update: I gave notice to our daycare provider and she freaked out

by Alison Green on December 30, 2024

It’s the final week of “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, with updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

Remember the letter-writer who gave notice to their daycare provider and she freaked out? Here’s the update.

I wrote in about two and a half years ago about an issue we were having with our daughter’s daycare provider as we were moving on to a new daycare. You and your readers offered such kind and helpful advice. Here’s an update that includes a few interesting coincidences and plot twists.

We ended up getting to keep our child in Amy’s daycare for the full six weeks that followed our notice, just like Amy’s contract specified. Amy was still pretty cold with me, but she started to communicate with me again whenever there was a need related to my daughter. A few commenters were shocked that I wanted to continue sending my daughter to her after the unhinged text message, but I didn’t have much of a choice. My spouse and I had burned through our vacation time already while trying to cover all of Amy’s time off. I wasn’t really worried about Amy’s ability to continue caring for my daughter well. She’s a really nice person and she cared so deeply for the kids she was entrusted with, I still felt like I could trust her to do her job well. She did nickel and dime us a bit when I wrote her our last check. She counted back the number of days since we gave notice and claimed that because we told her we were ending care after 5 pm that that day didn’t count toward the six weeks notice in her contract. I didn’t argue with her and paid her for an extra day of care we didn’t receive. Oh well.

Here’s where things get a little more interesting. A couple of months later, we found out that the reason we were able to ride out the last six weeks of care was because the other family who was going to take our daughter’s spot backed out. It turns out that that child’s grandmother is a teacher at my daughter’s new daycare center, and she’s been teaching there for 20 years! The other family was just waiting for a spot to open at the center, and when one did they didn’t need Amy anymore. I guess things worked out for them too. In the end, it was actually pretty lucky that we left Amy’s daycare. She retired about a year later, and she gave her remaining families very little notice, so they scrambled to find new care. One parent who I see occasionally at my daughter’s dance class told me she had to split her three kids up at three different daycares in our town. The daycare shortage is awful in our area.

Ultimately, I didn’t end up writing a Google review or reaching out to any other parents at the time. Over the past couple of years, I have been in conversations with other parents where this story has come up and I’ve shared some details, but it’s never been my intention to bash Amy. I’m now very glad that I didn’t start a PR rampage because Amy is in our lives again; she organizes the Sunday school program our daughter is in at our church so we have to talk to her occasionally. She’s really nice to us, and we’ve been able to move past our past issues.

We’ve also added another daughter to our family in the last few months. Luckily, she was able to get a spot at the daycare center we’ve come to love over the last few years. Thanks again for the advice!

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  1. Falling Diphthong*

    I really appreciate this update.

    As a parent: It’s really normal to be irritated at a parent and able to interact softly with their toddler. It’s not 100% of adults; it’s a thing to be alert to when someone starts bending social or professional norms with adults; I am not at all surprised that from your toddler’s perspective, daycare continued to be like it always had for the six weeks.

    I also really appreciate the point about how the circles of community can bring us back around–sometimes in the sense “Man, I should have burned that bridge” and sometimes in the sense “Whew, glad I just quietly slid away from that bridge.”

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  2. Not on board*

    40 work days = 8 weeks! I commend the daycare provider for taking the time off she needed but when you run a business serving working parents – 8 weeks is a lot! Most people wouldn’t put their child in a daycare where they had to find 8 weeks of coverage. And what happens if Amy were to be sick? Is that in addition to the 8 weeks?

    I’m glad it worked out in the end and you were able to maintain a good relationship with her.

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    1. SarahKay*

      Yes, 8 weeks was the bit that struck me too. I’m glad it all worked out in the end, and that both daughters are now happy in the new daycare.

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      1. AnotherOne*

        I remember when this was initially posted and thinking this daycare was closed during the year as much as my nieces’ preschool was- and a full day there was only until 3pm.

        Sure, they offered aftercare but it was clearly not for a household with 2 full-time working parents unless you had either very flexible job or additional childcare.

