Originally Posted by Unregistered:
If I was paying $2.50 an hour I wouldn't have any attitude. We are paying $7.50 an hour, as thats the going rate for a center in our area (in home starts at $10/hr). We registered for the waiting list at this center a month before we even got pregnant, and the spot didn't open until my baby was seven months old. I am in a very different environment than most of you in regards to daycare services. The current wait list at our daycare has 10+ kids on it all the time, and as a result, the employees do not care about me or my child anymore than they have to by law. I apologize if I offended anyone with my previous comment. I admit to being heated over reading some of the responses from providers about this topic. My point was only that, when a family pays $1500/mo for daycare for a single child, I do not feel that its too much to ask for my own child to be breastfed on the patio everyday at a time thats convenient for me.
$1500/mo is what I would get for 3 full time children, before food/supply costs. It sounds like most of the providers on the board live in areas where that sort of price range for one child is not even on the radar. If we take state pays so we don't get paid until way after the service is provided, sometimes have to chase parents down for their co-pays, and it just basically ends up being an out of pocket expense for us and hopefully we'll get it paid back.
I was offended by your comments because the other providers I know DO NOT do it for the money, we would have to be raving lunatics if we did. We try and do what is best for the children in our care and that includes loving them. The thought of a parent trying to tell us to suck it up and do what they tell us to do, whether we like it or not, in our own homes is going to raise some hackles.
Part of the reason I don't work in a center anymore is because trying to wrangle 12-15 children by myself didn't leave a lot of room for being a caring, loving person. Nope, just an angry, stressed out control freak who wasn't doing anyone any good.
Sooo, in my own home I do it how I want to do it with only 5 children, while my own darling daughter is at school. I love seeing the results of the work I do but I put a lot of work and money into it.
I think a lot of the other providers here would echo with similar comments. Please keep that in mind when you post. We seem to be a sensitive bunch.