> That childcare cost is phenomenal and illustrates Bay Area prices to me better than housing cost examples

You can pay that much for elite child care in places that aren't the Bay Area. The Bay Area probably has more people that are price-insensitive enough to imagine that the kind of places that charge that much are a reasonable minimum for "high-quality" child care, though, but that's more a difference in incomes than costs.

To be fair "elite" here means a child care facility that can stay overtime when I am stuck in the office on production duty till 9pm, which is like every week. This isn't a government job where I'm guaranteed exit at 5pm on the clock.