Daycare women are spoiled. (day care, baby, parents, girls)
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Are you a working mother who has to use daycare? Have you noticed how the women, some of whom are former career women, seem to want "the sun, the moon and the stars" from their business? It's not about our kids, its about them wanting the "ideal" work situation that will suit THEIR needs.
My son is 6 years old and has been in 7 daycares throughout his life. Mainly because the women running the daycares have unreasonable demands. I have been a grocery checker for the past 15 years and if you've been into a grocery store you know we are open at 6 am and stay open until midnight. Work weekends? You bet. Do we work holidays? Guaranteed.
Reality for me isn't the kind, caring grandma that will watch my son while I work. The majority of daycares WANT to work 7 am-6 pm (if you're lucky), 7 am-4 pm or some variation, Monday through Friday, no weekends, NO holidays--even the bogus ones most of us passively notice on the calendar. Some want to be paid FOR the holidays they aren't working. One of them had to take 4 day weekends on the major holidays.
The ones who WILL work past 6pm (or 4 pm) AND weekends AND maybe a holiday or two are the "dirty" ones. The ones that keep their house dirty, their kids dirtier, and themselves slovenly. I already feel the working mothers guilt about leaving him anywhere but with me and to subject him to those people bothers me.
Sure most of them dont want to work anything but the "princess" shifts. I don't WANT to work the odd hours either. Grocery checking was paying me $15.95 hr with awesome medical benefits. To go through the expense of going back to school for a year or two to earn $12.00 in an office didn't make much sense financially. This year I came up with the idea of working as a waitress until my sons school gets out so that I am home for him and I dont have daycare drama anymore.
i know what you are going through. my dh and i went through the first year of our son's life never seeing eachother. he worked nights, i worked days--that way he was with one of us.
now i stay home with him full time. i may need to go back to work very soon and i am having a really hard time finding someone suitable to watch him. i really dont want to leave him in a day care and fear in home day care even more.
I understand your frustration. It has to be hard to not be able to find quality care for your child.
However, for women/moms who run home daycares, it's a business. People can have their businesses open whatever hours they choose... it's honestly not their problem that you have to work nights and weekends. I stay home with my children... if I chose to do daycare, I certainly would choose the hours that worked for ME, and they would not include evenings and weekends. It's not that I would feel that I was better than someone who worked nights, it's just that if I don't need to work nights, then I won't.
It's really like any employee/employer relationship. If I want to work days only, then I apply only for days-only jobs. I also would expect to be off for holidays like any other employee. Remember that these moms have children who are home from school and dh's who are home from work on those days. Vacation time and paid holidays are all up to each individual provider.
I want to say this as gently as possible, but it's not the women running the daycares that have unreasonable demands... it's not unreasonable to not want to watch someone else's child until midnight!
I'm glad that you were able to find a solution so that you can avoid all of the frustration involved, and that you and your son don't have to deal with daycare anymore.
I know, I know--it's not the daycares fault retail works longer hours than they want to. "Ask my boss to fit their schedule" they would say.
It's not a grocery stores fault that customers want to shop after 6 pm. It's not a grocery stores fault either that weekends and holidays are their busiest days. I've actually had my boss say to my face that it wasn't their fault I hired the daycare I did. Perhaps grocery stores should go back to "the good old days" and only stay open mon-fri and close at 6pm. That at least would make it fair.
I admit Grocery checker pay ($15.95 hr) was too good to give up. Office workers make about $12.00 hr and if you factor in a year or two of schooling..... AND the cost of daycare would stay the same...... I would lose money and still see my son less.
One lady suggested here that I use a babysitter for evenings. How would that work? Babysitter trusted to pick up son from daycare? Add that up: $25 a day for daycare and $7 hr for babysitter....why am I working???
Between the daycares and my work both insisting it wasn't "their" fault and that it was MY problem--there couldn't be a meeting of the minds. Retail moms like me need more suitable options than the "dirty" moms. Some women post on these threads that they left work for their kids and they're struggling badly financially but it's worth it. Suffering poverty gracefully. After "paying my way" all these years, I think I understand better the moms I see paying with foodstamps.
You are right... it would be great for working moms to have more childcare options. That still does not mean that at-home daycare providers have unreasonable demands, are spoiled, or want "the sun, the moon, and the stars." Daycare moms are working moms too... is it fair to expect them to work from 6:00 am to suit their early-working clients until 11:00 pm to suit their late-working clients? As it is, many of them are working 10 hour days, or even longer. And watching other people's kids is not easy work... I feel wiped out when I watch my two young nieces for a few hours in addition to my own two kids.
The few dollars that you might lose by working in an office might actually pay off in the long run, if you don't have to scramble for daycare. (And really, only $12 an hour in an office in an area that pays grocery store checkers $16 an hour?? When I worked in an office 7 years ago, I was paid $16 an hour, and grocery store clerks were paid $7 or $8 an hour!) Though it looks like you have a solution in waitressing anyway, so it's a moot point.
