And at one time in this country, a family could live comfortably on one income and didn’t need two parents working 40+ hours a week just to barely get by.
F*cking Daycare
- Thread starter IAFB2021Champs
- Start date
And kids walked 5 miles to school shoeless in the snow amirite
my friend, we've heard the stories you share about your family.
uphill both ways.And kids walked 5 miles to school shoeless in the snow amirite
Smaller house, cheaper cars, less material possessions.
It’s all about priorities and choices. Anybody dropping their kids off on a $75k truck/suv decided.
Somebody leaving a very nice home to take their kids to daycare also decided.
I would love to do that.
When I retire I’m going to volunteer on some digs if I can.
That’s fair for many, but many don’t have that option.
I added up what income we gave up by my wife staying home and it was about $2.5m if she never got a single raise from where she was 20 years ago. Still, I wouldn’t trade it.
Everyone does what works for them.
We just found out that one of the kids that was probably in this situation tested positive for RSV.
It's hard to have your child in daycare and get sick.
It's hard to have one of you raise them at home on one income.
Choose your hard.
It's hard to have one of you raise them at home on one income.
Choose your hard.
See man, people are the worst. That sucks - hopefully your kid doesn't get it. 🤞
Continues right one through School. Parents sending their kids to school sick all the time.
I have a daycare as one of my stops on one of my bus trips. About 7-10 kids at that stop usually. There's always one of them with a cold. The group 1 thru 10 is almost never 100% cold-free.
So of course, they then ride my bus - then other kids catch these colds. Which in turn means I catch their colds. The entire month of November, I've been catching something, getting over it...then catching a new one.
And I'm pretty anal about keeping clean. Hand sanitizer in the bus, I spray down the seats/hand rail etc with sanitizer after my morning and afternoon trips. My aid and I are constantly reminding kids...cover your mouths when you're coughing, limit touching anybody, etc. Hell, this past week I've been keeping a box of Kleenex near me as they come in and I'm handing them out to any kid with a runny nose.
But when you got 40-60 kids in a box with the windows all up and you got a handful of them coughing every trip...it's gonna spread.
Hell, my middle school trip, a couple kids there this afternoon's trip home, hacking up a storm. Then another one of them tells me her older sister just came down with Covid...
Winter...my FAVORITE time of year to be a school bus driver. It's like working in a germ factory.
So of course, they then ride my bus - then other kids catch these colds. Which in turn means I catch their colds. The entire month of November, I've been catching something, getting over it...then catching a new one.
And I'm pretty anal about keeping clean. Hand sanitizer in the bus, I spray down the seats/hand rail etc with sanitizer after my morning and afternoon trips. My aid and I are constantly reminding kids...cover your mouths when you're coughing, limit touching anybody, etc. Hell, this past week I've been keeping a box of Kleenex near me as they come in and I'm handing them out to any kid with a runny nose.
But when you got 40-60 kids in a box with the windows all up and you got a handful of them coughing every trip...it's gonna spread.
Hell, my middle school trip, a couple kids there this afternoon's trip home, hacking up a storm. Then another one of them tells me her older sister just came down with Covid...
Winter...my FAVORITE time of year to be a school bus driver. It's like working in a germ factory.
Through adulthood since employers get upset if you're sick too much, and many people don't have paid sick time.
Oh man that does not sound like fun. The sad thing is most bus drivers are older people as well that have a tougher time fighting colds.
Worse as an adult. I couldn't effing move anything without hurting.
Reads like a text my employees send me when they call in. I put my toddlers in a 55 gallon drum with breathing holes and I never missed any work.
True story. I had to leave work to pick up a sick kid and two old timers that taught me everything chimed up and between them said they never left work for sick kids. I snapped on them and they told me to calm the **** down and they just meant their wives didn’t need to work so never had to.
I am past the daycare stage of parenting, but be prepared for constant viruses rolling through and get ready to get sick yourself more than you have before. Late fall/early winter is a tough time for your 1st to start daycare as half the place is already sick.
Bingo.
As I've aged (the past 2 school years, after I turned 60)...the colds just seem to stick around a little longer now and get a little bit more severe.
I have the exact same cough that I hear in my bus all day long. There's no mystery going on here. And it's not like I can tell 100 kids "get away from me, I don't want to get sick".
Heading to Urgent Care tomorrow morning. Get some meds, and make sure it isn't, you know (I've had my shots)...
RSV Sucks. My daughter caught it at daycare almost two years ago. I got it from her. It was worse than COVID for me. She also got COVID at daycare too. Oh, also hand, foot and mouth from daycare which I also caught.
Moral of the story is, you’ll most likely catch what she gets sick with. On a positive note, my daughter is about 3 1/2 and doesn’t get sick like she used to. But be prepared as she will be sick all the freaking time
People also used to think anchovies went on pizza, we get better sometimes.
Yall remember the “it takes a village” idea? Well we’ve got to pay the rest of the village too. It can suck but socialization with other kids and adults outside of the home is important. I’m not saying having one parent stay home is bad either, but they normally find activities that involve other children and adults.
Our family has been to the pediatrician three times in the last two weeks and avoided it today after calling in the doctors in our family. Two ear infections (finally a referral to ENT for a tube evaluation) and two kids with pink eye. Our oldest continues to evade the challenges.
Advice: get used to it. In-home is incredible for evading sickness, but after 2 inadequate for providing structured learning.
Advice: get used to it. In-home is incredible for evading sickness, but after 2 inadequate for providing structured learning.
Welcome to daycare. We have 3 kids (20, 17, 12) and we’ve never been as consistently sick with our kids as when they were in daycare.
It’s a rite of passage!
You could hire a nanny, or, you know, have one parent stay home. That's what we do. Screw letting other people raise my kid.
I work with families and it seems like more and more are choosing to have one parent stay home and the other work due to the cost of daycare. One couple even told me they did the math and would have only been ahead $10/month if they had sent both children to daycare and both of them continued to work. For them it was an easy decision obviously. I’m not knocking on the daycare providers as they need to make a living too. Wondering if others have noticed this trend as well though?
^^^^When there is no more daycare expense, it will feel like you received a 50% salary bump.
Have been since roughly early November (once the weather translated into having to keep all windows closed). I try to vent it out as best as I can (roof hatches, cracking a window here and there), but usually that means I can only when it's say above 35 or so degrees.
You should see how foggy the windows get this time of year if I have to close it up tight (mornings usually). Every window in a full size bus, fogged over. Then when there's snow on the ground, the kids of course drag that moisture in (along with sand and salt and rock), making it even more difficult to keep the bus' interior dry. So if you're proactive, you pick up and sweep the floor daily, and try to mop once a week.
You just have to keep at it, every day, as best you can. I'm sort of OCD about it really. For having to haul 200 give or take bodies every day, I got a damn clean bus. It'll never be perfect obviously, but if you don't try (many don't)...it quickly becomes a sand box/moisture disaster this time of year.
I look at it as the cost of doing business - I'm going to be exposed to them no matter what. I think if my numbers on this trip were in the 30's to 40's (*2) it wouldn't be as rough. It's just hard to "hide" from 60 little germ factories twice every day.
I am feeling much better this morning (finally!). Not a single coughing fit since I woke up.
