Comments on: Not FDIC Insured | No Bank Guarantee | May Lose Value

By: miri

miri — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 21:27:33 +0000

Thanks for your reply! I didn’t want to complain; I just wanted to point out the other side. I was also offended at Nina’s comment regarding daycare being a big-bucks enterprise. Even though there are bad, corrupt daycare centers (just as there are bad, corrupt businesses and people), for the most part daycare providers earn very, very little money or respect compared to the education and effort they put into loving other people’s children.

Hope you’ll stay healthy.

By the way, about the nap thing–sometimes at daycare kids nap/don’t nap even though it’s not their usual pattern. Although in my experience, it’s usually the other way around. I sometimes have trouble getting kids to take naps according to their usual schedule because their environment isn’t quite like home.

I enjoy reading your posts! Good luck in your new venture.

By: benmac

benmac — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 02:51:14 +0000

miri: It totally sounds like the parent is taking advantage of you. At the least, I would expect the doctor’s office rule to apply: if you break an appointment with less than 24 hours, you still have to pay for the appointment. I’m sorry she doesn’t respect the service you provide. Good luck – I know it’s hard work.

By: miri

miri — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:28:32 +0000

I am a part-time daycare provider for one six-month-old infant. His mom pays me fairly well considering how little daycare providers usually get paid (I have a master’s degree, by the way, and earn thousands of dollars less than other masters-degree-holders–simply because I love children), and she asked me for 10 hours per week. I agreed and made that time available in my schedule. I am also working another job and going to school full-time, so you can imagine that this was not easy. Then, she said she wanted to cut back to 6 hours per week. It was quite an adjustment in expected income, I adjusted my schedule accordingly. Now, I have been caring for her child for 5 weeks (ten sessions at twice per week), and she has cancelled five times. She has not offered to compensate me in any way for this lost time. She also calls to cancel at 11:30 PM the night before, so there is no way that I can reschedule other work to take advantage of that time. So basically, I am giving her 6 hours of my time each week and getting paid for only half.

This is a slightly extreme case, but it is not at all unusual. I’ve been a childcare provider most of my adult life, and not one single parent has ever compensated me for my time when they schedule me and then cancel at the last minute.

I love children more than anything in the world, and I know that things come up. I’m willing to be flexible, but I also often am tired of how parents take advantage of me. I wish parents would understand how very difficult it is to make a living taking care of children. I could earn three times as much money in nearly any other field, but I stay in childcare because it gives me joy. I can’t afford to buy a car, I wear clothes that are more than 5 years old, and I can’t afford to buy health insurance. But even so, I take care of other people’s children because it is my calling.

By: Sam and Claire

Sam and Claire — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 01:06:39 +0000

Our dilemma is that with twins it is twice as expensive to put your kids into daycare. While babysitters are more expensive than daycare, they are not two times the cost. We pay $15 an hour for a about a dozen hours a week of care: $200. Our kids are 13 months old. I don’t know what we’re going to do as we need more hours of care.

By: Nina

Nina — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 03:18:29 +0000

I’ve been thinking about it for some time and now after reading these comments on the costs and such I have decided…. I am deffinately going to open up a daycare!!! I worked in one it was a sort of sleazy one we didn’t get paid well and god the stories I could tell you about those poor kids and the horrible lady I had to work under who spent more time on the phone to her husband than watching the kids. I hated it, but fortunately I know they’re not all like that. I spent most of my preschool days in a day care that was run by nuns and I remember loving it!

I’m glad Trixie is in a good daycare and not one like where i worked. I was just a teachers aide and that mean lady left me with over 8 infants and toddlers when policy stated it was 4 kids to one adult. It was sooooooo horrible!! My daycare will be run much better! heehee big bucks in that business i see!

By: julia

julia — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:59:06 +0000

I don’t think anyone’s dissing daycare workers. But there’s no denying it is frustrating as HELL to have your kid be home sick — in my case, reverse the numbers, Max has been ill about 63% of the time.

I am a SAHM, and have my son in daycare T/Th, for MY SANITY and so he will not be inadverantly killed (kidding. Chill.). I really, truly, badly, deeply need those days, especially since my husband works 2,000 miles away M-Th.

And did you get the part where I’m a SAHM? That is, we are doing this on one income: it is a huge strain to pay for daycare when the child is ill. And I just wrote about this today in Max’s blog: I don’t blame the daycare … I blame the other parents. I blame them because they work and so they don’t keep their kid home the one or two extra days they need to for he/she to really be well, so that when Max goes, he and everyone else (whose parents do work, and also must take time off in addition to losing tuition) gets ill. WHENEVER I drop that kid off, everyone is sick. Period. No, it’s not with fever or vomiting. Not trackable. Contagious, oh yes. And this is a very nice center. Don’t fool yourself.

As much as my kid has been made sick by other kids in daycare, there is NO WAY a parent who works would keep their kid out — they’d be fired. Yeah, I guess I could foist Max on the center when he’s really too sick to be there … but I don’t. So screw me, too.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:31:40 +0000

Please no talking babies. That Quizno’s kid really gives me the creeps.

By: Cara

Cara — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 08:34:47 +0000

I am a stay at home mom and I would pay a premium to slide into someone else’s daycare spot. The daycares here on Kadena allow parents to “lease” their spots when they’re not using them: so you can essentially sublet your daycare time if you can’t use it. I think that’s a great option because there are a lot of us SAHM’s who would jump at the opportunity to get a day, or even a few hours off, even if it was on short notice. Of course you have to be registered at the daycare and all, but it’s a nice option. I don’t know if non-military daycares allow that, but they should. They’re getting paid for that child anyway, & it’s not an extra cost to them, it just avoids a quasi-windfall.

By: Russ

Russ — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 04:22:45 +0000

LOL – I think you might be on to something here!

We paid $185 a week for daycare when our youngest was an infant, but that was only for a few months (until I quit my job to be a stay-at-home dad).

Now she’s in preschool, and like daycare you pay for the space not the attendance. Sick days, vacation, doesn’t matter. Plus the preschool (which is private) closes whenever the public schools close, so we lose more days there too.

I know that’s just the way it is, but it still hurts to “waste” the money.

By: Abbycat

Abbycat — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:25:54 +0000

OK, so it’s “cheap” by the standards of anyone who lives in an urban area (I MISS the city; heck, I miss “up north”).

We are fortunate to have a low cost of living where we live but, ahem, there’s not much to do around here. Of course, now that we’re parents, we realise that boring is good. Our small southern college town is touted as being a great place to raise kids, so I guess we finally fit in