I started my daycare because I love children, I wanted to stay home with my children, so they could interact with other kids, and I wanted to make money while doing it.

It's been 8 months and I'm still broke. I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong. As soon as I get a good solid 6 or 7 kids, one of the families loses a job, or the children end up being so bad that I have to terminate them. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be this stressful. The kids are disrespectful, the parents are always defending them, and always need some sort of "deal", they pay late, they refuse to help me and work with their children at home. I cook this food, they don't eat it. They sneeze and cough and don't cover their nose or mouth, the parents swear up and down that it's "allergy season".

I've tried to hire 3 different helpers, they were all unreliable. I'm stress eating and drinking wine every night. I've gained about 35 pounds doing this business. I'm neglecting my own 2 boys (9 months old and 3 yrs old). By the time the last family leaves at 6pm, I don't want to hear another cry or fix another bottle, wipe another table, wash another dish or change another diaper.

I'm confused. Where is the joy and the satisfaction of it all?? The good thing is my ex-husband has agreed to continue to pay all of our bills and support us in lieu of child support, so the money that I make is mine. But I'm not even making enough money to do anything nice for myself or my boys. Raising them as a single mom, I don't make enough money to take a "break" from it all.

Somebody brought this dang Hand Foot and Mouth Disease up in my house a couple weeks ago, and I know it didn't come from my house or my boys because they were the last ones to get it. So I had to close down for 2 days last week and nurse my boys back to health. The parents received a credit this week since I had to close, and I ended up losing 1 family behind the virus, and another family still has their child out with it. So I'm pretty much back to square 1 again.

How long does it take before I start seeing some real money? At the end of the week after buying food and supplies, I only have about $100 left. I'm not even making enough money to invest back into the business. Is it supposed to be this stressful??? I need some serious guidance please! I dunno if I'm overreacting or what. Do I need more patience? (That is a weakness of mine). I feel like I don't want to shut it down, bcuz people say I quit at everything (another weakness). But if something isn't working, then why keep at it? Do I need to close and revamp my business and get a whole new crew of children in here? I'm lost.

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