Is there a Revolving Door of Teachers in your Kid’s Daycare Class?

There are probably a lot of reasons why teachers quit working at daycares, but, 3 of the main reasons why are situations outside of their control.

Management

Parents

Pay

A lot of the time parents will pull their children from a daycare (or preschool if you want to be that guy) for one of three reasons: their kid got hurt, they didn’t like the teachers or administrators, or there was a high turnover of teachers. I want to focus on the third, a high turnover of teachers. If you’re unfamiliar with the word turnover as it occurs in the business world, turnover is the issue of people coming and going from jobs creating an unstable work environment. I am a previous daycare/preschool teacher. I worked with children from 6 weeks, to 5 years old. I have potty trained kids, and taught them how to write their name. I’ve seen it all, heard it all, and experienced it all (for the most part). One thing that still rings true even though I no longer teach is that daycare workers are severely underpaid and underappreciated. You want to know why your child has had 5 teachers in the span of 6 months at his daycare? Here’s why.

Bad management can ruin a great business

This is true at any place of employment, but weighs a little heavier when you factor everything else in at a daycare. Bad management can be anything from overbearing owners, uninterested directors, and brown-nosing assistant directors. All of them have a detrimental effect on a teacher’s brain, and thus, makes them want to leave. I’ve seen owners tower over a crying girl, yelling at her to “confess” that she had witnessed another teacher do something wrong (when the poor girl didn’t know anything), but when you have a man and a woman standing over you while you’re sitting down, berating and yelling at you, you tend to break down. I’ve also seen directors that are barely there, maybe show up for a couple hours every few days. I’ll be honest, I’ve never met my son’s daycare director, and he’s been there for over a month now. I honestly thought the front administrative assistant was the director. Seeing the director responsibilities fall on someone who isn’t a director, is strange, but it seems to be working for them so – more power to ya. Then of course we have the brown-nosers. The ones who are so ready to tattle tale on you for having your phone, for posting a picture on Facebook, for talking to an ex-employee. These brown-nosers make it to where you constantly live on eggshells, afraid to say and do the wrong thing when you aren’t even doing anything wrong. This is true for all businesses, but especially true for daycares: Bad management can ruin a great business.

“Not my perfect little cherub!”

The next reason why there seems to be such a high turnover in daycare teachers is “bad” parents. If you have any of these traits, and you exhibit them in your kid’s classroom, go ahead and pump the brakes. Bad parents do a lot to ruin a good teacher’s morale, but the main issues are: being condescending and acting like your kid hung the moon. I get it, I have kids, and my kids are great (most of the time), but I’m never under the impression my kids are perfect and do no wrong. For example, the parents that say “oh he never does that at home!” or “did you do x,y,z to be sure he doesn’t do this awful behavior?” Those kinds of parents are the ones I say are “bad” Let me give you an example of a parent I encountered. Her child, Beckett (that’s not his real name, because she seems like she’d sue, she was a real peach), was the worst kid I have ever encountered. He hit, kicked, screamed, refused to listen, refused to do the work with us, called little girls fat and ugly, and when we told his mother about it she literally responded with, “not my Beckett! He does none of this at home, what are you doing wrong?!” Let me just preface this by saying, I know there are some terrible humans out there, but treating your children’s teachers like dog poo just because you don’t want the world to see how your child truly behaves, isn’t ok. And please note; when your kid gets hurt by one of these terrible kids with perfect-parents, the school will more than likely do nothing about it, unless the owner/director doesn’t like the child/parent. In this case, Beckett’s mom had another child in the school ($$$) and another one about to join, so the owners didn’t want to lose that profit, so they let him stay, and make everyone miserable without any kind of help from the parents.

Did you know, daycare teachers get paid around $9.50/hour?

The last thing, but the most important thing, is pay. Teachers are leaving in droves from daycares all over the US because they can get paid better at WalMart and don’t have to deal with the previously mentioned problems, on top of bad pay. Did you know, daycare teachers get paid around $9.50/hour? When the daycare rakes in over $10k in ONE room, a month, and have kids driving fancy cars, but don’t pay their teachers, you know something is wrong. The highest I’ve seen a daycare teacher paid was $13 (and that’s because it was me who made that), and I had a Bachelors Degree, and over 5 years of experience. I’ve had some friends who work at the same daycare for over 5 years, with a director’s credential, making $12 an hour! You can’t provide for your family off $12 an hour. Keep in mind you also have to pay an exorbitant amount for insurance, plus childcare (because you don’t get free childcare even when you work in childcare) you’re left with barely anything at the end of the day. I also know some companies that pay an “average” amount of hours worked for “holiday pay.” So if you missed a day because your kid was sick (unavoidable), or had to go to the doctor so you left early (also, unavoidable), you don’t get paid a full 8 hours for a holiday because it takes the average amount of hours you worked over the previous 6 months. So it saves the school money, but ends up costing the teacher a part of their already small paycheck.

Have a little compassion for the person who wipes your kid’s butt while you’re at work.

Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t consider being a VPK teacher a “career” per say, but some do. Some women (and men) make it their life’s ambition to shape the minds of small children, and that is perfectly ok, but they should be paid a meaningful salary to do so. SO please, next time you wonder why your baby has had 5 teachers all swinging through like a revolving door, remember this, and maybe you could offer a kind word to help brighten their day. A small act of kindness goes a long way when you’re in a thankless job.

