You've been given really great advice. Can you look into opening a small center run outside of your home? In that case, I could see a 3-way partnership working.

In my opinion, anything run out of your home will never feel like a partnership to you because of the impact home daycare will have on your life, your space, and your physical property. For example, I just had a bad stomach bug floating around my daycare. I had to spend my weekend bleaching and making sure I was extra, extra cautious with my own family. This is the sort of thing your friends get to leave at the end of their shifts. You can't predict the ways home daycare will impact you specifically. If you can hire them both and make a livable wage, I would highly suggest moving forward and treating them as employees. Pay them a market rate as long as you can still make a significantly larger chunk of money.

For me, worker's comp alone is cost prohibitive. Also, you're ultimately responsible for what happens on your property and, to me, that risk is only worth it if I'm making a sizable income.

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