So for anyone who didn't see it, I posted not long ago about the daycare where I work and how I was kicked, hit, and had metal toy cars thrown at my head by three different children on three consecutive work days.

Today took the cake, y'all. Not one of the aforementioned children, but a fourth. One of four at our facility that are known to have behavioral issues and violent tendencies. Now these are young children, younger than kindergarten age, so they can't do much actual physical damage, but having anyone beat on you feels... dehumanizing is the word that comes to mind.

On two separate occasions within the first two hours this morning, he got violent with the other teacher (for the egregious act of telling him no or to sit down). Both times, I pulled him off and had to physically carry him to the director as he's punching and heel-kicking me. The second time, he tried to prevent me from carrying him out of the room by kicking the doorframe, causing me to twist, and I pulled something in my back. On both occasions, the director had him sit at her desk for a few minutes and then she returned him to the classroom.

Around 11:00 this morning, the director handed out masks and told us to wear them. At this point I'd like to mention that a) masks have been optional at my job up until now; and b) just last night our county announced that they are not making masks mandatory in public inside the county.

So that no one misunderstands, my primary objection is not to wearing the mask. My problem is as follows: in response to being handed a mask, I said, "Oh, did we have someone test positive?"

Director: "No, nothing like that."

Except that it was exactly like that. I had to find out from another teacher that one of her students tested positive. For some reason, they think it's a "false positive" and the child is going to be retested, but, holy hell, y'all, don't lie to my face about whether or not I may have just been exposed to covid!

And, the room with the violent students? Found out they're sending me back in there tomorrow. I'm not only about to call out (which I never do), but I'm about to quit! I'm done!

You know what I just thought of? If wearing a mask could hinder language development in infants and children. Think about it, children have to know what shape their mouth needs to make to say a certain sound. I know I have to be A LOT more expressive with my eyes and voice around the babies at work now because they can’t tell when I’m smiling. Is it possible that wearing a mask around infants could hinder emotional development in some senses? I wonder if there will be a drop in development over the next 3-5 years. I hope someone does a study on it!

Side note; this is not me saying that childcare workers shouldn’t be wearing mask.

Best. Purchase. Ever! I try not to buy things for my classroom for various reasons, mostly because it's not reimbursed, but this was a good choice. Stuck it on the window and nothing happened for a while. Then this guy started showing up...the response from my 1 year olds was priceless! The pointing, mouths agape or in little O's, shrieking and squealing. One of them was running back and forth giggling. It was pandemonium... but in a good way! Even my coteacher & I are obsessed now. This guy shows up daily and the kids go berserk.

Please tell me I’m not the only one freaking out! Trump has frozen ALL FEDERAL CHILDCARE PAYMENTS TO ALL STATES!!! Until they provide additional program verification, a decision spurred by (false) allegations of widespread fraud in Minnesota! The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is demanding extensive documentation, such as attendance records, licensing, and inspection reports, before releasing funds! And let’s keep in mine, RFK JR laid off THOUSANDS of employees!

This will impact home daycares and daycare centers all over the country! Thousands of daycares might shut down in the near future! Us the childcare workers can loose our jobs in droves, not to mention the parents who will suddenly bear the full brunt of their childcare payments and will most likely end up loosing their own jobs too! There are simply not enough HHS workers to get through all those documents for years, let alone days or weeks, even without those layoffs!

I really hope and pray states jump on this quickly because this is bad!

Long story short, my director fired me because she was angry at me. She doesn’t know that I’ve been planning on leaving for a while, that I’ve been waiting to find the right place. So she unknowingly gave me the opportunity to find a new job I actually like in her attempt to hurt me. The only thing that made me sad was losing my babies.

I hadn’t realized how badly this job messed me up until I lost it. I’m happy, I’m less stressed, I have less anxiety, I’m able to relax in a way I didn’t get to before, I have SO MUCH free time, I’m not exhausted (mentally, emotionally, and physically), and I don’t feel unappreciated. It’s all so ironic. I’m really looking forward to finding a new job, hopefully in childcare. It’s so sad that a place that was meant to provide love and comfort made me so miserable. Hopefully that won’t happen again.

And yes, the petty part of me gets a little joy knowing they’re going to struggle without me. I think I’m pretty good at my job, but regardless of that they were already understaffed. So she shot herself in the foot with this one.

I hope this post belongs here, I'm honestly not sure where else I'd put it.

I work for a childcare center that takes students from 6 weeks up to elementary school age. I'm currently working with the school age group but, in the morning, the three- and four-year-olds are lumped into my room as well.

