Leaving your child with another person for hours day, every day, is one of the most heart-wrenching thing a parent will do. We all have to work, to make a living, and we need to be able to count on other people to love and care for our babies the same way that we would.
Or at least, care for them well enough that they don’t give us literal nightmares – like these 13 parents surely had after these horrors of experiences.
13. Must be nice (for the parents).
How about the opposite? Former daycare employee, with a nightmare parent story. We were open 6:30am – 6:30pm, people either dropped off early and picked up early, or late/late. We rarely had anyone leave their kid 12 hours, at least not unless there was some family emergency.
One kid though… The parents would be in the parking lot when we got there in the morning. She didn’t work, so he’d drive her and the kid in, then go home and drop her off and go to work. When he got home they’d have some alone time, then he’d drive her over to pick the kid up.
It cost something like $1 a minute past 6:30pm if you were late, and nearly every day we’d be there till 6:45 or so waiting for that family. First kid in, last kid out. I still have no idea what the mother did all day.
Last I heard they were trying for another baby. And why not? We were raising the first one for them!
12. That doesn’t make you feel good.
My brothers were made to sit outside while the daycare woman fed her biological children
11. Maybe don’t have kids.
On that topic – the parents (who are almost always unemployed!) who find out there’s a public holiday coming up and are pissed that we’re closed that day.
Apparently they still need a “break” from the kids – despite having one 5 days a week.
10. How could she not see red?
Called me to pick up my kid who had a fever.
When I arrived, they had her laying on a blanket outside.
It was 90 degrees out.
She ended up having a febrile seizure a few hours later.
9. They didn’t believe her mom either what.
I was the kid, not the parent. I was in my first year of preschool and the teacher was insisting that I was spelling my name wrong. The school decided that I needed to be kept in during recess to try to “learn to spell it correctly”.
Heres the problem, I was spelling it correctly and my mom had to go in with my birth certificate to prove that I was right.
8. His poor little mind.
My girlfriends cousin owns a daycare and told us of a little boy, no more than 5-6 years old. He really liked this one girl in the daycare and went out of his way to be around her. He hadn’t done anything inappropriate but they had a bad feeling about it so they kept a close eye on the two.
Then one day during nap time, he got up and went over to her while she was sleeping, laid on top of her and began thrusting. They ran and pulled him off immediately and contacted authorities (CPS, police, etc.). I’m not sure what happened after but I hope he’s no longer in whatever toxic environment he learned that from.
7. Why? Why? …My brain has nothing else.
When my brother and I were in elementary school, (1st and 2nd grade I think?) my mom decided to inquire at a daycare for after school care. She took us in, asked for rates, told them our first names, and left it at that. She decided she didn’t like the daycare and that was that.
Sometime a few months later my brother and I were getting onto our school bus to go home when someone came and called us off of the bus and told us we were going to daycare. Perhaps we were dumb kids, perhaps we just trusted the adult coaxing us off of our bus because grown ups. We got on a bus and went to daycare.
Turns out that they just somehow decided that we were going to be enrolled so they came and got us. No paperwork, no contact information, nothing. They had nothing to link us back to our parents. As far as everyone knew we were just missing, gone from the face of the Earth. My mom and dad and the police were looking for us for around 3 hours. Meanwhile my brother and I were just hanging out at this random daycare.
They finally managed to get it out of someone who had seen us get off of our school bus that we’d gone to daycare. ‘Okay, WHAT daycare? They don’t go to daycare.’ I remember that I was playing outside, and all the other kids had gone home. It was just me and my brother. My mom came running out with tears streaking her face and I didn’t know why she was crying.
6. Why would you go into that line of work?
I toured a few daycares before we finally chose one. At one place, which was attached to a hospital, I was taken to the infant room and the three year olds room, but just stood at the windows and didn’t go inside at first. So we arrive at the infant room and there are about 6 babies under 6 mos and two big ladies, probably in their 50s or 60s. One of the ladies scooped up a young, crying baby and handled the child very aggressively. It was harsh enough that I told the woman giving me the tour that the baby probably didn’t have enough neck control to be handled that way. She didn’t respond. Duly noted.
Meanwhile, in the room, the other woman caught sight of us at the window and gave the “we’ve got company” eye to her colleague, who promptly started rocking the same baby and speaking gently to her. Complete 180.
Anyway, fast forward to this year, I’m at work and a friend starts telling me about this horrible daycare where his daughter got “Nanny Arm.” Apparently nanny arm is caused by being harshly yanked by the arm. The poor girl couldn’t move her arm. Of course it was at the very same daycare. Just awful that people can choose that career and be so rotten to kids.