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        1. Falling Diphthong*

          And there is very definitely a niche for offering daycare 8:30-3:00 three days/week, with school breaks off. I even recommend to parents who could do this that they consider concentrating on this type of center rather than 3 days/week at a full-time center, because then their child will make friends with kids on a similar schedule.

          But it can’t charge the rates of the full-time 14 hrs/day 5 days a week places.

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    2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      8 weeks is a lot. I notice the OP had no vacation time because they had to cover the daycare closures. Which means they never got a real break away probably.

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    3. municipal*

      Well, yes. Eight weeks is a lot of hours to have to find coverage. But also, if you are working 10 hour days as the sole proprietor of a home day care, you need every minute of those eight weeks just to keep your business afloat, (probably can’t do much bookkeeping, continuing education, or code compliance work with the kiddos underfoot) Not to mention the other personal necessities like haircuts and other personal care appointments, calls to customer service lines, basic errands, etc.

      This is why the day care system we have just doesn’t work.

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      1. Starbuck*

        Yeah, 8 weeks off when you’re 25 years into your career seems reasonable as PTO. Especially for in-home care. It is a shame that the LW had no family to help as alternate childcare; another example of how hard it is for a 2-working parent household with no village.

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        1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          the original letter said they were making it work with family help – for the original 8 weeks off. With the new schedule it wasn’t going to work at all.

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        2. Ann O’Nemity*

          Even if you have family nearby you can’t expect them to help. Just google “grandparents don’t want to babysit.”

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          1. Falling Diphthong*

            One of my pet peeves is the assumption that when you have a new baby, you are issued a set of relatives who are retired, live close by, and are fit in every meaning of that word but haven’t filled up those hours with anything but being on call for your childcare needs.

            This does not actually happen for most people, let alone virtually everyone.

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            1. Rainy*

              Yeah–I think there are a lot of people around who basically never leave the town they grew up in and assume everyone else did the same thing, so there’s somehow always family around to pick up the slack.

              See also the thread this weekend about weddings, where like clockwork people show up to complain about family members having “destination weddings” when what they actually mean is “my sister lives 1800 miles away from me and has done for her entire adult life”. That’s not a destination wedding! That’s just a wedding that happens to be held where someone else lives!

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              1. doreen*

                Even if they never leave the town they grew up in, there still may not be anyone to pick up the slack. When my daughter was born, my parents were still working, my grandfather had never taken care of a child in his life , my mother- in-law wasn’t capable of caring for an infant and didn’t live all that close and my three siblings were working . My aunt actually provided child care for a while but if she needed time off, it was me or my husband. No one else available , not even with all that family living within 15 minutes. Maybe someone else would have taken a vacation day or two to help out if we had used all our vacation time but all of them combined wouldn’t have used two or three weeks of their vacation time helping me with childcare if my aunt had wanted eight weeks a year off.

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                1. Rainy*

                  Yeah, my MIL made some noise last year when both my BILs’ wives were pregnant about how her ideal situation would be rotating between their houses “to help out with the babies.” My FIL can’t be trusted at all with anything ever, and my MIL can’t lift 14 lbs AND refuses to follow other people’s rules about their kids (which includes stuff like crib and carseat safety, food guidelines, etc), so “help” from her would actually wind up in child endangerment pretty quickly.

            2. Meaningful hats*

              My husband and I live in the same area as all our family members, but that doesn’t mean we automatically have an abundance of childcare. My mother works a demanding job with long hours. My in-laws are retired but travel often and have a busy social calendar (“pillars of the community” sort of people). My grandparents are far too old to care for young children. Our siblings and cousins also work full time jobs, some of them also balancing work with children of their own.

              We’ve paid for all our childcare since our children were born.

