The present study explored the “new normal” of child care and the implications for parents who require child care to work including how families with children under the age of 5 are accessing child care during the pandemic, the experiences and perceptions of the multiple dimensions of early child care among parents requiring care to work, and the implications for parents’ daily lives as well as their employment, economic mobility, work hours, and advancement. A phenomenological approach was applied to the interviews to understand how parents experience and ascribe meaning to child care decision points and a grounded-theory approach was used in order to identify emerging categories of themes. (author abstract)