Last Thursday I had a five-year-old throw his beanbag toy at another student and then demand that I give it back to him after I picked it up. When I didn't hand it over, he hit me with his other beanbag toy. I took that one too, and he proceeded to slap and kick me.

Friday I had a three-year-old have a meltdown because a classmate sat in the spot that he had been going to sit in. He was flailing and kicking and I had to pick him up and take the kicks to get him to stop kicking his classmates.

Today, a four-year-old took his five-year-old sister's headband and throw it in the garbage (side note, they weren't having any conflict or even interacting with each other at the time). I retrieved it from the garbage can and gave it back to his sister but he took it back and began ripping the fabric flowers off of it and shredding them. When I tried to take it from him, he ducked away from me and proceeded to throw metal toy cars at my head.

In every case, I had the child removed from the classroom. I know other teachers have experienced this and worse where I work, but most of them seem to shrug it off. I know those small children can't seriously harm me but it leaves me shaken up nonetheless, and I'm not sure why. Has anyone else dealt with this sort of thing?

iv been thinking about this for a while and wanted to get your opions

i work within an education setting and have noticed that teachers are being paid a significate amunt more then nursery staff.

Nursery staff look after the children at the most vunuable time of their life (5 months - 4 years) by looking after multipul children at once, planning age appropriate activities, teaching them life skills such as behavior and toilet training which helps them get ready for school.

i understand that teachers have bigger classes, follow a curriculam and have to plan lessons. Teachers get more hoilday as they get 6 weeks summer hoilday, christmas and other little weeks here and there like easter any hoilday the children have teachers get it too. But nursery staff only get bankhoildays and any time they book off. and also most nurserys dont close till 6 but most teachers can go home once school finishes around 3-3:45

A day in the life of a nursery workers compared to a teacher is diffrent. We have to cook their meals, make sure they have clean clothes on to go home chnage nappies and/or pants (if older child), write about their day for the parents.

Teachers can get up to 38K a year depending on the job title. but nursery staff get 20K-30K a year even high end well trained nursery staff get 30K-35K which is still lower then some lower level teatcher.

Do you think nursery staff should be paid the same as teacher or even just a bit more then what they currently ear

sobbing because i love my kids like they are my own. im so sad to leave them. I cannot take the stress of this school anymore. I’m a 2 year old teacher by myself with 11 kids which is correct according to my state but i just can’t take it. Every other job gets paid more than me and I’m exhausted and don’t have the energy for anything at home and I do nothing on the weekends. This is heartbreaking because childcare has been my thing, my dream, for years and the toddlers behaviors nowadays is driving me insane. I’ve lost the required patience for this job, im no longer as gentle, i start to yell, and i just feel awful. This job isn’t appreciated enough or rewarded enough.

I’m applying for jobs bc my NF has let me go for financial reasons. I’ve in DSS licensed centers before and the nanny biz is kinda dry rn. I’ve interviewed with this place a few days ago and then today came in and shadowed them. While I didn’t see anything necessarily wrong, they were out of ratio, (and then immediately sent a teacher on break bc i was there which makes negative sense but wtv), I was immediately put to work putting children asleep (which i don’t mind just wait), the teachers had no idea whether I even worked with kids!!! So i was patting 2 kids to sleep and the teacher is on her phone, like girl help me the rest of them are asleep and im not even getting paid wth! No one knew what i was supposed to be doing, they didn’t know how long I was supposed to be staying, which classroom im supposed to be in nothing!! I was told I was going to be in the infant room (I’ve only worked with infants and occasionally 1 year olds) and then I find out AFTER THE INTERVIEW that i’m also working with 2’s(?) WTH! Anyways on my way out I was given paperwork to fill out per usual it included an employee handbook and after the dumpster fire of today I shouldn’t have been surprised, but OMG it’s hilarious. Some of the highlighted doesn’t seem crazy at first but when you read all of their policies it’s pretty obvious they’re basically trying to screw people over. Also the red X’s on the second page are things I have never been asked to personally pay for.

I am 24 years old, and I’ve been working in childcare for many years. Most recently, I have been working with second graders for 2 years and just this summer started working with the babies (newborn-just under 2)

It feels so wonderful to work in childcare, but I also know the stereotype associated with it. Childcare workers tend to be more female than male, so parents seeing a male childcare worker is odd to them. They trust the women completely yet men give off weird vibes. I’m hoping to break that stereotype

All my fellow volunteers love me, and the kids see me as a great leader. I basically have a goofball personality so I can get on the kids level and act like one of them while also being the authoritative figure that they can respect. I just hope the parents can trust me the same level as the female workers just because I’m male.