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            3. Vincent t Adultman*

              And for the people who are VERY lucky to be in that situation…I’m not sure anyone is really thinking through ALL the domino effects of that arrangement. Or that in some of those situations, the grandparents wind up putting in 14 hour days, unpaid—a totally insane thing back when they themselves were working. Or that this arrangement is only feasible as long as their health does not change—which is largely impossible when you are dealing with an over 60 or over 70 population. Or that it inevitably leads to parents (upper middle class and higher) who are like “wellllll Chad and I managed to raise three kids all 2 years apart while each working 70 hours a week, and have them in 2 different sports plus 4 other extracurricular activities from preschool through 12th grade, all without going insane, in our 6 bedroom house. And we completed a home renovation project 2 years ago that added another 2000 square feet! I don’t know why the rest of you all are out here complaining about how tired and broke you are!!!” And they’ve conveniently forgotten that the main reason they could do all of that is because Chad’s mother or MIL (and sometimes Chad’s father or FIL) was a retiree who moved in with them when the first baby was 1 week old and did 99 percent of the childcare, housework, cooking, cleaning, etc until the youngest child eventually left for college.

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            1. Despachito*

              I think it is not fair to rely on family to provide regular care, unless previously agreed to. There are grandparents who can’t wait to have grandkids and participate in the care of them but not everybody is like that.

              Even if the entire family lives in the area, they have their own lives, and, barring emergencies, absolutely should not be relied on for childcare.

              It grates me the wrong way when people gauge up every member of the family living nearby for their availability/willingness to take care of the children my husband and I decided to have. It is the primary responsibility of the PARENTS, it is their decision and their issue to handle.

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        3. Antilles*

          Not when you own a small business, particularly in an industry like day care, where your clients need you to be open nearly every Monday through Friday. The blunt reality is that if you want to be a small business owner (and especially if you’re a sole proprietor with no employees), 8 weeks of PTO likely isn’t viable; the fact Amy is 25 years into her career doesn’t change the needs of her client base.
          Also, when it comes to stuff like “book-keeping” or other behind-the-scenes requirements to keep your business afloat that municipal mentions, the typical answer is that you do that “off the clock” when the shop is closed. Book-keeping is done at night, continuing education is handled on weekends, etc.

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          1. municipal*

            When I put my daughter in day care, one of the first things I noticed was that the going rate for a home day care was about $100 per week less than a corporate center. One of the most significant differences between the two was who is responsible for arranging alternate care when the caregiver needs time off for any reason.

            The fact that Amy was able to operate her day care with eight weeks off as long as she did, and that this family used her for as long as they did despite having to scramble so often, is evidence that her clients needed an affordable option more than they needed a reliable one.

            There is a tipping point on both sides. After a certain point, families just can no longer withstand any more gaps in service, no matter the savings. And after a certain point, providers need the time and flexibility to take care of their non-professional obligations more than the need another $12 per hour. When those two tipping points converge, nobody wins.

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          2. Starbuck*

            Well it seems 8 weeks of PTO was viable, as that’s how the business was running before LW had plans to leave and it seems was able to find clients fine until they tried to go for more than that.

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        4. doreen*

          There’s nothing wrong with a person wanting 8 weeks a year of time off – but if you are going to operate a business that can’t stay open if you aren’t working you have to understand that you might lose customers over it. And I suspect hiring staff won’t make a difference in a home day care – there are some businesses where if the owner isn’t working , nobody is working and I think home daycare is probably one of them.

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        5. Falling Diphthong*

          It would be reasonable if she had assistant teachers who covered on those days.

          It’s like your job being driving a shuttle between the train station and the big employer in the area–you can’t take off a roving 1 day/week when all your regular customers have to come up with other solutions. Or they will swap to those other solutions.

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      2. MK*

        Eh, I think that means that “sole proprietor of a home day care” is a borderline unworkable business plan in the long run. Most similar businesses I know are usually a partnership between two people, so that they can get time off, or have a part-time employee or even a dependable contractor to cover when the owner has time off. The very few who actually work alone are young professionals willing to temporarily put long hours building their business, but fully expect to hire someone to cover their time off sooner rather than later. But most often it’s two people from the start.

