A few days ago I was scrolling Instagram, per usual, when a video of one of Graham Platner’s campaign events came across my feed.

A woman was asking what policies Platner would support to make child care affordable for all families and ensure child care workers can make a living wage. The video’s caption noted that out-of-pocket costs for child care in Maine averaged more than $10,000 per year.

And I thought to myself, well, my baby is in daycare two days a week, for $215 a week. Surely that can’t be? And I opened up my calculator app and plugged in $215 times 52 weeks, which is $11,180.

That’s for two days a week. And, the way his daycare runs, you’re paying for your spot for your select days each and every week, so we still have to shell out the same $215 even if the center closes due to weather or if Sonny stays home sick.

I want the people taking care of my son to be extremely well paid. I want them to have great health insurance, plenty of sick days, access to continuing education and whatever the perfect work-life balance is. I don’t want this purely out of the kindness of my heart (although I’d like to think that’s a big factor); I want the teachers taking care of my son to be as mentally and physically happy and healthy as possible.

When Sonny started part-time daycare a few weeks ago, a couple of mom friends asked me, with empathetic concern, how I was feeling about that, and how I “handled” it. The short answer is I handled it great.

The first day Sonny went to daycare, I felt so much more energetic than usual, even though I had gotten the exact same amount of sleep (not enough). Eventually I realized it was the lack of mental load of constantly keeping aware of the baby; spending the whole day with a chunk of my brain tracking his faces, noises, time from last nap, time to the next nap (nap math is right up there with rocket launch math, in terms of the stakes), making sure the dogs weren’t in danger of stepping on him (they haven’t), making sure he gets enough stimulation and tummy time, changing his diapers … all of a sudden, that mental load was just gone.

I could relax a little and get things done around the house (not to mention taking a shower that lasted longer than three minutes), secure in the knowledge that Sonny was being looked after by a group of trained professionals who were an app message away.

I did constantly refresh the app, of course, making sure I was alerted to every diaper change within 30 seconds of it happening. And when Sonny came home that evening, I felt refreshed and happy to see him, rather than like an empty corn husk of a woman. I had more energy to make our time together quality time. I read him a book! (He got bored halfway through but I think that’s an age thing rather than a “Blueberries for Sal” thing.)

Every family is different, but for my family, daycare is so beneficial. I get a bit of a break from the exhausting work of taking care of a baby (and also, you know, working a full-time job), which in turn makes me a better, mentally healthier (and more physically clean) mother.

Sonny gets exposure to more people and to different caregiving styles; hopefully, he will learn that adults other than his mothers can be trusted and care about him. It’s also beneficial to have trained early childhood educators and experts in child development keeping an eye on my child — they might catch something I don’t.

That happened with my little brother. He was only diagnosed with a speech impediment when his first preschool teacher noticed. Because the issue was spotted early, he was able to get treatment early, which led to excellent long-term outcomes (he talks totally fine now).

Child care is also vital to the economy at large, both because of the service it provides and as an employment engine in and of itself.

This fall (just a few weeks before Sonny arrived), the Bipartisan Policy Center put out research where it found that current gaps in child care could cost the economy as much as $329 billion over the next 10 years in lost productivity, workforce shortages and decreased income and revenue.

It also screws over women in their retirement: women are disproportionately the parents who scale back their hours or leave the workforce entirely to take care of young children, which means their Social Security benefits end up being lower years down the line (not to mention losing out on any company 401(k) benefits during that time).

According to an older study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, investing in high-quality child care and early learning programs can generate up to $7.30 per every dollar invested. I’m no finance expert, but that does seem like a pretty good “ROI.”

As a culture, we need to start seeing early childhood education in the same way we see education from kindergarten on up: not as a private burden, but as a public good and an investment in our shared future.