The childcare shortage led one new mom to try content creation on Instagram and TikTok to help pay the bills

• Nancy Clancy, 36, has found it nearly impossible to find childcare for her daughter.
• After being forced to cut back her work hours, she turned to TikTok and Instagram to make extra income.

When Nancy Clancy started looking for childcare midway through her first pregnancy early last year, she thought she was ahead of the game.

But in the year since, the 36-year-old from Michigan has learned just how difficult it can be to find childcare in the United States. She's been stuck on daycare waitlists and been unable to find a nanny, she told Insider, which has forced her to cut back her hours as a dental assistant.

In an effort to make up for the lost income, she says she recently dove into the content creator world, which she first dipped her toe in in 2020. She now has nearly 500,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, where she shares the ups and downs of motherhood, in addition to her ongoing childcare challenges, typically posting at least once per day on both platforms.

She describes her posts as "mom-related content" and says she tries to help other mothers find humor in their real life challenges, whether it be getting enough sleep, sticking to a budget, or cleaning up toys.

"If the algorithm would share my page with moms who also don't know what they're doing so we can use humor to get through our day," read the caption of one recent video.

She also speaks to challenging life can be without formal childcare help.

"They say it takes a village. Where's mine at?" she wrote in another caption.

Clancy is among the many Americans struggling to find and afford childcare. Shortages were common even before the pandemic, and they've only gotten worse in recent years. Employment in the childcare industry is still down 8% — or 80,000 workers — compared to pre-pandemic levels. When parents do find childcare, the price is often steep. National childcare costs average between $9,000 and $9,600 annually, per the advocacy organization Child Care Aware, a rate that's unaffordable for nearly two-thirds of working parents in the US. The cost could shoot even higher over the next year.

The predicament has forced some parents, like Clancy, to cut back their hours or leave the workforce altogether, so it's also among the factors driving the US's ongoing labor shortage.

Finding childcare is "just not possible" right now

Four months before her now-six-month-old daughter was born, Clancy says she got on three daycare waitlists. Given she wouldn't need the additional care until two months after giving birth, she thought this "heads up" would be sufficient — but it wasn't.

"I never moved on any of those lists once I was ready to go back to work," she said. "One place told me I was fourth in line and then when I called a month later I was 10th."

Clancy works two days per week and lives with her boyfriend, who works full-time as a builder. On the days she works, she says she pays a friend-of-a-friend to watch her daughter for the day. The drop off adds nearly an hour to her commute, however, and she says the cost almost exceeds the amount she makes from her dental assistant job.

"It's almost a wash. I only do it to get out of the house, really," she said, adding that, "Ideally I would like someone to come to my house, but it's just not possible right now. I don't have anyone."

Clancy says she tries to spend one to two days per week — roughly three to eight hours per day — on her social media work, which includes editing, posting, looking for new ideas, and shooting new content from home.

She says it's "hard work," however, and that generating a steady income from it has been a challenge. While she's seen her number of TikTok followers surge, she says there's "not much money" in the platform, and that "a lot of large creators are leaving" as a result.

She's begun dedicating more of her attention to Instagram, where she says she can make between $200 to "a couple grand" per month, mostly from reels and paid branded — or user generated — content, in which she promotes a company's product. Insider viewed Clancy's recent Instagram reels income, which ranged from $100 to $450 per video.

While she'd love to pursue content creation full-time, she says it's "just not possible" right now due to her daughter's childcare needs.

Get on a daycare waitlist "the moment you find out you're pregnant"

Despite her childcare challenges, Clancy is thankful she's been able to continue working at all.

"I have a lot of friends that couldn't even go back to work in general," she said. "Just financially, it didn't make sense once you pay for childcare."

To this day, she says childcare "isn't an option." She's still on three daycare waitlists, and while she's looked for a nanny, she says "literally no one is responding."

"Even if I get into one," she said, "I have to make more money than I have to pay them or there's no point — which I'm not right now."

While childcare is likely to remain a challenge for parents across the country, Clancy has a few pieces of advice for new moms.

"I suggest getting on a waiting list for daycare the moment you find out your pregnant," she said. "And talk to other moms and try to work something out with them — maybe watching each other's kids when you go into work part time or trading days. I have some friends that do that, and I have also helped out with that."