Is It Irresponsible?

[Cat Herder]

It's me. I just suspended the daycare. Taking it week by week but told the parents that I understand if they pursue other care. Honestly, I've done this 23 year's. I worked through pregnancy, no-sleep infant, chemotherapy, 9/11, missing my son's school and sporting events, my AI Hepatitis flairs, colds, H1N1, my husband's unemployment but I just can't work through this. I'm done. At least for now.

I get it, too. I am at 26 years. Because of that, I have the opposite view. I stayed open because I still need to be able to fund my retirement and emergency savings account. I am on my own there. I am squirreling every penny from this week in case something changes next week. Each week I can stay open, I view as cake.

The hospital stay for those who do succumb to this is somewhere around 28 days. If you get the mild form, you are still out of work between 2-3 weeks IF parents chose to come back.

I don't want to come out of this heavily in debt if I can avoid it. I have plenty of life insurance, just not enough savings.

[Sunshine69]

Responsibility is a deep subject in these times. What’s good for some is not for others.

I am open for business but have no children as their parents aren’t working. I still require payment from full-time clients and have turned away the drop-in kids whose parents refuse to follow precautions. I will continue to be open until my full-time parents give notice. Then I will likely look for work at a grocery store. For the time being, I’m doing online training, reorganizing the daycare and catching up on filing and maintenance projects I have not been able to get to.

All the hiring and background check requirements have been waived in my state and there are childcare services popping up everywhere. Some offering free services to essential workers out of public buildings.

This is exactly what I expected would happen. I cannot compete with government supported businesses or people that don’t have to meet the requirements I do.

When I read about the hours free childcare was offered, Monday-Friday 7:30am-3:30pm, I got a good laugh. That doesn’t even allow a parent an 8-hour work day. I get the idea was to cover at school hours but, without school, there are no buses taking kids from temporary daycare to their usual providers.

While there is rightly a willingness to help the healthcare providers, I don’t see the same help being offered to daycare providers who are now “essential”. Sure they waived background checks so I can hire more people. Why hire more help if the kids we had are gone? The band-aids some officials think of are so unrealistic in relation the problem.

I think we’re all just making due as we go. Not much else left after that.