The woman left the children alone to go pick up her son from school. Can't he take a bus? Or her older daughter get him?

Lack of money, lack of choice, no financial ability for one parent to quit their job and stay home.

Anonymous wrote:That’s a tragic death and an irresponsible daycare.

But I see a lot of people here clutching their pearls about unlicensed home daycare‘s when they themselves use nanny shares. A nanny share is the same thing and in Maryland they are illegal.

They're not illegal, I think they just require a license. It's confusing.

So I don't know what this daycare looks like inside or how the parents made the decision to send their kid there. How awful for them. I don't even want to imagine the pain they are going through.

Finding childcare is so, so hard. I didn't like any of the places I looked at, even the ones where I knew families who currently had kids there and liked them. Everything I looked at, I had to try and talk myself into it. The "good" daycares with onsite outdoor space, with the great staff and the clean, child-appropriate spaces, were all out of our budget or had waiting lists a mile long. The one daycare that we were able to get a spot in was an in-home daycare that had just felt like red flag after red flag when I toured it. From the moment I got there -- I arrived on time and it took them 10 minutes to open the door and when they did, the owner told me I was early (I wasn't). I came home and cried thinking about how I'd feel leaving my infant DD there every day.

I wound up quitting my job and staying home for a while. I know I'm privileged to have been able to do that. I had a friend who used that home daycare happily for two years, no issues. But it's also easy for me to imagine something going wrong there and feeling like you had no good choices. I wanted my kid with a nanny or nanny share (out of budget, no space anyway) or in a center with plenty of staffing and really good communication. These options were not presented to me.

People have to make terrible choices sometimes.

Our daycare was 2k a month and it wasn't even close to the most expensive. We were doing ok and it was still painful. People without high paying jobs can't afford decent centers.

Anonymous wrote:This was an UNLICENSED home daycare and any parent could tell that it was over reasonable numbers. There is a big difference between licensed and unlicensed daycares.

People choose unlicensed home daycares typically because the unlicensed ones are cheaper (they usually are cash pay, too, since providers skirt taxes) and they also can "create" room for another kid by just raising the ratio. The licensed/above board ones are typically more expensive and often don't have room because once they hit the maximum number of points/ratio you go to a wait list.

Yup I'd say it's a combination of these two things. Finding affordable, quality care for an infant is especially hard.

Heck I even recall a recommendation on this board to go with an unlicensed daycare to avoid mask requirements!

That’s a tragic death and an irresponsible daycare.

But I see a lot of people here clutching their pearls about unlicensed home daycare‘s when they themselves use nanny shares. A nanny share is the same thing and in Maryland they are illegal.

This was an UNLICENSED home daycare and any parent could tell that it was over reasonable numbers. There is a big difference between licensed and unlicensed daycares.

People choose unlicensed home daycares typically because the unlicensed ones are cheaper (they usually are cash pay, too, since providers skirt taxes) and they also can "create" room for another kid by just raising the ratio. The licensed/above board ones are typically more expensive and often don't have room because once they hit the maximum number of points/ratio you go to a wait list.

Was this in Missouri?

An infant died in an illegal daycare in Prince William county about a decade ago. Charges were dropped against the two workers. The two owners (married couple) plead guilty and were sentenced to prison, but the sentence suspended---so basically nothing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/barra-and-chavez-pacheco-husband-wife-owners-of-unlicensed-daycare-in-pr-william-enter-pleas/2012/10/23/07c0b52e-1c86-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_blog.html

OP - you are trying to rationalize why this won’t happen to you.

This is how kids were cared for FOR YEARS. Without government intervention.

FYI - kids are killed at licensed centers, too.

OP, no one signs up for child abuse.

Not sure what you mean when you say a daycare center “like this”? I’m pretty sure she wasn’t telling parents that their babies weee being left alone everyday. If you mean unlicensed - daycare is expensive. It’s not very hard to imagine a working mother of modest means selecting a cheaper, unlicensed center with a provider who has been doing it for 18 years. Nothing in the article suggests there were any obvious signs of child neglect. For all we know, this in-home center appeared to be a great place on the surface.

Some people really love the idea of a cozy in home daycare with better ratios than big centers. And she had nearly two decades of experience running a daycare. She could have cultivated a lot of goodwill and a good reputation. I could see why people would trust her, especially if she had good reviews from people who were fooled into thinking she took great care of their kids.

I don’t think even the most desperate would leave their kids there if they knew how bad it was (leaving babies by themselves every single day). But maybe I’m naive.

Inflation. People can’t afford gas they certainly can’t afford daycare

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/2022/03/09/eight-month-old-infant-likely-died-asphyxiation-court-documents-reveal/9438694002/

Was the provider super polished and fooled them? Or they had poor observation or terrible judgment? Or they knew it was a bad situation but felt they had no other choice?