When you started your daycare what where your goals or reasons? (be your own boss, work at/open a center in the future, stay home with your children, couldnt find job that fit your schedual, to go to school at night?)

Did you plan this business for a long-term career (more than 5-10 years) or a short term career (less than 5 or 10 years)?
Was it a short term career origionaly that turned into long term career?
Do you idealy expect to stay open until you are ready to retire/ no longer physically capable, or do you plan on looking for another job in the future?

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I started to stay home with my first child. I did not plan on this being a career but I have now been doing this for six years. I never planned on doing this for so long so no, I wont be doing this till I retire. I just let two kids go, I am down to three and hope to close down asap.

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To stay home with my babies and be able to earn money.

It has evolved into me being a business owner, teacher, and loving to learn more on the business and taking classes on it pretty much monthly.

I planned it being maybe a 5 year goal and now almost 18 years later, I'm still here.

So yes, short term turned into a very long career in term of being a provider.

Not sure about retirement-could be in 5-8 years, sooner or later, I'm not sure. The industry is changing so much that I think in 10 years home childcares might not exist but I might be suprised.

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I planned on only staying in business until our youngest entered 1st grade. I wanted to spend more time with our second child. I had been able to work p/t with our oldest for awhile but childcare for 2 would have cost most of that salary.

I was lucky the dentist I worked for had a friend/ patient that ran a small family childcare/preschool. He encouraged me to talk with her... TA DA 30 years later I still run my business.

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You know all those kids that providers vent and complain about as being high needs and not really being the type of kid who could function in a group daycare? Well that was my youngest.

I had been working at Head Start as an Assistant Teacher when my DS was termed from his 2nd care place. Opening my own child care seemed like the most logical thing to do. Plus, I had been having some doubts about wanting to continue working where I was so it all basically just fell together.


Well, if you consider 5-10 years long term, then I don't know what I am. Been doing home daycare for twice that long now.

Nope, I never ever intended this to be short term. I knew if I was going to make the effort, I might as well go all in.

Hence the purchase of a separate home in which to do this.

I plan on doing this until I either die or win the lottery.

Which ever one comes first.

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I was teaching school in a private religious school. I was barely able to make my car payment on my income, and still had to pay for some of my own supplies.

We got a new Pastor at the church who was going on and on and ON about working mothers, and homeschooling (this was in the early 80s)

He decided that as of the next school year, he would close the daycare center in the school to "force" the parents to live off of one income. But, that obviously meant that all the kids in the amazing and wonderful church daycare would have to go to a not at all good daycare center. (again, this was in the 80s)

So, I got together with a few of the parents in the daycare, and we decided to start our own. I rented a house from one of the parents for a discount, and I watched their child for free. I watched another child for free and the dad did all my dental work. The parents bought or donated nearly everything I had back then. I didn't have much, but we had great fun.

I watched in total TWELVE kids. It was easy...I don't think I could watch 12 kids now...but, for some reason, it was great then.

I have kids of those original kids now. If I really, really tried, I could trace each child I have now to those original 12 kids. (Word of mouth)

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I started 20+ years ago because I had 3 children, couldn't afford daycare and needed to make money to help my Hubby support us. I planned on returning to work when my youngest started school but it never happened. I always made more money with daycare than I could working outside of the home. I never planned on 20+ years but...here it is. All of my children are now adults..and I am a Grandmother...and I couldn't see myself doing anything else. I have another 20+ years of being a provider in me unless something unexpected happens.

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I opened my home daycare simply to be able to be my child's pre-k teacher. She didn't qualify for the state prek program, and I was worried that she wouldn't be prepared for Kindergarten. Her previous Childcare provider(who I loved) had no curriculum and let the kids watch TV and just be kids all day. Which was fine, but I felt it was not stimulating enough fo rmy 4 year old's brain. Through all of the things I have had to put up with in regards to dcps, and having my things breaking I have had the best time ever. I have taught my own child to read, do simple math , and more importantly to me, I have taught her about the world, people, nature, holidays, the weather, fire trucks etc... Who else gets to do that? Everyone once in a while around a holiday, all of the dc kids or most take a day off and I get to lounge on the couch with my child(paid in full), ride bikes, or go to the nail salon. I only planned to do this for one year, but I see myself doing it for a bit longer. I am not sure why I wil continue doing this when my previous job allowed me to get off at noon everyday..but I just like it. Here lately my long term goal has been to open a commercial faciity. I am not sure if I can do home daycare for the rest of my life. I do enjoy being my own boss.

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I started my day care because I wasn't happy with the day care my daughter and my nephew were in. They were always over capacity and whenever the state consultant was doing a visit (which seemed like it was all the time) I was called to come pick them up. I was a college so I would have to miss class and even had to take my daughter with me once (it was a EC class so my teacher loved having a toddler in the class for the day). They also got ringworm from going there that took AGES to get rid of. I felt they deserved better so I opened my own home day care. It was only suppose to be short term 4 years until my daughter started school but once people found out I was doing day care they begged me to keep their kids and it grew from that. I plan to do day care until I retire or am no longer physically capable to do so.

I've been in the business for 12 years now!

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I started my daycare five years ago, when my youngest was 14 months old. I had previously worked at a job that I loved, but my husband and I bought a new house (dream house) farther than I was willing to commute. We made the decision to start the daycare so I could be home with my baby. In the past five years, we had a second baby, who is now almost three and ready for the next step.

I opened my daycare explicitly for families of teachers, so I could keep my same cushy teacher schedule. It has been great, and allowed me to meet many teachers who are now in my oldest son's school. It allowed us to become involved members of our community.

I am closing up shop this June, and will return to the teaching world in September. My youngest will be in preschool from 8:30-3:15 every day, and my oldest will be in first grade. I have loved being home with them, but it is time to take back our house and start the next chapter. I will never regret the time I have had home with them, and I am sure the re-entry into the actual world will be quite a shock to my system. I am ready for it, though!

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I started 28 years ago.

My husband was in the military and away quite a lot. I started doing childcare as a way to be home with my own children and still be making money and also helping out other air force members (we lived on base)

I've never looked back.

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I started my day care in order to be home with my own kids. Long story short, my oldest has Asperger's. He wasn't a behavioral problem at day care but it was clear he wasn't happy. He was very much a "homebody". When my dd was born, I tried going part time and my husband and I staggerred our hours so one of us could be home with the kids. We ended up not seeing each other except to say hello and goodbye. Eventually, it seemed to make more sense for me to quit and do day care out of our home.

I wanted to do day care at least until my kids went to school. I figured at that point, I would evaluate how things were going and decide at that point whether to continue with day care or not. My kids are now 22 and 18 - almost 19. At this point, I'll probably continue until I can't do it any more or until this state regulates me out of business. Once in awhile, I'm tempted to look for another job but I really do like what I'm doing and love working from home. As I watched my son chipping ice from his windshield yesterday, I was reminded of how very nice my commute is!

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I was in school to become a teacher when a close family member got in some trouble and had their children taken away by CPS. I was divorced, in my late 20's and had two children of my own but knew I needed to take the infant and toddler into my home. I figured it wouldn't be long before CPS and the parents did everything they had to do to make their home a good environment so they could return home. I tried taking the children to their previous provider to help them keep consistency but she made me feel uneasy and the kids were unhappy with the environment.
My own children were in a decent center but they were full so I looked at every other center in the area and was not happy with any of them. I had my hands full with an infant, 2 toddlers, an 8 year old, school, work, etc. so I decided to take some time off from school so I could stay home with the children. My cousin heard about my decision and asked me if I would be interested in watching her children because she was unhappy with her provider and then another friend signed up. That was 10 years ago.
This was definitely something that I intended to be short term but ended up being long term.
I'm making plans to finish my degree now and hope to close my daycare when my youngest starts school 3-4 years.

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I started caring for kids when I was a teenager as a babysitter and loved it! I applied at a center 14 years ago. Part of my interview was observational and I remember to this day, thinking "this is what I want to do for the rest of my life", I even had tears in my eyes...lol. I went to school and earned my Associates degree in child development, I never went further because to be honest, you really don't earn much more with a Bachelor's. Here in MI you can be a director with certain qualifications-you don't need a degree unless you want to work for the state or higher up in the corporate world which I cannot stand. Anyways I went on to work in centers for 14 years. I got married in that time and my husband and I decided to have another baby (I have a 10 year old too) and in order to do that, it made sense to open my home daycare. We bought a house, had the baby (he's now 6 mo) and now I have my own in home. I just opened last week so we will see how it goes, but I plan on doing in home until I can retire!

Great thread by the way! I like hearing other members' stories.

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Wow what a neat story! It's great how you watch former childrens' kids. Every once in a while I see children that I used to take care of and they are early teens now. It's so neat to see how they grow up!

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To stay at home with my second child and be home when my first gets home from school. This is a short term project - 5 years is when I want to be just a stay at home mom- the end goal is to eliminate all extras financially and become a one income family.

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