Posted on 11/09/2008 6:54:13 AM PST by mombyprofession
ROCKFORD, Ill. – The nation's economic troubles play out one family at a time at the New Horizons Learning Center in this struggling city two hours northwest of Chicago.
Some parents have been laid off and must pull their children out of the day care center until they can find a job. Others' employment hours have been cut, so they reduce their kids' attendance to a few days a week.
Financial strains prompt one mother to pay with a postdated check. Another chooses to work in the middle of the night — after putting her kids to bed — because of the extra dollar per hour that shift brings. And the stress shows on the faces of the children who can't understand why their friends, without explanation, stop coming.
"They act out more, cry a lot more," said Diane Kesterton, director of New Horizons, where a 38-child enrollment has been halved to 19 in just three months. "They don't know what's happening, they're confused."
Parents nationwide are telling day care providers they must scale back or abandon their services. Instead, they keep kids at home with grandparents or upend their work-life balance because gas and food prices have become prohibitive and average child care costs outpace rent and mortgage payments — even for those drawing salaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
So day care is a better thing than being home with mom?
“they keep kids at home with grandparents”
OMG! What a unique idea—using extended family to help out with family problems instead of government. Let’s give a medal to whoever thought up that one./s
I don’t know.
Me and the wife arranged our life around the kids school schedule.
The wife didn’t work until they started school.
Helps that I drive a Ford Focus and her some Honda critter.
Wow... kids staying at home with grandparents like we did when I was a kid. And this is a bad thing how?
This is scary. The reporter is proceeding from the premise that a child is better off in institutionalized daycare than home with a parent or grandparent.
“They act out more, cry a lot more,” said Diane Kesterton, director of New Horizons, where a 38-child enrollment has been halved to 19 in just three months. “They don’t know what’s happening, they’re confused.”
Sounds like this is a dollar issue for Diane. She is the one crying more. Less cash flow.
Our extended family is hundreds of miles away - just like many other families today. We all followed the jobs. We certainly don’t live the same lives our grandparents did.
Why do you need day care when Obama promised the masses a free nanny in every house? Two nannies if your house is threatened with foreclosure.
It is but a few hours and here they are presenting their wet dreams.
Guaranteed public daycare indoctrination centers are an absolutely necessary function to assure the welfare of children and the nation. That’s the ticket!!
“our extended family is hundreds of miles away”
As is ours. But the articles seems to imply that these “poor people” had family living nearby and were being forced to usee them. BTW, we were blessed to find a notice on the board at church of a young mother who wanted to keep one or two small children along side of her two small girls. My son was the only one she took and they ended up being our “extended family” here. There ARE other alternatives to paying pricey daycare expenses.
if they are still in school, why are they acting out more? why
are they crying? they are two or three years old for heavens sake,
they don’t know what is going on. i think this is sort of like the
story of old people eating cat food. why wouldn’t they just eat spam?
“How do parents solve this problem?”
Don’t worry...
The Federal government will mandate “child care” services be will be provided by employers.
Unemployed parents will receive a “tax credit” which will offset the “child care” costs for their offspring.
We can look forward to a nation where all children, from birth to adulthood will be warehoused in a government run facility.
Evidently, this is the Change some of us have been waiting for...
exactly. slow day for news, so they improvise
My bro-in-law came over for dinner last night. He showed us pictures of a beautiful large blue parrot. The parrot had no feathers all over his chest and "shoulders" because he is a "plucker." The bird's Vet's theory is that parrots are very close to their owners and his original owner, after having been around all the time when the bird was really young, had to go to work. The Vet told the new owner that's when the plucking started. Obviously, the plucking hasn't stopped...even with a new owner being around all the time again.
FYI - If you could see the bird, the impact would really startle you.
I immediately said to him, "If the Mom's leaving to go to work had such a HUGE impact on this bird, IMAGINE how HUGE the impact to a human child?"
Oh no!!! You mean someone’s going to have to stay home and actually raise their kids themselves. Oh, the humanity!!!! It’s a Neocon plot to force their outmoded “family values” onto the backs of the working class!!! (for the sacrasm/irony-challenged, this is actually both).
That’s a good idea, except that nowadays, there are less summer vacation and have weeks off throughout the year.
You have to have a pretty understanding boss to take off a week every month.
And I don’t know a daycare that allows children to be dropped off only on vacation weeks. Most will only do that for the afterschool regulars.
I guess this means the financial crisis is a blessing in disguise. These children are so happy to be at home with mom or dad or grandparents. When I had my first child 3 1/2 years ago, I was scared to death. With my husband in the commercial real estate business, it’s even worse than I imagined. We’ve had to cut back and do without more than I ever thought we would, and I’m sick of not having money (though I have since started an online business), but every time I look at my children I know God will honor us for doing the right thing.
My old Toyota lasted almost 20 years... long enough for the last one to enter kindergarten and I could begin work.
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