Originally Posted by DCMom:
I believe this is the third article in a series that the Tribune is running. They are obviously hit pieces against home daycare coming after an unsuccessful attempt to unionize 11,500 home daycares in MN (in my opinion).
They are taking isolated cases of providers who blatantly disregarded the rules and regulations in place; they were clearly at fault and as a result, children died. For those of us who follow the rules to the letter, these articles are frustrating at the least. I have a C3 Group License which allows me 14 kids WITH A SECOND ADULT, not a 12 year old. I have had it for more than 15 years and I have never felt like I needed to justify the number of kids I have. Yet, every parent who dropped off today was doing a silent head count~you could see it! The other weird thing, it's usually mom OR dad who drops off. This morning I had 3 families where both mom AND dad came in to drop off. I feel like I need to send out an email addressing my license capacity and who is here on what days, I have 6 part time kids and 4 school age kids in addition to 5 full time kids, so faces change depending on the day of the week and time of day.
I also have the neighbor of one of the babies in the story...that makes it doubly hard, because I feel the pain of that family but I also feel the need to defend my profession, kwim?
My heart was saddened by this article. I personally feel the weight of the world on me when someone passes over their infant, somedays more than I would like, simply because the job of watching someone elses "everything" is a serious job.
I agree 100% with what you wrote. I have seen the three articles they so recently stumbled upon. I too wondered immediately, who was sending these reports to the editors and where were the ideas for these stories really coming from. The union efforts are powerful and yes if they want to limit numbers they certainly can find enough cases of bad providers to ruin it for the rest of us.
Just an fyi, I have never cared for a number close to my lic capacity. It is more than I can personally handle, however I do not think the ignorance of some should effect the whole.
And I too was wondering why the families chose to leave their children in settings which they believed to be unsafe? Is it because there is a high demand for infant care thus leading to fewer options or was it poor parenting choices? Here we have so many people calling for infant spaces you barely age someone up before you have another one coming in. I think it would be easy to get sucked into taking too many for an already existing family, especially because the need for providers who take infants is far lower than the number of people looking for infant care. So, if we limit the number of infants providers can take then what, this would only make the demand greater, the availablity less, seems like a no win, IMO.