5. This is just hilarious.
My childhood summer day camp that I attended with my older sister gave out beads at the end of each week to recognize if you’d for example cleaned your lunch every day that week, behaved during nap time etc. Additionally each counselor gave one kid who’d impressed them a special bead. So you’d get the Josh Bead or the Will Bead at the end of the week. One week I’d been close to the counselor Ms. Chastity.
Cue my mom coming to pick us up and is greeted by a throng of children shouting “Contra got the chastity bead! Contra got the chastity bead!”
Which of course prompted my mom to ask what the other campers had been doing. Especially my sister.
4. That certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.
Got a call to come pick up my kids at a neighbor house. There was a crib death at my daycare providers home.
3. It just breaks your heart.
Had our youngest in daycare so he could socialize with kids his age and to help with his speech issues. He was 2 at the time and still had a binky. He also had a stuffed monkey that he’d had since the day he was born and carried everywhere. The daycare director decided he didn’t need either one anymore and took them.
Rather than letting us know what she did, she let him scream and cry until my wife picked him up that afternoon. While we were planning on weaning him off the binky, it was our choice to make and not hers. I’m usually a pretty calm person, but I wasn’t when I went and withdrew him that day. It’s nowhere near as bad as some of the other experiences on here, but the fact she let our son scream all day rather than notify us was messed up.
2. What a complete psycho.
When I was about 4 years old, my mom left me with a woman who ran a small daycare in her home. It was only about 4 other kids or so including my older brother.
We had been going to this daycare for a year or two at this point so we knew this woman pretty well and had even had her over for dinner a couple of times.
One day my mom picked my brother and I up from daycare and my hands were covered in blood. I’ve always had a pretty high pain tolerance so when my mom asked what happened I couldn’t really say. The only thing I knew was that the babysitters dog had bit me.
This is where it gets twisted. My mom washed me off to see if my cuts were deep enough to need stitches and decided to take me to the doctor to be safe. So here we are, sitting in urgent care, when the doctor asks my mom to come with him to the hall. When they left, a nurse came in and asked me if my mom or dad has ever hurt me. I was so confused and cried for my mom. Apparently the doctor had to report it. It turns out that these weren’t dog bites, they were human!!
My mom immediately called my dad who went straight to this woman’s house. My mom and I raced over there and called the cops. The woman was arrested for child abuse and they finally got the whole story from her.
She told them that I was being bad and had taken the remote from her daughter. So she decided to punish me. For some reason biting me six different times on my hands and fingers was an acceptable punishment for a four year old for taking a remote! I still have the scars and it’s a hilarious story to tell when people see them.
1. Really makes you lose your faith in people.
My daughter (3yo) took a toy from a boy (also 3). She was sat in a circle of all the kids and the provider told all the other children that she was a bully and a bad friend. She then took my daughters juice cup and forced her best friend to drink it (her friend didn’t want to) to teach her what it was like for somebody to take something of hers.
Same provider barely fed our 10-month old. We had to prepare special formula for her to eat and she’d claim our daughter wouldn’t accept it. The little one would guzzle a whole bottle in minutes when I picked her up.
An anonymous (read: assistant at daycare) warned us that not only was our daughter not being fed, but she was taking the prepared formula out of the refrigerator after drop off because it took up too much space.
Why did we leave our daughters there? We didn’t. This all happened at the same time. The day I got the call from the assistant I had a very pointed talk with the provider. I’m not a pleasant person where my daughters health and welfare are concerned. We did not go back.
I reported her to the state program that provided her with assistance by delivering food and milk, and filed a complaint with the state for the “circle of shame”.
The food program performed a surprise inspection on Monday (we made the complaint on Friday), and found several violations. The assistant let me know that it was a very ugly scene.
The complaint to the state took longer, but finished well. Our complaint was upheld based on the circle, and also the forced sharing of the drink. They also cited her for sharing private information. Apparently she sent some details to other parents that she should not have.
For several months our daughter would randomly say “I’m a bully and not a good friend”, even to random people.
The saddest part, in my opinion, was that our daughter wanted to go back and visit her friends at the daycare.
The provider didn’t get her license pulled, but was upset that the upheld complaint would show for her license if a prospective parent did a search. So she went through the work to change the name of her daycare, only to realize that the complaint was tied to her license, and she couldn’t hide it by changing the name.
I cannot even imagine – I don’t know how I could handle it!
Has anything like this ever happened to you? Tell us the story in the comments!