        I wonder if Amy taking 8 weeks off has always been the standard in her business, or a more recent development. Maybe she used to take much less time off, but over the years realized she was burning out and expanded the periods her daycare was closed.

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        1. Despachito*

          It also seems Amy was in a desperate need of money. Ten hours of her regular work is already a lot, and take another four is just untenable in the long run.

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      3. Kella*

        While this may be true in general, in Amy’s case, her decrease in daycare hours was to accommodate an overall *increase* in work hours. She was going from five 10-hour days to four 14-hour days, which is 6 hours more per week.

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      4. But what to call me?*

        I strongly agree that the daycare system we have doesn’t work, but my mom sure never took 8 weeks per year off of work from her in-home daycare, and that was with two young children of her own. She made it work because that was the only way to do the job. Not a single one of the working class parents whose kids attended the daycare could have found 8 weeks a year of alternative childcare or had that much flexibility in their jobs. That’s just not a reasonable thing to expect most parents to be able to do. If you can’t make it work without 8 weeks off then running an in-home daycare by yourself probably isn’t for you (it certainly isn’t for me).

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    4. Magpie*

      When my kids were in daycare, their provider was closed for three weeks a year and that seemed borderline unmanageable. I can’t imagine how anyone could make eight weeks work.

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    5. bamcheeks*

      In England there is “free childcare” for children over the age of three, and every single working parent I know (and quite a few of the non-working ones) has been desperately looking forward to it— and then you realise it’s on the same schedule as school, ie. 30 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year. And there are no after-school or holiday activities that will take children younger than school age. Thanks! That’s helpful!

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      1. Tea Monk*

        kinda reminds me of the PreK we have in TN. Teachers teach your 4? year old in the schools. It’s not amazing, but it’s something. ( in TN Im amazed we get anything)

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        1. Arrietty*

          There’s been a massive shift in the UK since I was a child, and now even though the legal requirement is for children to start school when they are 5, almost all go from 4, some only barely 4, because of the cost of childcare.

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      2. Adam*

        Yeah, though at least in my council you can apply those hours towards private daycare as well. So we had 50-hour-a-week daycare but only paid for 35 hours (we make too much to qualify for the full 30 hours).

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      3. Arrietty*

        And it’s not actually free! I get the 30 hours and have spread them across 51 weeks, so it’s two days a week, and I pay almost £20 a day. It’s slightly subsidised, at best.

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        1. bamcheeks*

          Yeah, just checked the last nursery fees we paid 4 years ago, and it brought it down from just over £1000 a month for four days a week, to just under £700. So — yay? Am glad we just have afterschool club now!

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    6. boof*

      I thought it was pretty wild that those were /paid/ days off – I’ve never seen that with a daycare provider; those are almost always fee-for service (and counting out the extra day after their notice!!!!).
      I get being desperate for high quality childcare and to each their own, but the guilt trip on top of that was something else – I guess bemoaning that their kids aren’t all being supported by full time stay at home parents who don’t mind tons of unavailable days??? Were those the good old days prior to this generation??
      I only get 22 paid days off at work too!

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    7. LBD*

      Or to put it another way, that is 40 4-day-weeks a year. If evenly distributed, it is 4 months of 4 weeks with only 4 days, and 8 months with 3 weeks of only 4 days. If one parent had to cover all of them, they would only be able to work a full 5 day week 12 weeks per year.

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    1. Kristin*

      My thought exactly. I’m glad everything ended “well” at daycare, but I would keep Amy at arm’s length at church, because her unhinged rant was not her first, nor will it be her last, IMHO.

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    2. SeeYouAtMass*

      Amy doesn’t sound unhinged, she sounds like someone who didn’t handle a particular situation well, and now everyone involved has moved on. There’s no need to stereotype churches or churchgoing people.

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      1. Not on board*

        I agree, particularly since the OP is also a churchgoing person. However, I will say there are certain idiosycrasies common among devout churchgoers.

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        1. Falling Diphthong*

          I think the idiosyncrasies are part of a broader “We’re here because we all believe in the great importance of the mission” issue–that’s a great place for someone who is woobly as a worker but really believes in the mission.

