I am the daughter or a daycare provider, and now currently a daycare provider.

My mom always made sure that our bedrooms were off limits, and the toys inside them were too. There were "the daycare toys" and "our toys", and if we brought our own toys out of our bedrooms during daycare hours - then it was the same as any other toy brought from home by any other child (it had to be shared). But we were allowed that separation.

I will say, though, looking back. My mom used to make different lunches for my brother. At the time she thought nothing of it, and now she realizes that it wasn't fair to the DCK. I think parents *think* they are being fair between their DCK and their own children, but I think it is tremendously difficult for parents to see their own children and their actions toward them in a completely unbiased light. Just like the story in NannyDE has about hiring an assistant who was nursing and wouldn't get up to help a child who had fallen, because her son was nursing. To anyone else, it makes no sense to not get up and help a hurt child. But in that mom's eyes, it was perfectly logical. Just like in my mom's eyes, it was perfectly logical to make her own child his own lunch.

I totally understand the dichotomy of the lunch scenario for my mom (or any provider) is it fair that your child has to eat what the other DCK eat, if they don't like it, when in their own house - no (not always at least). Other kids with SAHMs, probably get to choose their own lunches sometimes, and a mom would want that for their child. But it also isn't fair to the other DCK for one child to get special treatment.

I think it is a VERY hard line to walk... because by nature of being parents, you are going to see your own child in a different light.

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