10 Reasons why you shouldn't put your kid in day care

Some of you may have heard that I got "laid off" or something from my optometry job I found out here. After the trial period was up, the doctor called me at the early our of 9 pm at my house to tell me there was no need for me to come back to work. No warning, no nothing. Just that. It was pretty crummy, and trying to find a new job has proven to one of my toughest endeavors so far. I've sent out over 30 applications and have only heard back in any way from 2!!! Pretty depressing. Well, I took the first offer, which was for day care teacher position. So, now I'm Miss Fran, teacher of 5 little 16-months old kids. If I thought I had it bad before, little did I know. It's gotten worse. This has been, without question, the toughest three work weeks of my life. It makes me realize why usually people don't have quintuplets, or quadruplets. You can't manage so many kids of that age all at once.

Well, I have decided that if I can rough it out at this job for the 9 months I have to, I can do anything. But, apart from that, I have also decided to never put my kids in day care. If I have to I'll get a nanny, or send them off to Germany, or just don't have any kids. But daycare? Never.

Here is my list of reasons why I think day care is horrible. As a disclaimer...I admit there are some perks to a daycare, and I understand that some parents may truly not have a choice, and so there is no judgment. But me and my house, we will not subject our children to day care.

1. Your child spends almost more time with some random adult than they spend with you
2. Your child spends more time crammed in the same old, little room than sanity should allow
3. Your child barely gets to go outside, and when it does it's a boring, supersafe, little nothing - likely without any flowers, grass, or trees
4. Your child will be lucky if it gets half of the personal attention it needs
5. Your child gets sick all the time
6. You likely will miss some major mile stones of your kid, such as first words, steps, etc.
7. Your child may be more likely to listen to their teacher than you, and maybe even prefer them over you, and thus the education/moral-setting of your child is almost out of your hands
8. Your child will grow up spending pretty much his/her first 25 years or so in class rooms when childhood is the one part that should be fun and adventurous
9. Your teacher doesn't actually have the time, means and patience they should have to take proper and good care of your child
10. Your child may be the one breaking the teacher's "back" and end up being abused

Ok, that was just a random list. But really, I feel so sad for those kids. A lot of parents bring in kids as young as 6 weeks, and leave them in day care up to 10 hours sometimes. Those kids literally grow up being in one little room with some random person more than they spend with their own families in different settings each day. I wouldn't wish that on any kid. No parks, no swimming, no zoos, no play groups, no libraries, no play grounds - NO FUN! And all the education in the hands of some person you pretty much know nothing about.

And the stress is so intense at times that I only know I wouldn't abuse the kids because a) I'm too nice, and decent to step over that threshold and b) I may lose my job and c) get sued. But, I can totally see how child abuse would happen. If people can understand how it may happen to a mom of one out-of-control child, it should be easy to understand how it would happen to someone shoved into a room with 5 little kids, all with stinky diapers, all screaming, all snotty noses, all eating at the same time, dropping their cheerios, foods all over the floor etc. It's crazy. If soon I'll have lost my last few bits of sanity you know why. But if I walk away unchanged, I know I'm one of the toughest women out there.