All daycares suck, in my opinion. They could care less if you have to work the weekends, holidays, or whatever days they feel the need to observe.
They will still charge you whether the child is there, or not.
This reminds me of my son`s daycare....they observed the week of the 4th of July, and was closed all week, but yet, still charged us, for that week.
Nah....its not the girls who work there, its the company!
Of course I have to add in my .02 since I am a child care provider. haha
I am not a 'daycare' mom as I am highly trained and well educated and experienced in the field of early childhood education. I have chosen to provide child care in my home.
Prior to my career in child care, now at almost 20 years, I was in retail. Not just in retail but retail management. So I completely understand the need to have to use child care in the hours other than normal hours as I generally worked 60 hours a week, most every weekend and all holidays as well.
However, child care is offered on the basis of the majority who need it, which is typically M-F normal working hours. That's just the nature of the business. Anyone who works hours outside that norm usually does have to find other accomodations. That is due in large part to there being very few who actually need that type of care since most balance it between the parents or have other family members who help out. If there was really a large need for off hours child care, believe me it would be readily available. But reality is there isn't that big of a need.
For the record, this is a business which I own and I run it as such.
I accept children whose parents are looking for quality, loving, safe and educational care. I don't accept children whose parents are looking for odd hours and cheap care since that is not what I have to offer.
I am typically working to provide care for their child on 9-10 hour shifts. There is no morning break, no lunch break, no afternoon break and no assistance in my child care. All to what amounts to, using the quote of $25/day, $2.50 an hour.
So, to try to balance out the 50 hour weeks with NO breaks, I most certainly take off the holidays where my kids are out of school and husband is off work. I deserve that time off. I don't take off the 'little' holidays myself, so that means I take off 6 actual holidays a year, with the Friday after Thanksgiving added to that. Then I take the week between Christmas and New Year's as my vacation (which I do not charge for).
So, doing the math....if I had just one child in care 5 days a week for the year...that would be 51 weeks of 5 days a week of 10 hour days = 2550 hours minus 7 holidays of 10 hours = 2480 hours worked. $25/day for 51 weeks = $6375 for the year. That's $2.57 per hour. Now you look that child care provider in the eye and tell them it's not worth $2.57 an hour to provide child care for your child.......
I mean my goodness.....even retail workers get compensated for holidays by either getting a different day off with pay, getting paid time and a half or getting paid double time. Don't begrudge your child care worker a few days off with pay.
For the record, this is a business which I own and I run it as such.
I accept children whose parents are looking for quality, loving, safe and educational care. I don't accept children whose parents are looking for odd hours and cheap care since that is not what I have to offer.
I am typically working to provide care for their child on 9-10 hour shifts. There is no morning break, no lunch break, no afternoon break and no assistance in my child care. All to what amounts to, using the quote of $25/day, $2.50 an hour.
I think thats what this whole thread is about...having loving, safe, educational care for their kids, without having to feel "cheated" at the end of the week, from the provider. That does not mean that parents are looking for odd hours, and cheap care for their children, just to get by without having to pay their dues to the...."educational providers".
Everyone gets screwed these days, by just doing what they enjoy doing. I don`t get a break what I do for a living either, gas money? We won`t even go there..... Everything is tough nowdays....
just to get by without having to pay their dues to the...."educational providers".
So because I am a professional I get an eyeroll?
The lack of respect for those of us who provide quality, professional child care is rampant in this thread and that is what I tried to address.
Calling the profession 'spoiled' because we deserve the same benefits that other working people get and saying that parents don't want to 'pay the dues' just goes to show there is no respect for child care providers in this thread. That's sad.
The parents whose children I choose to accept offer up complete respect for the profession and my education, experience and professionalism and that's how it should be.
Parents should not expect to consider the child care provider their employee nor to be available to meet their every need. That is not how the profession works. I am a business owner who offers a service. I can accept or decline to provide that service and I can choose the boundaries of how I provide that service. Much like most all small businesses. Just as you would shop for any other small business that fits your needs, you must also do so for child care.
If you want a low cost and convienent hair cut you choose something like Pro Cuts. It fits your time constraints and budget, so you accept that it isn't likely to be as good a cut as you can get at the salon.
However, if you want a consistent and typically a professional cut, you go to a pro salon. You go there with the understanding that you will have to make an appointment that works around their schedule and that you will have to pay more for that better deal.
Of course neither will always be perfect and there will always be something to complain about. However it's not fair to complain that the first option did a lousy job and never has the same stylist there because that's the way it goes with that choice. It's also not fair to complain that the salon is closed on holidays or costs too much just because it doesn't meet your needs.
It's all about respect. Plain and simple. If parents don't respect child care providers they will never be happy.
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