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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So there is a big difference, op, and I’m not sure why you would want to keep misnaming it.  Pre school isn’t really set up covering childcare during working hours at all.  Pre school (half days) generally starts out at 2 days a week for 2 year olds, 3 days a week for 3 yo, etc and is focused on early socialization and skills.  If you use pre school you still need child care for most of the day.  It generally requires potty trained kids and doesn’t stat before 3.  It’s more like supplemental places like my gym, music classes, mothers morning out, or coop pre schools.

Daycare is group childcare that is obviously structured around dual working parent hours.  I have done both.  There’s some evidence that the less hours/younger age for group care is healthier for kids in the long but obviously is a big financial sacrifice for any family to sah or get a nanny for the bulk of care through those years and what’s best for each family is different.  But I think it’s confusing to say you are using pre school when you are doing daycare, because it does imply you are either not working or have a nanny/family caring for your child most of the time.  So yes I would clarify that with you if we met on the playground and started talking about childcare.  [/quote]

I’m a working mom and have also used a daycare center and a preschool. The preschool was still full day, but you had to pay extra for hours from 4-6 pm and there was an official admission timeline with start date to run with a school calendar vs rolling admission/waitlist. It was then optional to enroll in the summer program. So I do think the preschool was a bit more geared to parents who are part time/SAH/flex hours. But I knew plenty of full time dual income families like ours there who sent kids there.

So honestly, I don’t think it was a huge difference since I could get my full workday covered at both daycare and preschool. We only switched because we moved, otherwise we would have stayed at our daycare center which had a pre-K program with full curriculum. Also our daycare had optional add on programs you could pay for like dance, soccer, etc. So overall I found the differences pretty minor.

The only people who get worked up over this are the ones who think they’re too good for daycare and want to somehow distinguish their childcare. (FWIW, I’ve also had a nanny and cut hours to part time for a while, so I’ve basically done it all at this point and I think some people get their identities way to wrapped up in this type of thing).[/quote]

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