Dealing with the question of "Why do you use daycare?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"It's what works best for our family. Can you pass the beans. They look delicious!"

+1. I usually use something like this or "We love our daycare and so do the kids. It's been a great experience for our family."
I avoid anything that might be considered judgmental about someone else's choices and try to divert the conversation away from it.

[Anonymous]

OP, here. My family supports our decision. This question has come from other A-type personalities at work or friends of friends. I'm the only mother in my office that uses daycare so my colleagues (even those without kids) wonder why I would leave my child in group care. It was the same with breastfeeding. I was asked by almost every recent mother in my office whether I was still breastfeeding. I'm not sure when asking questions about these topics started to be acceptable. I wish that it was possible to eliminate these people from my life but unfortunately it's not that easy. I even feel like I have to avoid some friends because every encounter ends up on these topics.

[Anonymous]

Professional/work settings are the easiest. You answer "Why do you ask?" And if they still don't get the idea that you don't want to talk about it, you say either "I'd prefer not to talk about my personal life/choices" or "That's a rather personal question, don't you think?" It's much easier to discourage talk about personal choices in a work setting than in a social or family setting. In non-work settings, you can tell them that you make the choice that works best for your family and don't feel the need or desire to discuss it because everyone's situation is different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH's mom was a nanny. She beat her charges. I always tell them that. Shuts them up fast.

Yes, nanny vs. baby, nanny wins every time because the baby cannot speak. Why would you put your dear child alone with anyone?

Answer is simple: in daycare, there are atleast 3 or more adults in infant room watching each other.

Umm, yeah. That really worked out great for the kids at Minnieland, didn't it. There are risks to EVERY TYPE of childcare.

Of course there are risks to every kind of childcare (including, actually, parents providing care--sadly), but DH is a prosecutor and has had way more bad situations arise out of home daycares and nannies/au pairs, and really none out of centers. With respect to home daycares, he says the lady doing daycare is usually very sweet and wouldn't harm a fly, but they get in trouble by exercising incredibly poor judgment when it comes to people they allow to visit and/or live in the home, and end up putting the children at risk.

[Anonymous]

My DH's mom was a nanny. She beat her charges. I always tell them that. Shuts them up fast.

I was a nanny for many years and I am horrified by this. How awful those poor little babies.

Poster from the top. It is horrifying. It's also the reason he doesn't speak to her now, nor would ever allow our child near her. While I know it's probably not common, he had way too much of a bad history with it to trust a single person with DD's care. His mother also did crazy shit like if the kids saw a picture they thought was scary, she would actually cut it out and put it in her pocket to scare them with!

Over the years she was a live-in nanny (before he was born) and always ran an in-home daycare when he was growing up.

[Anonymous]

I, too, would stick with "We considered many options and this is what works best for our family." For most people, that’s sufficient.

DH's brother had an au pair for his twin girls b/c with two it was less expensive than a center. So we got a lot of questions from DH's extended family as to why we didn't go that route. My response, was au pairs can only work 40 hrs a week and BIL and SIL had to adjust their schedules to accommodate that. DH and I wouldn't be able to do the same. Once they heard that, I never got that question again. For some people, it's best to give a real answer to end the questioning. With DH's family, if I only said that's what works best for us, they would keep badgering us.

For the other types – there’s a lot of variability in in-home care and we didn’t see one we liked. For a nanny, there’s a lot of vetting and trust needed. We just didn’t feel comfortable. We’re very happy with our center, the ladies there are really nice, and DS is happy when we drop off & pick-up. So we feel we made a good choice.

[Anonymous]

If this is coming up in a work setting, they may not even be asking from a quality of care standpoint, but rather from a logistics/convenience point of view. Many of my law firm colleagues can't imagine not using a nanny because they need the longer hours/no additional commute/no sick days. I've never heard anyone question my choice in terms of quality, only curiosity about how I can make it work. (Answer: spouse with friendlier job.)

[Anonymous]

We live in a neighborhood of mostly wealthy stay at home moms and unfortunately these comments came up often enough from birth through age 7 typically in a judgmental way as if my children wouldn't turn out well. Luckily by 2nd grade when my children were doing fine, the same people stopped asking about daycare, nanny, stay at home choices and focused on other conversation topics in a friendly way. I agree to just not be judgmental back.

[Anonymous]

We decided to put our DD's in daycare because neither my husband nor me could not imagine staying home with them. To be very honest one of us could have quit our job and we would have been just fine, but it is just not something that was important enough for us to make the sacrifice to our personal wellbeing. Our DD's are out of daycare now and we have an au pair who can pick up the extra slack when it comes to the children.

[Anonymous]

Just turn the question around on them and don't answer it. When they ask, just say "Hmm, what did you decide to do with your children?" Usually most people love talking about themselves so much you can avoid disclosing your own details by letting them blather on.

[Anonymous]

Reading this thread makes me really appreciate male privilege. None of my friends or coworkers would ever ask me that question.

[Anonymous]

I was always pretty honest about it. I'm a single mom and I just told people who asked that I couldn't afford a nanny on a single salary. Most of my friends/colleagues who asked could barely do it on double salaries so it wasn't a big deal. Even of it was to them, I could really care less. I do the best I can.

This seems like such an East Coast problem. I'm from the Midwest and it just seems like nannies aren't as big a thing there.

[Anonymous]

Who the heck asks questions like these? My child is now in K and was in daycare since birth. No one ever asked me anything about it. Some people did ask "what do you do for daycare" because they were trying to figure it out themselves.

[Anonymous]

"We've been really happy with our center. Are you thinking of moving your kids to one?" If they say no and talk about how great their situation, you say, "Yeah, we're happy too. It makes it so much easier to focus at work when you've got the childcare part working for you, doesn't it?"

If they trash daycares, tell them you don't care what they think about you as a parent, but your daycare providers do an excellent job and you aren't going to listen to someone insult them.

[Anonymous]

Whenever some one asks me about my childcare decision, I tell them how much I love our daycare provider and numerate all the things DD is learning there that I didn't even know she was ready for. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm a good mom, but I'm doing this for the first time and sometimes I don't know my child is ready to try something (like counting past 10, or singing the ABCs by herself) until she comes home already doing it after learning it at daycare. Our provider has a lot more experience than I do and I think the love & attention my daughter gets at home and daycare are very complimentary and serving her developmental needs well.