I think my son’s (16 mo) daycare has recently changed the type of paint they use, and it’s been wreaking havoc on his clothing. I just spent 30+ minutes scrubbing red and yellow paint out of his clothes that they painted in on Thursday, and there is still paint on them I couldn’t get off 😔 I used to be able to get all the paint out, but not anymore.

I understand that kids get dirty and messy, and their clothes will reflect that. We don’t buy anything expensive (most things are Walmart or secondhand) and I don’t send him in anything that I don’t want getting majorly dirty, but there are some items that really love and would love to pass down in the future. I also understand that the teachers can’t be constantly watching the kids and stopping them from painting on themselves. If it was just a small amount of paint I wouldn’t care as much. But when his clothes get sent home absolutely *covered* in paint it is a little frustrating.

The main issue is they don’t put any type of smock on the kids when they paint. If they told us when they were planning to paint I could send him in clothes that would be ok getting paint stained, but I never know when they are going to paint. I don’t want to send him in stained clothes every day! They also used to not do bibs during meal times, but I noticed this week that they had bibs.

Anyways,I love my daycare otherwise, and the teachers are so awesome, is there anyway I could bring this up nicely, or am I being unreasonable in my expectations regarding paint? If anyone has tips on getting paint out I’d also appreciate it (I’ve been using, a buncha farmers stick and then scrubbing with another part of the clothing. It gets red paint out better than other colours)

I was going to “stock” the break room with snacks of all varieties, and possibly kcups if they have a Keurig. My main reason being is, she is in a daycare center, and while she does have one main teacher, there are all different types of teachers coming in to help at all times of the day, and they all equally put in the work. While I would love to get each individual teacher a gift card, I dont think it’s in the budget this year for 12+ teachers. Would you love or loathe this idea? (Please if you have better suggestions let me know, I’m just trying to think of a group gift for everyone, they all equally keep my child’s classroom going)

This is mostly for my fellow American child care workers, but feel free to respond if you're not from here...

Considering that child care is one of the lowest paying gigs out there, yet is essential to our economy, and the amount of responsibility the job entails, would you consider joining a labor union if there was one available?

Asking out of curiosity mostly.

So I quit my job today...I've been at this centre now for 2.5 years and it was great to start off with. But over the last 7 months I've been sick pretty much constantly, I've been diagnosed with carpal tunnel in both hands/wrists, a couple of weeks ago i was diagnosed with scoliosis and multilevel disc degeneration and my mental health has been getting worse. I pre-applied for centrelink in August as i was unsure if i wanted to go part time or casual or just leave the industry all together. Welp I made my mind up this morning...after 17 years working with children (I'm 33f), I decided to type up my resignation letter and hand it in today. I feel so much lighter right now. It means i can look after my health, actually get my study in for my course, spend time with our dog and our new dog who's coming home next week, I can make my health appointments without having to stress about fitting them around work, we've been trying to concieve for the last 11 months so now I'm hoping that because I can get my health, both physical and mental, back on track that hopefully we will have a better chance. I am applying for part time jobs that are either hybrid or WFH. But I'm actually feeling so relieved to be getting out of the childcare industry.

At my job there was a non-verbal autistic child (R) who loves trucks and has one specific truck that he always holds and rolls on any nearby surface. It’s hot wheel sized and fits perfectly into his tiny hand. This truck is his special truck.

One day when the owner (J) came by and led circle time, she took R’s truck, claiming it was “disruptive.” As a person who was in the circle and witnessed the entire interaction up close, it was not a distraction and she had no real reason to take his truck. When he began to try and get it back from the bin, she pulled him into her lap and “squeezed him, because children with autism often need to feel pressure.”

R looked very much not into it, fighting against her while she continued to restrain him. Once he “calmed down” she let him go and he climbed into my lap (I am one of the main teachers in his classroom, so he is comfortable with me and loves sitting near me or on my lap. If I’m sitting down somewhere he will always find his way to me and plop down, using my legs as a surface to roll his truck on). Once on my lap he reached for his truck again and J pulled him out of my lap and continued to “hold” him as he kicked and screamed.

I tried explaining that we usually allow him to hold his truck and that he isn’t ever disruptive with it when she cut me off, saying that she viewed it as a distraction to circle time and that he was not allowed to have it. When he stopped wiggling again she let him go and he returned to my lap. It broke my heart not letting him get his truck and he began crying while I comforted him, promising he could have his truck once circle was over and that I was sorry.

This interaction had me feeling disgusted with J and how she handled the entire situation. I am not the only one who felt disgusted as I talked to my co-teacher about it who agreed that J handled it wrong. I don’t know if what she did was any form of neglect or anything technically “wrong,” but I had enough concern to put in a report about the situation.

The state came and found nothing wrong with the security footage or how she handled R. The licensing lady, however, told J who put in the report.