          Churches, charities, and lots of overlap with libraries from what I’ve seen here. Like the way we do book requests drags the whole system to a near halt, but Jane The Volunteer really likes that job and can only do it Saturday mornings and we can’t just change her beloved job out from under her, we’re a community who believes in shared values and she’s part of that.

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          1. MK*

            I don’t think Amy’s issue was “believes in the mission, but wobbly worker”, as OP states she was a great child minder as well as loving the kids. More like, someone who can’t handle the demands of the job or keep the business afloat, but can manage perfectly well a less demanding project.

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          2. Not on board*

            I was meaning idiosyncrasies as a polite euphemism… and I’m speaking from a number of personal interactions.

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      3. boof*

        Maybe unhinged is strong but… it was pretty major unprofessional behavior / guilt trip, and amy never did apologize or walk back on it, it ended up being on the OP to make nice and smooth it over.

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    4. MK*

      Calling someone unhinged over one specific interaction (that was the exception even in OP’s dealings with Amy) is uncalled for, in my opinion. Given Amy’s longtime experience in daycare, which suggests she must have been on the older side, her taking more time off than is usual in this field, her attempt to diversify her income with a part-time job as an instructor, and finally her retiring soon afterwards, my guess would be that she is someone dealing with burnout after decades caring for children, possibly no longer able to meet the demands of the job, trying desperately to make it work and having one outburst at a parent, plus a couple of unprofessional moments.

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      1. boof*

        I’d say it was more than one interaction, it was two letters + 6 weeks of being icy and slowly thawing, and no apology or acknowledgement ever.

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        1. MK*

          Even so, this was someone who provided excellent service to OP for years and mishandled the last couple of months of their association, with no more information of other bad behaviour.

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          1. mel*

            The years of excellent service frames the recent bad behavior, though. If it was an interview for a new childcare provider, sure, expect anything. You don’t know them. But OP knows (or at least, thought they knew) Amy, for years. The expectations for Amy were excellent service, which she herself established through her good work. So when Amy started running really hot, then really cold, sending hostile/desperate/guilt-trippy texts, it’s like, how did we get here, Amy??!!?

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            1. MK*

              I think your argument actually works in the opposite way than how you are thinking? A new childcare provider being unprofessional = probably a bad provider; an excellent provider who turned bad for the last couple of months of the relationship = possibly something was going on.

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              1. mel*

                “Excellent provider turns bad=something else going on” is something I personally will only excuse if that “something else” is actually the LW themself/LW’s family unit. Yes, sometimes people have a rough go of it, but that doesn’t excuse dumping it on unrelated, uninvolved people.

                So far as I, LW, Alison, and even Amy can tell, the LW did not do anything to wrong Amy, either in business life or personal life. If Amy is dealing with something awful behind the scenes, what’s that got to do with LW? Passing on the awful to LW is then explainable, but it’s not excusable, at least imo.

                Also I think you misinterpreted my intent for using the “new provider” example. I was just trying to explain why the LW would lose footing so bad in this situation. An unprofessional, new childcare provider, you can just write off as terrible, and resolve to never do business with. LW has (or had) a strong, positive business relationship with Amy prior to the 6 weeks notice. Trouble hits different when it’s someone you like and trust.

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          2. boof*

            It sounds like they are really dedicated to the kids. I’m not quite sure I trust how professionally they’d navigate any challenges, tho, since the only info we have is they handled this fairly seemingly routine professional challenge rather badly.

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      2. Blue Spoon*

        Okay, but if you look at the content of the freakout, it establishes that:

        1) She considers people needing to do what works best for them as an affront to her
        2) She holds some degree of generational prejudice (and likely sexism, given that she was cold to the LW but behaved normally towards her husband)
        3) She considers her relationship with another person’s child to be more important than that child’s parents’ commitments

        All I’m saying is that kind of person ending up in church leadership isn’t surprising.

