Frustrating childcare situation

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Those of you suggesting that the OP take leave for the last six weeks of school don’t realize that the OP probably wouldn’t want to do that because it might adversely affect the children she teaches. Have you approached the young women at your church? Perhaps some of them are looking for a bit of extra cash.
 
I actually know a fair few people who make a decent living waitressing. Definitely better than $8 an hour, but that can certainly depend on the area and all that. I certainly hope that this daycare center is not staffed entirely by people I wouldn’t hire to take care of my children, since they are hiring them to take care of people’s children! And actually, I would and have hired a 20-something with two kids. She was excellent. I didn’t ask if she had gotten a traditional high school diploma or a GED. She did have a driver’s license, but I don’t want my kids driven around town anyway so as long as she could get to work on time, I wouldn’t have cared about that. I don’t tend to think that all the women who are working at this daycare center are there because they are completely desperate and can’t get hired anywhere else, but that notion definitely makes me even more nervous about the idea of sending my kids there!
 
I don’t know any young women at my church who are not otherwise employed at this precise moment. Although I did send out an email to the facebook group.
 
Allegra said:
I don’t tend to think that all the women who are working at this daycare center are there because they are completely desperate and can’t get hired anywhere else, but that notion definitely makes me even more nervous about the idea of sending my kids there!
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Waitressing carries risk. At a nice place one would make good money on a weekend, but you might not always get the weekend shift…or you might get stiffed. It’s not a steady income. The hours are also not conducive to those with children. Same with retail. The pay is usually minimum wage and the hours are variable. Daycare has set hours during normal business times. If their own kids aren’t allowed to attend they can easily find care for them. It is darn near impossible to find care for a waitress shift last minute 3pm-11pm or for an opening retail shift–5am. I worked retail and I opened precisely because I had no kids to worry about and my co-workers did. I also took a customer service job that was 12-8 and got a nice shift differential. Working single parents? They really couldn’t.

You are being really rude to these women. They could get hired elsewhere just not in childcare. It doesn’t make them bad or incapable…but at a point in their life where making $10 an hour with steady daytime hours and even benefits. (Especially including being able to have their children cared for).

You had an issue with your sitter’s kids…you were ready to dismiss your nanny. Most women do not want to live under that kind of pressure. Not only must they do everything to a parents liking but their kids need to always operate above par so as not to trigger their employer’s ire. They can’t parent their child the way they want—they must parent according to their employers standard.

You seem to have no ability to put yourself in their shoes. You said that you cannot understand why they would do it. I’ve explained why…and you keep dismissing my reasons with counterpoints. However, you are a well-educated person with experience and some compassion for those just starting out. These women are not highly educated. It’s not to say they are not good people but education does make you open to greater risk. You also would hire someone who brought along their children. Go on Mom boards. There was a thread on one not too long ago where a nanny asked a parent to let her bring her child during snow days. The vast majority of the moms (something like 80%) said they would not only not want the nannies child their regularly but they wouldn’t even want a child there as an emergency one-off.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
There was a thread on one not too long ago where a nanny asked a parent to let her bring her child during snow days. The vast majority of the moms (something like 80%) said they would not only not want the nannies child their regularly but they wouldn’t even want a child there as an emergency one-off.
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This is disturbing. I mean, If I hire someone for daycare, I should be able to see there are this kind of days where you don´t have another choice.
In most daycare institutions here is the key 1:15.
And, speaking for the women working there, I would never ever work in daycare for a family I don´t know very well in their house. In case of accidents or emergencies you are under a much higher pressure than in official institutions who offer a lawyer and protection.
 
I actually take care of children for a living as a sitter and have been a nanny and worked in a day care center. As a nanny I was paid the most and I do pretty well as a sitter for school aged children. The day care’s pay was not good but it had a higher status.

This country’s daycare system has issues. The school aged children generally despise after school care. Quality daycare is expensive and they tend to have waiting lists.

The OP could try checking out other daycares. She might also find some sitter who needs a temporary job.
 
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I always keep a keen eye out for things that are rare on google…If you put an expression between quotes, like:“word1 followed word3” it only shows exact matches. Benies might be common but put together with package only yields 6 results, and that is noteworthy for rarity. I really wasn’t quite sure if there was a meaning to it besides the most intuitive abbreviation.
 
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First off, how is the 4 year old who swallowed the lithium button battery?!!
That really raised alarm bells. That is very serious. How did you find that out.
Daycares are depressing because no one will look out after your child there like a family member will. My granddaughter attends a religious daycare center in a church 2 afternoons a week and it breaks my heart to see little babies left there. It is so sad that most families now, both mom and dad need to work.
Childcare is frustrating for the working parent and very expensive these days. I think finding quality daycare is very difficult and it sounds like you are doing a diligent job to find a safe environment for your children.
I will be praying for you!
 
I will offer your intentions at Church today. I will also reply soon. God bless you! It cannot be easy!
 