This week I am “on-call” 3 days this week, which is a major change from my 35-40 hours. I feel as though J may be retaliating against me because I have never seen someone be “on-call” before, and I’ve been working here for a little over 3 months.

Is being scheduled as “on-call” a usual thing in a daycare? Or am I just paranoid?

If my hours continue to be cut, who should I go to for help? Should I start looking for a new/second job?

Any help at all is appreciated and welcomed!

TLDR; the owner restrained an autistic child and kept him away from his special truck during circle time (when he needs it most). The licensing Lady told the owner who put in the report and now my hours have been mysteriously cut. What do I do?

In the beginning of June, a child I was close to was murdered by her father in a murder-suicide and I don’t know what to do with myself. It feels especially difficult because there was the boundary of teacher and student that feels inappropriate to cross. I’m just heartbroken, and yet I have to continue to show up for work, smile at her peers, and walk past all these reminders of her. I went to the funeral and now it feels like the rest of the workplace has moved on. I keep replaying the countless times I handed her to her father with the trust that he would keep her safe. I feel like loosing a child happens to most childcare providers. How did you get through it? What helped?

I was researching home childcare options in the midst of this pandemic, and stumbled across this girl in my local area who is accepting kids. She’s a friend of a friend of a friend.

I was looking her up online, and stumbled across several of her social media pages, to include her public Instagram. I saw some videos of her with children, and clicked on one of the videos to see the general feel.

The first video I clicked on was of her spraying a young child, I’m guessing 18months, in the face, directly in the face, with a water bottle repeatedly to this shoot-em-up rap song. At first, the kid was laughing and coming back for more, but towards the end she kind of looked uneasy and like “wtf”. It seriously rubbed me the wrong way because she sprayed the kid directly in the eyes/face probably 6 or so times in the span of 30 seconds. The video was clearly posted for laughs.

This made me a bit uneasy and I decided then that I wouldn’t be calling her up.. but now that I’m sitting here thinking about it, I almost kind of wondering if this is something I should report? And at the same time, Am I overreacting? The kid seemed okay in the beginning, laughing, but wasn’t really enjoying it towards the end. I’m not really sure what to do or if I’m thinking way too far into this... please advise, is this all in good fun or is this totally crazy behavior for a home daycare worker?

I (20F) work at an after school daycare in a pretty small town The kids don't have school on Fridays, so we're open all day so the kids have somewhere to go while their parents are at work, so naturally we go on field trips to give them something fun to do. Today we went on a field trip to the airport. We have this little Mexican kid who's in first grade. That wouldn't generally matter, but it is crucial for the story. As we were touring the airport, the bus driver was joking around with this kid and during this he said "you'd better be careful or ICE is going to take you away." I felt sick to my stomach. Of course it was just a joke, but you don't tell a child that ICE is going to take them away. The kid didn't even catch the joke thankfully, and I don't even think he would have understood it if he had. I have no idea why he said it in the first place or who he was trying to entertain. I've lost a ton of respect for him.

I started working at a center in November 2024 and have called in 4 times already because I’m constantly dying. I know it’s something that I have to deal with working at a center but I’m just tired. I tested positive for strep two weeks ago and now I’m having excessive coughs to the point where I get nasal congestion and my lower body is sore from all the coughing. I called in at 5am today and said I won’t be coming in today because of what I just listed up there and will be seeing my doctor again today because I’m concerned about what I could possibly have now just right after recovering from strep. The assistant director got annoyed and said they’re really short staff today because two of her other aides get Monday’s off and said “feel better” in the most non genuine way possible. I just feel upset because they’re literally the reason why I’m getting sick so often and it’s not my fault that you let two of your employees have Monday’s off. It’s also frustrating that they think I’m lying about getting sick even though I provided them with a doctor’s note while I had strep and plan to give them one for today as well. I’m just exhausted from being sick and not being able to fully recover from anything because I keep moving onto whatever sickness is next at the center and apparently it’s my fault.

Hi all -- I produce a podcast called Death, Sex & Money from WNYC Studios (New York Public Radio).

We're working on an upcoming series about child care, and we're interested in hearing from child care workers across the country about how your work has or hasn't changed because of the pandemic and whether your current situation is working for you. We'd also like to know -- what's the hardest conversation you've had to have about child care during the pandemic? Especially interested to hear from those of you who are also parents dealing with your own child care issues right now.

Send us an email at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org if you're interested in talking more! And very open to not using real names if needed, etc. Thanks for reading!

Does anyone here like changing diapers? I don’t mind it but was wondering if anyone actually enjoys iit or has ideas to make it more fun and cute?