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        1. Blue Spoon*

          Oh, also that someone who’s perfectly fine and reasonable until you disagree with them is not, in fact, fine and reasonable.

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  5. Observer*

    Well, this is not what I was expecting. On the other hand, it’s not surprising at all.

    I’m so glad it worked out for you.

    And congratulations on the new addition! I’m so glad you were able to get her into the daycare your older one was in.

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  6. Pastor Petty Labelle*

    Sounds like Amy burned out on daycare. 14 hours days is not sustainable long term.

    Daycare is a mess in the US. There isn’t enough because despite the exhorbitant cost, the actual workers get paid very little. So they move on to better paying jobs or burn out trying to provide quality care on a very small budget.

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    1. Despachito*

      Just out of curiosity – how does that work if someone like Amy decides to provide childcare on her own (rather than be a poorly paid worker under an organization charging exorbitant prices)? Shouldn’t she be able to gain decent money (more than she would under that organization) while still charging much less than that organization?

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  7. Bast*

    I’m honestly surprised that Amy did not anticipate this. Her original arrangement/hours were already wildly inconvenient for many working families, but this family made it work. She then altered the arrangement further, making it go from difficult to impossible by adding additional closures. If my child’s daycare suddenly announced that they would be closed on Mondays, closing two hours earlier every day, or otherwise changing their schedule, I’d look at switching. I think it would be reasonable to assume this wouldn’t work for many families and they would seek care elsewhere. Families made their choice, at least in part, likely due to Amy’s schedule at least somewhat syncing up with theirs. Any changes and the arrangement no longer works.

    I also find it ridiculous how Amy expected extravagant leave notice when she is the one who altered the schedule, and then had the audacity to not practice what she preached and gave everyone else such a short notice when she did end up shutting her doors. Sounds like LW did well by terminating care when she did, despite it being a nightmare at the time.

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    1. Czhorat*

      Yeah. If there were an option, her clients would have been justified in pulling out the day after the change.

      It’s a tough business, but it’s also incredibly hard on parents; when my kids were little day care was pretty much our second largest expense after housing. I’m sure Amy had expenses and maybe needed the extra income herself, but at some point what you’re offering isn’t quite enough.

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      1. Susan*

        When my kids were little, day care for two of them was more than the cost of housing – taxes included in the high tax state of New York. I am not sure what the answer is because the current situation isn’t working for parents or providers.

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      2. Meaningful hats*

        Right now, our childcare expenses exceed our mortgage! We have one in full time preschool and another in public kindergarten, but the kindergartener still needs after school care and care during the winter, spring, and summer breaks, as well as the monthly staff development days.

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    2. Great Frogs of Literature*

      I mean, “little notice” could be contextual — it’s entirely possible Amy gave two months of notice for her retirement, which is more than her six weeks, but that’s still not necessarily enough to line up a new daycare. Where I live, people are lucky to get into a daycare by the end of a few months of post-birth parental leave if they start looking when they first know that a baby is on the way.

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      1. Bast*

        This is a fair point. Particularly for infants, it can be difficult to find care. We put my daughter on the wait list the second I found out I was pregnant and had an expected due date. The wait lists were ridiculous (this was during 2020, which did not help) and even though we were on the “priority” list since my son was already enrolled there, it didn’t guarantee us a spot.

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    3. MK*

      She might have anticipated it, but then had an emotional outburst; originally she was understanding that OP was leaving her daycare. Or, she might have thought that there would be enough clients able to work with her schedule, and apparently there were some.

      Look, Amy was very unprofessional, her message to OP in particular was completely unacceptable. But I doubt she was someone who was cavalierly taking days off with no regard to struggling working parents on a whim. If she decided to start working 14-hour days and soon afterwards retired, she was most likely struggling herself and handled it badly.

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    4. TMBL*

      Having worked with so many small business owners over the years, it’s pretty common for them to be like Amy. Most people are self absorbed and downplay the consequences their actions have on other people who depend on them.

