Originally Posted by KiddieCahoots:
Lol! Time to put on your suit of armor! Jk...jk....
.......
I used to work my business exactly as you are mentioning now.
Instead of it working out for both me and the parent, me getting a more relaxing day without a particular child, and parent not having to pay for the day the child was absent....it backfired against me in that the parents started keeping their children home for every reason they could think of because they knew they would not have to pay.
My business was not paying the bills.
Now I charge for everyday, and they are here everyday. To the point that I have to get stern on illness policies, and such, for a parent to actually keep their child home for a change.
I think what most of us complain about isn't exactly the business aspect of us providing a service, rather the aspect of the business and $$$ taking priority over the actual child when it comes to the parents.
A child should represent so much more for a parent then $$$, but a lot of parents are putting the $$$ first.
I also used to do things as the OP feels is right. I feel it's right, too. A lot parents want to cook the books. Like one parent has a habit of picking her child up after closing. Then would justify is by saying "Well, you close at 6, but I pick her up at 5pm every day. I've already paid for four hours I didn't use". Um, no. The thing about the parents is they are 99.9999999999% of the time out for themselves. No, their family. Not their kids. Not their spouse. For themselves. Just as this threads we see about "When child is in dc, it's no this and no that, but you see the parent feeding them some type of junk outside of dc". It's all about the parent. Why did these people become parents in the first place? Let me share one more story. I'm sorry this is long, but think this really shows my point. My uncle in law was a jeweler. When he died, he left my husband and his family jewelry and gold instead of cash. My sil and mil got 90% of the jewelry. My husband got 90% of the gold with mil and sil getting the rest. I was pregnant at the time and picked one piece of statement jewelry for myself, one rolex for a boy, and one expensive tennis bracelet. I figured if I had a boy, he could have the rolex and (my husband has a rolex) his future wife the bracelet. If I had a girl, she could have tennis bracelet and her husband could have the rolex. (I have fertility problems. I knew I would be one and done.) My sil had three children already. Picked NOTHING for them. Years later, she and the mil pawned all the jewelry and gold. Recently, I went to dinner with her without her children. I said "Do you ever feel bad they're not going to have any of the jewelry your uncle made?". Her response was "He was my uncle. Not their's".
