In the summer of 2021, GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students conducted a statewide survey that revealed parents were more likely to report using a home-based child care arrangement than prior to the pandemic. The survey also underscored some of the financial and employment-related challenges families with young children are facing in the wake of the pandemic. We wanted to learn more about these challenges and how they were affecting families’ child care decisions, so, in the fall of 2021, we commissioned a series of four focus groups with parents with young children from across Georgia. Throughout the focus groups, parents shared how their child care arrangements changed during the pandemic. They told us which challenges had persisted beyond COVID-19's earliest months, and how those factors were driving their child care decisions going forward. (author abstract)