I am so sorry you are in this dilemma. But it all sounds just about correct. Child care of any kind is hard, demanding work. Unfortunately, nobody is willing to pay a decent, living wage. To pay that, most parents may as well quit their jobs and stay home because most of their paycheck would be going to child care. When you send your children to a daycare center, you cannot expect specialized care to each child. There are too many kids and not enough adults. The trains have to run on time, with as few disruptions as possible, just to get through the day.

I went through what you are describing when my child was little. I eventually wound up working part mornings, and my husband worked evenings. He also arranged to have his days off on Monday and Tuesday. Mine were Saturday and Sunday. That left Wed, Thurs and Fri for daycare services. Because of the schedule we arranged, my child only had to go for an hour or two a day, 3 days a week. It wasn’t easy on our home life. We limited our family to one child, which wasn’t a sacrifice because that is what we wanted anyway. We are a loving family, so the only “hit” I really felt we took from this over the years was a financial one. You never fully recover financially from being boxed in with regards to the hours you can work. We both make decent money now and things aren’t tight, but we weren’t able to save as much for retirement in those early years as I would have liked. We had to wait until later in life to buy our first home.

I guess all I can tell you is I feel your pain. Don’t have unrealistic expectations about what hired help will do for your kids and for you. Look at your family life and figure out how you might be able to rearrange things so you don’t need much child care.
 
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Actually, I think YOU are the one that’s not giving these women any credit. I think your assumption that they are only working there because they are in-hirable as nannies is the uncharitable one. You claimed that no one would hire them if they didn’t have a certain level of education or if they wanted to bring their children along, which simply isn’t true. That may be their perception, but for every family on your mommy blog that would be upset if they brought their kids during snowdays, there are TONS of families who are perfectly happy for them to bring their children everyday on the childcare pages. Maybe your mommy blog is a certain demographic?
Anyway, none of that is even an issue at this particular center. Employees aren’t allowed to bring their kids for free. According to the director, they get a 15% discount and they can only bring them if there is room, so they might not be able to bring older kids on a snow day either. If they have two or more kids, the tuition is significantly more than they make. So, while that may be a benefit at some centers, this isn’t one of them. I don’t know for certain, of course, but I’m pretty sure that if they did bring their child and they were chronically biting other kids, as our nanny’s child was doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to continue bringing them either. That’s just a guess though. At any rate, I’m certain that they have to tailor their parenting to the policies of the center while they are there. If no spanking is the rule (and I assume it is) I doubt they make an exception if it’s their own child. If no time outs is the rule (and I’m told it is) they they are probably expected to follow that rule with their own child, don’t you think? I don’t see how that’s any different than a nanny situation or a school teacher situation for that matter.
 
Do the institutions offer a lawyer for the employee? Because schools don’t. You have to carry your own professional insurance or join a union. The school’s lawyer is never there to represent the employee. The first thing they try is to throw the employee under the bus.
 
Ok, maybe this is just different in germany. Here, usually when you work over ca 450 Euro/month, you need to take an insurance via the company in case of accidents at work, sick days, healthcare etc. Your institution protects you in cases of mistakes (break things, hurt people accidently in medical jobs for example), and those cases happen often in childcare, for example.
I won´t say those insuraces work 100% for you as employee but definately you are better protected than in a private house where you have no witness and need to choose a lawer for your own costs. But again, it may be different in america.
 
Thanks for asking. She is fine now. It’s very hard for me to leave them with anyone though because of it. I feel safer when they are in my home because I have control over my home, how clean it is, where my batteries are, etc. I think a daycare would be second best in that regard, but obviously I have other problems with that sort of environment.
 
Generally speaking, while everyone has the right to sue someone over anything they think they can prove, it’s near impossible to find an attorney who is willing to help you get blood from a turnip. Statistically, you have a much higher chance of being named in a lawsuit if you work for a corporate daycare or have a daycare in your own home, because there are actually assets the attorney can go after. If you injure a child in someone else’s home, the parents aren’t going to get much help in a way of an attorney, which means they will probably not get much more than medical costs in small claims court. In most states, this is limited to $5000.
 
Thanks all for the prayers and responses! I’m feeling much better because we have found a really good candidate that seems to have a situation lined up for the summer, which means it’s likely she won’t bail on us before then! (Yeah!) We met her and she interacted really well with the kids and my daughter was really excited to meet her new 4mo baby! The first thing my daughter asked was whether the baby was a “bottle baby” or a “boob baby”. (A little embarrassing.) She was thrilled to find out that the baby is bottle fed and she might be allowed to help with feeding him and hopefully the prospective nanny wasn’t too offended. If all works out, she should be available after the summer to nanny for us next school year too, though there may be a week or two of overlap that we will have to workout. Yea!
 
Are you talking about the email I sent out to the staff at my school district? It includes the preschool teachers. Why do you ask? Do you think it’s more likely they would know someone or something?
 
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