      Then you blur the lines between business and consumer when it comes to something so personal like childcare. You start becoming too friendly, too familiar and you don’t keep it strictly professional at all times so you end up expecting waaaaaaaaay too much at times.

      Lots of people are not street smart and don’t anything coming until it lands in their lap, upset that they’re somehow in that lap in the first place.

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  8. Saturday*

    I don’t know that Amy can accurately be described as a really nice person. People who are only nice when things are going their way don’t really deserve that label.

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    1. Sarah With an H*

      I was just coming to say the same thing. I’m glad OP is able to have a cordial relationship with this person, and maybe Amy is “nice”/polite in person when she is in a good mood but she doesn’t seem like a very good person

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    2. Mimi*

      Amy can be described as nice. What Amy cannot be described as is kind.

      Nice is being pleasant in social situations like when LW sees Amy at church. Kind is having concern for others and is less self-serving. An example of self-serving is not providing daycare service for long periods of time with short notice when your clientele needs it.

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    3. Happy meal with extra happy*

      On the flip side, does one bad event define a person forever? We only have evidence of one bad incident from Amy, and I think it’s unfair to therefore deem Amy as forever a not nice person.

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      1. Elle*

        I mean, it can in one person’s eyes. Folks can have a bad experience with you and decide it’s representative of who you are. I feel like Amy’s behavior (especially that passive aggressive little comment about seeing parents change over the years and not in a good way- wow, how dare parents have standards and boundaries!) was enough that, were I the OP, I’d feel comfortable writing her off.

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        1. Nah*

          Especially when the “one incident” lasts for six weeks, leaves the subject of her ire not knowing if she’s in the lurch for going without childcare, at least some (perceived) sexism/ageism at play (refusing to talk to the LW, but husband is totally fine! also the generation comments), and then apparently never apologizing for her comments or actions.

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      2. Martin Blackwood*

        I mean, if an otherwise great worker suddenly leaves without notice, thats enough for most managers to be hesitant about giving a positive reference. Not the same situation, but similarly one bad incident.

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    4. MK*

      True, but to say that Amy is someone who is only nice when things are going her way isn’t really a judgment I would feel comfortable making based on the information we have. She reads more like someone who handled “burnout/the end of a decades-long career in childcare/her business model becoming progressively more unworkable” badly to me.

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    5. Apex Mountain*

      I don’t see what the point is in labeling Amy one way or the other. LW is happy with things as they are which is the main issue

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      1. Zona the Great*

        While not necessarily the case here, often, people allow pretty terrible treatment from those they label as “a nice person” without putting the dots together that that someone is taking advantage.

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  9. Pomodoro Sauce*

    This is a really interesting small scale example of the “trust thermocline”. Usually people use this term for social media services or other large companies — but people will bear a lot of inconvenience with minimal changes in use of a service and then something — apparently minor — will happen and they will bail en masse and will not return. Amy apparently crossed the trust thermocline with several of her customers, who were willing to bear 40 days off a year but not 52.

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    1. Nah*

      I had heard of the concept before, but never had a name to put to it, and it really does seem extremely applicable to this situation. Thank you!

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  10. TMBL*

    Ah after you got to the part where she retired within a year, it all clicked. She was burned out and that can cause people to act erratic.

    I saw this behavior in a few people over the years when they were gearing up for either retirement or a career sabbatical.

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  11. municipal*

    When I put my daughter in day care, one of the first things I noticed was that the going rate for a home day care was about $100 per week less than a corporate center. One of the most significant differences between the two was who is responsible for arranging alternate care when the caregiver needs time off for any reason.

    The fact that Amy was able to operate her day care with eight weeks off as long as she did, and that this family used her for as long as they did despite having to scramble so often, is evidence that her clients needed an affordable option more than they needed a reliable one.

    There is a tipping point on both sides. After a certain point, families just can no longer withstand any more gaps in service, no matter the savings. And after a certain point, providers need the time and flexibility to take care of their non-professional obligations more than the need another $12 per hour. When those two tipping points converge, nobody wins.

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