Husband/Kids Support Childcare In The Home

[Country Kids]

With reading the closing down thread it seems like everyones family is pretty excited about the childcare being no more in the home. I always wonder if there is a cut off point in doing childcare for the sake of the family (children/hubby). Do you wait till they get to school age, a little older (middle school), high school, or just make it a career?

So my question is:

How supportive is your family in having a childcare in the home?

[Unregistered]

They were at first and now have been wanting me to stop. It's only been 11 months but things around here have been crazy since I started. If I continued on my fiancé would have supported me but I knew deep inside he was begging me to stop. Also my kids are so excited they could cry (6&7) they have missed me being more available and not stuck inside!

[Willow]

With reading the closing down thread it seems like everyones family is pretty excited about the childcare being no more in the home. I always wonder if there is a cut off point in doing childcare for the sake of the family (children/hubby). Do you wait till they get to school age, a little older (middle school), high school, or just make it a career?

So my question is:

How supportive is your family in having a childcare in the home?

My husband and I have pretty traditional views on gender roles. I love staying home regardless of what work I do while I'm here or how old the kids are and he appreciates my feelings on that.

He and the kids have been incredibly supportive. They may not love every aspect of what I do but they are respectful because they know it makes me happy and allows me to be there for all of them the way I like to.

The additional income definitely affords us more luxuries in life. It will probably end up being my lifelong career unless I find something more lucrative to do in our home.

For us it truly is a win win for everyone

[mrsnj]

Well I don't think my family would be highly upset if there were no more children in the house. Maybe my youngest as she would miss her friends. BUT my oldest and my husband understand it is good pay and my options of working outside are unrealistic. So....with every job there is always good and bad I figure. You have to weight the pros and cons. When the cons become longer, it might be time to look elsewhere.

[AnneCordelia]

My family is very supportive. They like having me here during the day. This job facilitates our lifestyle and they can't argue with that.

I do things to keep my family happy:
I have a dedicated daycare space so they don't feel daycare invades on their space.
I don't consider my children part of my daycare...they are free to come and go.
I close at 5pm. 10 hours is a long enough day for us. I did longer days and it was harder on all of us.
I don't do daycare on the weekends if I can help it. No paperwork, no dck bday parties. Its family only.

[earlystart]

My husband is supportive because it means I can stay home and watch our 1.5 year old son while he also gets a preschool experience. I can imagine that changing once our son is in public school, and I may change things around when it gets to that point, and only do daycare part time and work outside of the home part time, or something.

[Lyss]

If varies for me, sometimes DH is super supportive and other times not so much. He doesn't complain or say negative things about it but develops a bit of an attitude with me on DC subjects when he's upset.

Usually the lack of support comes out when his schedule at work changes and he's got days off in the week. When he can't sleep in til 10 because the DCKs are loud he gets grumpy and says he wishes we had a different house or I didn't have the kids. But on the other hand he gets waaaayyy more time to work in the shop/garage when he's off work on DC days than he does if its a day we have together because we try to do family things. He also usually apologizes for snippy comments later because he realizes that this DC pays a lot of our expenses and allows us to do fun things together that we wouldn't be able to if I wasn't doing it.

For DD I think she would be ok with no kids but she enjoys her buddies (well all but one that is)!

[ABCDaycareMN]

My son(6) every morning asks "you you do daycare today?" Me- Yes! Son - "Woohoo"

[jessrlee]

My family is amazing about the daycare. I'm weird- I actually started when dd was in 1st grade. I actually just asked her how she feels due to the closing posts. She says she is fine . She figures I would have to work anyway, at least this way she has a yummy snack waiting for her ! Hubs is awesome about it 90% of the time. The other 10% he is doing extra maintenance or sick due to a dope and drop

To help my family out I have my daycare space in out walk out basement, I keep the upstairs sacred, and I try to fix any problems that crop up. I also think my family likes the homemade food I have time for

[Sugar Magnolia]

I answered "very supportive" because my husband is my partner in our center, and its a separate building, not in our home. THAT is a huge plus for our family.

[juliebug]

very supportive, he takes our kids to school. and will help watch the dck every time i have an appointment. It does help that i have a seprate area for the child care in the home. i do use the bedroom at nap time but that is it. My kids are fine with it, most of the time. Sometimes they want to be left alone but i let them know they can always get away to their rooms.

[Starburst]

My boyfriend (future husband) supports me having a daycare and sometimes even tries to offer some ideas. But there are somethings we disagree on that I tell him we will not be able to have in the house or I would rather not have or what we would need to do if we did have it because of the daycare (such as guns and pools) but he supports me because he likes the idea that I will be home to watch our future kids when they are younger and we won't have to pay for daycare for me to work out of the home. He told me if I wanted to I wouldn't even have to work but I need the pressure and the stress to stay on task or else my house would most likely look like an episode of hoarders (though it might get that way anyway ). Plus I need to keep busy or I will go crazy.

[Play Care]

My husband and kids are very supportive - BUT my hours are set, my day care is full, and I make a very good salary (and then add legitimate tax deductions to that and we come out way ahead). For my kids, I keep a couple of their school aged friends so it has worked like a built in play date. They get bored when if I'm on a vacation and we are home. I have been very blessed that things have worked out so well - I can easily see where this career could cause resentment if things did not.

[laundrymom]

Husband is not only supportive, he's my biggest fan. He is proud that I am a local small business owner. It's more than a daycare for us, it's my 'American Dream.'

And with his support, I can do anything. ;-)

[just_peachy]

My husband is very supportive, but he doesn't have a lot of patience for kids that aren't his own. There are times I will TELL him to grab our kids and go take a walk or something, just to get him away from the DCKs. He's not mean, but you can sense his agitation and it stresses me out.

At first he was a lot more hesitant. I started the daycare because he was in sales and his numbers were dropping. We NEEDED to make more money. Then kids kind of just fell into my lap, so, daycare it was. I think it took him a while to get used to not supporting the family on his own. I think he held a lot of guilt for a while, and possibly resentment that he subconsciously took out on the daycare.

Now because I don't have an excuse to sit on my bum all day every day reading or playing video games (I know it's awful, but I seem to be inherently lazy) the house is almost always clean, the laundry is ALWAYS caught up, (there's 5 of us!) homemade dinner is on the table almost 7 nights a week, I make him breakfast and pack his lunches...

The daycare has made me more ambitious and organized and energetic out of necessity, I take care of myself and the house better so that I can "work" in a pleasant environment, and he is VERY supportive of that.

Plus, he knows the importance of pitching in a lot more now too, so somehow, even though our situation isn't ideal, (small house, long daycare hours, some annoying parents,) our relationship is better now than ever!!

My kids LOVE the daycare kids, so no problems there. But they've known them all since birth which helps!