Originally Posted by Mister Sir Husband:
Ok, so I'm gonna tear the lid off of Pandora's box here and duck for cover later..
If I owned a retail store and sold... oh I dunno.. let's say dog whistles. On one errant Tuesday, no one came in to buy a whistle... I don't make any money. That's the way a business works.
I have this regular customer at my whistle store who comes in every morning and buys a whistle. He has done this for months. If he doesn't come in on an errant Tuesday. I don't send him a bill for a whistle he didn't buy cause he wasn't in my store... and if I did bill him for 5 whistles a week and he only got 4 cause he couldn't make it in.. well that just doesn't make sense to me, and he'd prolly go buy his whistles somewhere else. If I'm sick and don't open my store, I didn't sell any whistles, and made no money. If I'm on vacation.. same problem.
I look at my daycare as a business. Parents bring their kids, and I care for them for money. If 3 kids are here on Tuesday, I get handed cash 3 times that day. (ok, payable at weeks end, but still). If no kids are here on Tuesday, I didn't work Tuesday, and made no money Tuesday.
My reason for this little rant is because of the number of providers I've talked to and read posts about that are upset cause parents have the day off and still send the kids. The reason for this is because they are charged for it anyways, so they are gonna use it. (already paid for the whistle.. I'm gonna go get it)
Now I agree it's sad for the kids to not have time they could have with mom and dad, and it can also be classified as bad parenting, but it is truly all about the money. A lot of parents work 50-60 hours a week and the day off they get .. well they might wanna just kick back and watch tv or something. Sending the kids to daycare doesn't cost them anything extra because they are billed for all 5 days anyway so why not?
Now as a daycare provider, I can understand that having a few less kids now and again is kinda cool.. and maybe having no kids on an errant Tuesday would be great as I could put my feet up and sip coffee with a newspaper all day and enjoy myself. It's actually happened. However with no kids here I didn't work. Because I didn't work I didn't make any money. I'm not gonna charge mom 30+ dollars to watch her child when in fact I didn't do it that day.
So I know I'm prolly going to get a ton of responses to this, some prolly rather angry.. but if you want mom and dad to keep the kids home on their days off, well it comes down to the cash. If they can save money by not bringing them, they will. If as a business owner you want to get paid for a day that you didn't watch any kids, or sell any whistles, well, I am truly sorry but more often than not it just isn't gonna happen.
It'll be interesting to see how you feel about this after you've been open a few years.
