Now I had a good experience with family day care but my sister had a nightmare. three different women all the same sort of thing. The first woman took Mitch who was 6 months old at the time out in her care to pick up kids from school. Not a problem for Karen until she turned up early one day as the woman was pulling up and six children piled out of the 5 seat car and a child of about 8 was holding Mitch in the front seat of the car. no car seat, overloaded and in the front seat. Karen flew at her and made a complaint but she didn't get sacked. The little girls said to Karen "Oh it's ok I always hold him tight so he can't get down" The woman tried to tell her that it was the first time she had ever done it. Yeah right!
The second woman seemed alright until Karen turned up early to find the woman had gone up town and had left the kids at home with her husband, who was asleep in bed because he was night shift and had left her 10 year old in charge of the kids 4 plus mitchell who was 9 months old and walking. Again she made a complaint and again nothing was done. (three day care centres in town pop 35000, = huge day care shortage = nothing done)
The third and final straw (woman) was nice enough and things went quite smoothly for a few months until the womans husband changed jobs and started shift work, they had a two storey house and she ran the day care down stairs and her own children were about 5, 13 and 15. Karen came on a few different occassions to pick up Mitchell and the husband had been watching an MA movie rather loudly (probably to drown out the noise of the kids downstairs) the kids weren't watching it so she didn't say anything the next time she turned up and the father was home the five year old was screaming and the father was yelling and swearing called him a FnC Karen just looked at the other woman who had turned up at the same time in horror and the lady apologised and excused herself and went up and spoke to him, Karen said judging by the bottles on the verandah he was certainly drunk. Karen started looking around for other options and was guarranteed a place for Mitch when he turned 15 months which wasn't to far away. The final straw was when she turned up to pick Mitch up and the father had his work mates over and they were all drinking and swearing and having a rip rorter of a time even spitting over the railing to where the kids were playing. She said the woman was in tears, Karen felt sorry for her but quit right then and there. She never used Family day care again. The irony is, my sister is an early childhood teacher and at the time was working in a day care centre, but couldn't get her child into that centre because of their policies reguarding employees children.
