Squeezed on All Sides, Parents Forego Day Care

Of course that will be hard to do while we focus on drill, drill, drill and test, test, test.

I have one friend who has had to really scramble for business lately. She's an awesome daycare provider and has wonderful recommendations -- she used to have to turn kids away. No longer -- she was really freaking out this summer because she had so few kids. She's back to capacity for the moment but it's precarious (she's in NJ).

My neighbor has one child in daycare (I watch the older one for free a couple of days a week when she's not with grandma/in preschool because they can't afford to put 2 in daycare) -- the daycare provider only has two kids at this point and has warned my neighbor she may have to close and go back to working outside the home full-time (if she can find a job). She's the second I know of in this area -- the other has already closed down and managed to get a full-time job (despite the fact that we've lost 12,000 jobs in Buncombe County, NC.....includes Asheville.)

I'm disabled and there are things that are tough or impossible for me to do....when I ended up in the hospital, they took care of my dogs for me. He mows my lawn for free. It's not an equal trade-off most of the time (it takes 15 minutes to mow my lawn) but they're great friends & neighbors -- I'm not looking for equal. I"m happy I can help them and I adore their kid.

that's when the term latch-key kids came to be...

single mom working three paet-time jobs, all over the schedule, 3 kids (5, 6, and 16) and my teenager has been kind enough to handle the overlap in the eves or the weekends...for christmas vacay, my mom is taking one of the little ones so that the strain on the older sibling isn't so bad...otherwise the little ones will have him hog tied and be lighting a bonfire in the living room! lol

I HAD help with childcare, but CA has seriously cut the funding there, and since my kids are in school most of the time & I need no after school care, they let me fall off the rolls...

and I am barely making enough to survive, let alone pay for daycare, or anything else beyind survival at this point!


There are no real helps in place for families and children - we lost the benefit of extended families from a century ago, we lost our tribe, we no longer have neighbors who we are very close to, and your employer can fire you for just talking about your family or asking for time off to atend simple dentist appts...
Where is the support system, oh ya Your On your own

ya - who matters here?
you can tell the humanity of a society by how they treat their youth, ther elderly and their pets...

sucks, doesn't it?

So sorry to hear you are dealing with this.

Thank God you have a child that is old enough to care for the younger ones! :hug: