For the past two years, I have turned my home into a daycare and been a child care provider. Like any job, there are positives and negatives, but for the most part, I love my job. I really do. The kids are awesome and it is a joy to see them growing, learning, and playing every day. Daycares are also essential and very convenient for working parents, and knowing their child has somewhere to receive quality care is comforting. The services that centers like Daycare Chestnut Hill MA and the one I run have the main goal of committing to the wellness of both parents and children. I have been very lucky with the parents too, because they are equally as awesome and they truly appreciate what I do. However, I have come across some not-so-awesome parents in the past that I was just too polite to say these five things to:
1. Don’t ask me for a discount.
Despite what you might think, daycare providers make very little money. There are so many hidden costs parents are unaware of, such as essential E&O liability insurance, self employment taxes, licensing fees, and first aid classes to name just a few. A lot of daycares ask for donations from parents of art supplies and require that children bring their own lunches from home, so if your daycare provider provides them herself at her own expense, they are truly an angel. At my daycare, I charge $200 a week for full-time care for one child. My daycare is licensed for up to eight children, so you would think I’d be rolling in the dough, right? Wrong! You’re more likely to find me rolling actual colorful activity dough… you know, the Play-Doh knock-off from the Dollar Tree, because I can’t afford the real stuff. Anyway, after all the expenses were calculated last year, I came to the very sad realization that I only brought in $11,000. My first car cost triple that for crying out loud! There is no way my family of four would survive on that kind of income here in Silicon Valley without my husband working. Of course, that sort of money would be difficult for anyone to live off anywhere in the world. When you look at a Then vs Now cost comparison infographic for where you live, you’ll see that things used to be much more affordable. Nowadays, you need a high paying job to live comfortably and afford things that you need. With how much I make, I couldn’t financially support my family alone. So please, for the love of God, don’t ask me for a discount.
2. Don’t pretend your child is not sick.
This one is obvious, but some parents are desperate. The parents have no child care backup and they need to go to work. so they give their child Tylenol in the morning and then send them to daycare, hoping the medicine will keep their child’s fever down. It won’t. The fever comes back and now all of the children and the daycare provider have been exposed to whatever your child was sick with. It just isn’t worth the risk. Please, please, PLEASE just stay home with your child when they are sick. They will be feeling miserable at daycare and you will get “the call” within a couple of hours to come pick them up anyway.
3. Don’t ask me to watch your child for more hours.
Daycares have set operating days and hours for a reason. Believe it or not, daycare providers actually have a life outside of daycare. They have spouses. They have children of their own. They have friends. Heck, they even have hobbies and interests. What they don’t have is extra time to take care of your child. As much as I do love my daycare kiddos, running a daycare 48 hours a week is my limit. It wouldn’t matter if you offered to pay me ten times my regular price for the extra hours. I’m done. And honestly, you really wouldn’t want me taking care of your child extra hours anyway, because at that point, I am more of a Cruella de Vil than a Mary Poppins.
4. Don’t tell me how to do my job.
Some parents feel that because their child is in the daycare, they can tell the provider how to do their job. I am all for “It takes a village to raise a child,” BUT daycares are businesses. Since daycares deal with children, a lot of parents don’t see it that way. The daycare provider is essentially providing a service in exchange for money. You wouldn’t want a client coming into your office telling you how to do your job, so why would you do that to someone else? For the record, I am not talking about parents that want their child to bring their lovey to daycare in case they need some extra comfort when they miss Mommy and Daddy. I am talking about parents that tell you to feed their child breakfast after all of the other children have already eaten breakfast at the designated breakfast time. At daycares, schedules and routines are critical and having a day thrown off by just 20 minutes could create complete chaos for some little ones. Respect your daycare provider and let her do her job.
5. Don’t ask me to watch your child for such a small amount of time.
By law, daycares can only have a certain amount of children. In California, a small family child care home like mine can have up to eight at the most (if certain age requirements are met). I am the sole provider with no assistants, so to keep my sanity, I set six as my maximum. In my case, two of those six children are my own, which I get $0 for of course. That’s at least a $400 loss right there. If you want to take a part-time space, you are taking up a potential full-time space, which equals a lot more income for me. I know other daycare providers who choose to run solely full-time programs for children who don’t have school during the day to make it worthwhile for both them as providers, and the children in terms of their learning (no-one likes to be stopped halfway through what they’re doing and have to put it down and walk away). And you know from #1 how little daycare providers make, so you can understand why they are just in being selective with the children they accept. They are not being rude or mean. They are simply trying to make enough money to pay their mortgage and provide for their own family.