Originally Posted by Joyce:
Sub-par Daycare is sooo NOT valuable to me. I would go into major debt before I'd use a low-class Provider.
This reminds me of a story from a couple of years ago. I took my son to the ice cream shop for desert one night and we were behind in line from a Mom and her two little kids who were two and four. She ordered the kids supper of burgers, fries, and pop. After they ate they had ice cream. Her total came to 26 something.
My son and I sat down at a table next to her and he was playing with the older kid so we got to talking. We visited about our jobs and I told her I did child care. She told me she has her kids in day care close to where I live and the provider charged her 135 a week for BOTH kids. I was like
She asked me what I charged and I told her how I do rates and that the lowest paid kids in the house that left by three were 125. If they left when she got off of work it would have been 150 per kid.
She just smiled and said she knew she was getting a GREAT deal and was very happy with her provider. She could never pay so much for day care.
The truth was that her cheap provider made it possible for her to blow a full day care paid day for BOTH kids on one take out supper with desert. She didn't see the irony of her spending a days wage for her provider who did ten hour days for TWO kids for the price of her treat food.
Yes... cheap providers are valuable. Even if the parent CAN afford more it doesn't mean that's where they want their money to go. I'll betcha her provider would have loved to have had an extra 26 bucks that week but instead that money made for an easy meal and something to do for the family that the kids definitely liked.
You may not value it but considering the really high number of cheap providers out there I would say a lot of folks do.