Former Childcare Worker Explains Why She Refuses To Put Her Kids In Daycare

Published November 2, 2021

For working parents with young children, daycare can be a lifesaver. And when parents pick up their kids from facilities that offer childcare, there can be some encouraging signs that they've left them in the right hands.

But of course, that isn't how it can always work as other parents will find that some centers have unusual practices or environmental hazards that can turn them off from daycare entirely.

And while the parents who happened to make these discoveries may feel disillusioned with the childcare industry, it seems that nothing encourages those feelings more than actually working within it.

At least, that seems to be true for one mom who pledged to never enrol her children in daycare.

In a video she posted to TikTok on July 29, a mom explained why her experiences in childcare left her feeling as though daycare wasn't right for her family.

TikTok | @olddavenportfam

One of the reasons she outlined was that her children weren't likely to receive much affection from their carers, as acts of physical affection from staff members are apparently disallowed as a precaution against abuse.

Another issue she identified had to do with the lack of input that parents have into what their children eat at daycare.

TikTok | @olddavenportfam

Since she believed that her facility served substandard food to the children, she didn't see much reason to expect a big difference in what other daycare centers feed the kids they watch over.

As we can see in the full video here, she also felt that daycare centers regulate play time too strictly.

As she put it, "They don't allow time for them to be kids."

And while she said that there are other things she experienced that shook her faith in daycare, a particularly concerning issue for her was that not all incident reports actually reached the ears of parents.

Of course, the idea that this was just a sample of what she experienced only made her viewers more curious and they soon requested a second video.

And that is exactly what she uploaded the following day.

In this follow-up, she said that background checks are no longer required for daycare employees. She elaborated on this in a comment, saying that while these checks used to be required by law, they're now up to the discretion of individual facilities.

In addition to the way daycare centers handle nap scheduling, she also took issue with the ratios between staff members and the children they're supposed to watch.

As she saw it, there were more kids in a given center than the staff members available could safely watch.

Filed Under:

People & Society