Unfortunate Truths about Day Care

snatched from the pages of Tiffany's SnarkyMomma blog....

Unfortunate Truths about Day Care

1) You have to pay for it whether or not your child is there.*

2) You child will get sick frequently.

3) If your child has a fever, diarrhea, or is generally whiny, they make you keep them home or else they will hound you at work to pick them up because they can’t handle that.

4) Even if your child is sick because they got the germs FROM the day care (and are a non-stop target for the germs rather than the one of the kids disseminating them), you have to keep them home. See *.

5) Day care directors don’t care if your kid has had colds back-to-back non-stop for six weeks, even if its evident that neither mom nor dad have it and they’re getting it from people in the center. Hmm, curious. How can a room full of infants, most of whom don’t have siblings, be the source of all those germs? Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

6) If your kid is already sick and immune-compromised, the moment another sick kid walks through the door your child will also become a petri dish for the new infection.

7) Sometimes you feel angry and want to send your kid in sick because HE GOT IT FROM THERE ANYWAY.

8) Sometimes if you can’t find someone to watch your kid while they’re out sick from day care you’ll have to come out of pocket and pay some brave soul to watch him or her IN ADDITION TO THE DAY OF DAY CARE YOU’RE ALREADY PAYING FOR. Fortunately, we haven’t had to do this because my mother-in-law is very tolerant of a sick Rosco.

9) It may be impossible to build up enough vacation time at work to actually take a vacation if you have to use it all piecemeal to stay home with your feverish kid.

10) You will be asked to participate in events you have no real desire to participate in be it financially or otherwise. Look, daycarecenter, you’re a childcare provider - not a school. (You don’t actually offer those programs you advertise on your website, so let’s drop the pretense, ‘k?) I don’t want to send stuff for the older kids to enjoy during the fall festival. I have a 1ish-year-old, and he doesn’t give a crap about what you’ll be doing on Saturday. Actually, on Saturday he’ll be at home because you sent him back to us with a fever. Sorry to sound callous, but with how much I pay them every week I don’t really give two hoots about everyone else’s kids’ festival experience. For that price I expect to not have to send in diapers, but I digress.

11) They set up things like “parent advisory boards” for reasons yet to be determined. No, I don’t want to be on it. When I leave work at 5 and pick up my snotty-nosed kid, I don’t want to sit and commune in a place that smells like carpet freshener and canned fruit. I have some “advice” for them, but as of yet I’ve exercised considerable restraint by not giving it.

12) Quality childcare is expensive. Sub-quality childcare is also expensive. If you have any income over the poverty level you can expect to kiss it bye-bye because without subsidies you’re going to pay out the wazoo.

13) Day care center directors don’t care if you’re paying out the wazoo. They’re going to get money for each kid one way or another.

13a) Don’t ask the people who are paying out the wazoo to donate stuff just because you think we have money to throw around. That money is for gas. And groceries. And work clothes since all of mine are too big.

14) Day care centers will make you sign forms asking if it’s okay for them to use pictures of your child in their promotions or to display in the building. We gave them an emphatic “No.” While it’s okay for our pediatrician’s office to put pictures of us on their website, it’s not cool for a center to publicly advertise where you leave your babies.

15) As much as you want to switch your child to a new day care center, what prohibits you from doing so is the same thing that made you put them where they currently are to start with: nobody has openings.

---- oh so true--- as soon as we clean up J-boy's nose of snot, clear up his cough and banish all rashes and fevers, he returns only to be reinfected! *sigh*