5 Things Never to Say to a Mom of Boys

I’m going to preface this with, this may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it is certainly some phrases that have driven me nuts while I’ve been raising my two boys over the years. Raising boys has been the hardest, grossest, weirdest, but fun time of my life. I never knew a small person could smell so bad after only being outside for an hour. I also never knew so many people would have an opinion on the aesthetic appeal of my newborn’s penis. *shrug*

Please stop commenting on the look of my son’s penis…

“You know he’ll hate you when he’s older because you didn’t circumcise him”

Ok, I’m going to start with this one because it’s a hot topic right now. With the new documentary on Netflix, and people beginning the anti-circ movements, this seems like a great starting point. I chose not to circumcise my son *gasp* I know. My reasons were private between my husband and I, and we came the agreement that the choice was not ours to make. If my son wants it later in life, I’ll happily take him to have it done, but I couldn’t do it. I’m not putting anyone down who has done it, but for me, I just couldn’t and honestly it has nothing to do with the documentaries, or other people’s opinions, I simply didn’t want to have my baby cut on. Which leads me to my first thing to stop telling moms of boys, “You know he’ll hate you when he’s older because you didn’t circumcise him.”

Honestly, I’m sure my kids are going to hate me for a lot of reasons, and I doubt the look of his penis will be the top of those reasons. Making him do his homework? Probably. Telling him he can’t have a new iPhone? Definitely. And I’ll be real with you, if he hates me because I didn’t cut his penis, I will happily offer to pay for the procedure for him to do it. But telling me my kid is going to hate me later in life because I didn’t do it isn’t conducive to anything. It’s done, I didn’t do it, making me feel like crap because I didn’t do it isn’t going to change anything. You may not agree with my choice and that is A-OK, what is not A-OK is you having a comment on my son’s body and my choice not to alter it. Mind your penis (or lack thereof).

Boys will be boys is not an excuse for boys will be little jerkoffs.

“Boys will be boys”

Y’all I could literally SCREAM every time someone says this to me. This is the ultimate slap in the face when raising boys. You are telling me that there is no way to stop the behavior, and that because he was born a male, he is allowed to behave this way. First of all, no. Boys will be boys is not an excuse for boys will be little jerkoffs. Boys will behave the way in which they are raised to behave. If they are raised that, because they are a boy, they can do whatever, whenever they want, that is exactly how they will behave (*gasp* it’s the same for girls). Kids mimic what they see, so if you allow their behavior, they’ll continue to do it. I’ve vented to some people on the terrible behavior of P, and all I get is “boys will be boys,” do tell me how that helps the situation? You essentially just told me to let it go, let him continue this terrible behavior, because, innately, he’s a boy and he’ll continue to do this. If you don’t have anything constructive to say when a woman tells you about her son’s behavior, don’t. say. anything. It isn’t hard, just zip the lip and smile and nod, it’s better than being condescending.

Oh, honey, they all do that.

“That’s all children…”

Here’s another one that just irks my nerves, “all kids do that.” OK, awesome! So like, let’s stop letting them do that? I don’t care if every kid out there kicked a kitten, I would still be appalled when my child does it. Now if all kids wanted to wear polka-dotted socks, that’s harmless, wear them socks all day kiddo. But when it comes to bad behavior, just because it happens with some kids, doesn’t mean you have to allow it in your house. This comes especially into play when I talk about certain behaviors (lying, talking back, tantrums, etc.). I get all kids are going to have bad days, I’m not naive or dumb, but excessive bad behavior shouldn’t be written off simply because all kids have the tendency to do these things. Just because little Ben down the street screams in his parent’s faces and slams doors, doesn’t mean I’m going to allow it my house because, “Hey, they all do it!” I want to raise my kids not to follow the masses, not to be like everyone else, so why would I write off their behavior as OK just because other kids do it? I don’t know how other parent’s handle it, but for my sanity, I can’t just terrible behavior. We have to draw the line in the sand somewhere.

Kicking kittens is never OK.

“You know he’s like this because…”

Unless you’re a therapist, stop telling me why my kid is the way he is. Yeah he’s gone through some crap at a young age, but when do we stop letting that dictate the rest of his life? Or with BabyE, when people tell me I’m spoiling him from holding him so much. What?! He’s a BABY. Babies can’t tell you their needs, they just expect them to be met, so yes, I will hold and cuddle this tiny human I created until my arms are tired. Because one day I won’t be able to pick him up so easily. One day he won’t like my hugs. One day he won’t want my kisses. So for now, I’m living in the moment with my kids. Stop telling women how they are raising their kids is wrong. Unless she’s feeding them bleach for dinner, then of course, let ‘er know.
None of know what the heck we’re doing in this parenting thing, so unless you have some stellar Super-Nanny advice on how to handle these little creatures, keep your diagnoses, and opinions to yourself.

Stop telling women how they are raising their kids is wrong.

“Oh look, he’s got a girlfriend”

Ok, ew. He’s a child. This is another one that can be filed under stop sexualizing kids. This also makes boys think that they can’t be friends with girls because they get the “oooooh you love her.” The girlfriend thing really only bugs me when it comes to the baby, because, just no. With the older hooligan, he could very well start to get little girlfriends, but right now I want him to know he can be friends with a girl without it having some different connotation. Let kids be kids. When he wants a real girlfriend, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes, but for now I want him to be able to catch lizards and worms with the girl next door because he likes playing with her without someone commenting that they are on a “little date.”

Let kids be kids.

In summary, stop telling us everything we’re doing wrong. Parenting is hard enough without your judgement, Judy.