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When your child was 2, if you had a dozen other 2 yos to watch, than you wouldn't have been able to give your own child the same level of care.
So the platitudes about caring for other people's children as if they were your own is just that, a platitude.
And if a parent forgets one of their children, an no ill befalls them, they do not go to jail, hell they do not even lose custody of the child, so why would these people? At the local ice cream shop my daughter works at the other day a 7 year old got left behind after a birthday party. Each of his parents though the other had him. Nothing happened to them, no one called the police or threatened to throw them in jail.
It is a double standard, they are supposed to care for each child as if it were their own, yet people want to throw them in jail for offense which parents would not be.
There certainly is a difference between parent and caregiver. For good reason! I can decide to give my child tylenol without permission whereas a daycare needs written approval.
I think it's not so much they can't but the amount they pay to be profitable doesn't attract the best employees. My friend manny does it for example in conjunction with her degree and gets paid 8 dollars and hour to teach a room of 3-4 year olds with 2 helpers. Now if she gets her a.a. she goes up to possibly 10 an hour. This is on top of 15 credit hours of school mind you. So you get the underskilled in the jobs, and ones trying to fulfill course requirements. And as falling water said a lot of people get into it thinking "i love kids!" and then quickly realize it's not as simple as they thought.
The employer is ultimately responsible for his or her employees. If they can't recruit good employees due to pay, it is *still* on them and they are still ultimately responsible.
Ok I am sure I am going to get reemed for this but day care centers don't pay enough. It frequently attracts young women, who while very caring are also frequently not as cautious as those of us who have been around the block a few more times. We all get distracted, and as a teacher I have forgotten to bring the attendance list out on a trip. But now that I am older, I have that cautious voice in my head telling me to go back or get the school to send it to my phone because mistakes happen.
I am not remotely excusing what happened in either of these cases. Obviously there should be huge consequences.
But if we are concerned as a society why these things keep happening, we have to look at the fact that many daycare centers have young 20 somethings watching a dozen or so toddlers because the pay is too low (typically $27k) for older people.
Do you have any idea how many "older" people would jump at a 27K job? I guess not...teachers live in their own world, where they are somehow "abused' ---overworked, underpaid, think 27K is not enough to take a job seriously, etc.
So, its ok for a teacher to "get distracted" but not for a student? If that were a student, he would be placed on ADD meds I just wish teachers and school systems would get real!
Do you have any idea how many "older" people would jump at a 27K job? I guess not...teachers live in their own world, where they are somehow "abused' ---overworked, underpaid, think 27K is not enough to take a job seriously, etc.
So, its ok for a teacher to "get distracted" but not for a student? If that were a student, he would be placed on ADD meds I just wish teachers and school systems would get real!
Are you kidding me LOL? My friend manny gets yelled at, hit, bitten, screamed at, run into,peed on, spit on, among other things. So yeah that's why not to many adults want to work for those top notch wages. And the figure she pointed out is actually too high, since the median wage for a day care worker is about 19,000 a year. Which translates to around 9.28 an hour. Which might sound fine, but when you break down the fact that this is the pay after certs, and a few years on the job, then the entry level pay is around min wage.
There certainly is a difference between parent and caregiver. For good reason! I can decide to give my child tylenol without permission whereas a daycare needs written approval.
It's not a double standard at all.
A daycare needs written approval for liability purposes, and because legally they have to because you are their primary medical caregiver. Comparing that to a situation in which 2 parents leave their kids at the beach like this daycare is comparing apples to oranges. It is a double standard because you are saying that it's okay for parents to do the same thing because this is their spawn. In fact it's worse, because how the frig can parents with 1-2 children forget their kid?
Depends on how many people were there, how many cars were there. It's possible they did a head count before they got into the car, then the child wandered off in between.
A two year old needs to be in a car seat.
Did no one notice they were driving home with an empty car seat?
Nm this place is in nj, charges and arm and a leg, and has a professional looking site so i don't think lack of money caused the idiocy here :-P. http://www.littledarlingschildcare.com
When your child was 2, if you had a dozen other 2 yos to watch, than you wouldn't have been able to give your own child the same level of care.
So the platitudes about caring for other people's children as if they were your own is just that, a platitude.
And if a parent forgets one of their children, an no ill befalls them, they do not go to jail, hell they do not even lose custody of the child, so why would these people? At the local ice cream shop my daughter works at the other day a 7 year old got left behind after a birthday party. Each of his parents though the other had him. Nothing happened to them, no one called the police or threatened to throw them in jail.
It is a double standard, they are supposed to care for each child as if it were their own, yet people want to throw them in jail for offense which parents would not be.
But there should be a double standard. The parents are paying (in lots of cases, a very significant amount of money) for a service, and that service really only includes one thing, first and foremost, keeping the child safe and comfortable while they're in daycare. And if they fail at it, they shouldn't be operating. There is always a much higher standard expected when you pay for a service than if you do something yourself, which is totally logical. If someone cooks a horrible meal for their family and gives them food poisoning, nothing is generally done; but if a restaurant does that, they'll get sued. If I'm paying for someone to perform a service, I have the right to expect that service performed well, and when the service involves the well-being of a child, possibly a life-and-death scenario, there HAVE to be extreme consequences to being careless.
To put a personal perspective on it, I'm currently a SAHM to a toddler, and I know many sahms who make a bit of income by picking up another kid or two to babysit. I've had the idea of doing something similar, but then honestly, having thought about it, I decided I don't want that responsibility and risk. I know that when you have someone else's kid in your care, you're so much more accountable than with your own, and if anything happens it's my head on the line. So in spite of being a mom and being perfectly able to take good care of my own child, I honestly just don't trust myself to be responsible for someone else's. And I think at least that kind of objective self-assessment should be required from anyone wanting to work with kids, JMO.
Last edited by EvilCookie; 08-18-2012 at 03:41 PM..
A daycare needs written approval for liability purposes, and because legally they have to because you are their primary medical caregiver. Comparing that to a situation in which 2 parents leave their kids at the beach like this daycare is comparing apples to oranges. It is a double standard because you are saying that it's okay for parents to do the same thing because this is their spawn. In fact it's worse, because how the frig can parents with 1-2 children forget their kid?
No, that's not what I said at all.
I was speaking about the general differences between a parent and a paid caregiver. No, obviously, it would not be ok for a parent to leave their child, not spawn - CHILD, unattended at the beach. Nor do I believe a parent would be free of trouble if they did this.
There is no way in hell I would let someone take my 2 year old to the beach, ESPECIALLY if they had a gaggle of other 2 year olds to watch. What the hell kind of stupid idea was that?
Where is the next trip? To the knives and poison factory?
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I just wish teachers and school systems would get real!
