Daycare Rant

The rules of daycare have long gotten under my skin, and it seems like it's only getting worse.

I recognize that child care is hard. I also understand that its a business. But I think its total crap that they can just decide to not watch my child AND I STILL HAVE TO PAY THEM.

The reason for this rant is because of the snow storm this week here in St. Louis. My daycare decided to close early on Thursday and open late on Friday. Admittedly, the roads were bad Thursday afternoon, but they had been cleared by Friday morning. Regardless, if your entire business model hinges on letting your customers go to work, you had damn well better find a way to let them go to work. And if you aren't gonna let me go to work, even though THAT'S THE ENTIRE PURPOSE FOR OUR BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP, you shouldn't charge me for it. I can't think of another reputable business that can agree to provide you a service, and then decide to only provide 70% of your service in a given week and still charge 100% for it.

This is extra irritating because we just got off of a holiday break where this same daycare decided to give themselves off Christmas Day and New Years Day (which is reasonable) and also give themselves off a half day each for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve  (which is not). They'll also recently decided that they need to take off President's Day, which I also don't have off. A daycare spring break can't be far off.

Daycare providers - you are not schools. You do not get to take snow days, or teacher-in-service days, or any holidays beyond New Years Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. You are economy enablers. You let people go to work. Now would you please just let us work already.