can make the biggest difference. These are the care types families rely on every day - babysitters, sitter-sharing co-ops, summer camps, community care - and where employers can layer additional support on top of the DCFSA with post-tax stipends, lifestyle spending accounts (LSAs), and direct childcare subsidies. Pre-tax tools like the DCFSA are the starting point, not the finish line. Meijer's personal network reimbursement is a model for this: fund the care arrangements families are already using, not just the ones that fit a checkbox.
*Family & friends are DCFSA- and tax-credit-eligible as long as the provider is not your spouse, the child's other parent, your child under 19, or someone you claim as a dependent (IRS Publication 503).
IRS Publication 503 (2025) · IRS Form 2441 · Eligibility varies by provider type, employment status, and income. Consult a tax professional.
"74% of parents say a better network of trusted caregivers would improve their mental and emotional health."
Care.com 2026 Cost of Care Report
The village isn't gone. It just needs a new address. Every family we've worked with who built their community layer - even a simple sitter-share with one other family - describes the same shift: from surviving to actually enjoying this stage of life.
FOR EMPLOYERS & BROKERS
We talk to benefits brokers every week. Most still treat childcare as a checkbox - offer a DCFSA, move on. But your employees are patchworking four or more care arrangements together, and their needs change every year as their kids grow. A single benefit doesn't work because childcare isn't a single problem. The smartest companies are building a childcare stack: DCFSA + backup care stipends + community care reimbursement + flexible scheduling. Meijer started reimbursing employees for personal network care - grandparents, neighbors, trusted friends. That's the stack in action. And it pays for itself, because DCFSA benefits generate direct savings for the company.
Families are patchworking care together and employers don't have the tools to help. We built SitterSync to connect the care layers to the financial layer in one place - for families and the companies that support them.
Pay your babysitter with your DCFSA card or credit card. SitterSync generates IRS-compliant receipts, 1099s, and Form 2441 summaries automatically. No more shoebox of Venmo screenshots at tax time.
Create a private group with your church, neighborhood, or friend circle. Share vetted sitters, coordinate care swaps, and stop scrambling alone. This is the community layer, digitized.
See exactly how much you save with a DCFSA. Track which payments are DCFSA-eligible vs. tax-credit-eligible. SitterSync flags the difference so you stop leaving money on the table.
You don't need more money. You need a better system. Start with the framework, layer in the right tools, and take back your time, your sanity, and your savings.
Free to download.