Re: 12yr olds walking to school, yep I'm wrong about that!
Re: Kindy, that starts at 4yrs old. Daycare is prior to that.
There is government assistance for sending your kid to daycare, the 1 week to 1 month cost I mentioned is the out of pocket expense.
I had a simmilar experiance in Iceland, compared to my home country (Australia). Some examples:
* The birth of our son cost us a total of $50. That was parking fees and a bed for me in the same room as my Partner. Who had a 30 hour labor and an emergancy C-Section.
* For the first couple of weeks we had a nurse coming over and checking up on the health of my partner and son. Organized and paid for by the goverment.
* Both myself and my Partner got 3 months maternaty/paternaty leave. Then another 3 months to split. And we could take that however we wanted. I ended up work 20hours a week for the first month.
* Once our son was a little older and was going to Daycare, he was sick, a lot! I wasn't at work for more than 3 days a week for the first 3 months. I went to my boss to appologize and offer to take holiday days or something, and he laughed at me and said "No! I knew this was going to happen, your a new parent, look after your child!".
* Kids as young as 5 and 6 would walk to school, in the snow, by themselves.
That contrasts with my experiance in Australia:
* Its illiegal for my son to walk to school by himself, before he's ~12
* It cost us as much per week for daycare in Australia, as it did per month in Iceland.
IMHO, this comes down to a sociatal prioritization and allocation of resources. When countries invest in their children, they are investing in their future.
I sort of went the other way. I started out as an Electrician, and over ~20 years have moved into Data Science (with many steps along the way).
I can't speak for the US, but for Australia, there are many hybrid roles. A few examples of systems include:
* Home Automation
* Industrial Systems (designing & programing factory control systems)
* Building Systems (designing and programing large building HAVC/Access Control systems)
My experiance has been that people who understand and design both physical and software systems can find well paying work. That said, the career path often convoluted and personal relationships with the right people are critical.
Re: Kindy, that starts at 4yrs old. Daycare is prior to that. There is government assistance for sending your kid to daycare, the 1 week to 1 month cost I mentioned is the out of pocket expense.