We love our daycare providers, S. & G. They treat our kids as if they were part of their own family and bend over backwards to accomodate our crazy schedules.

When we first decided to send our daughter there, I was nervous since I had no experience with in-home daycares. Who would be checking in on them making sure they treated the kids right? We had always sent our son to one of the big daycare centers where you could be certain there was plenty of oversight. Unfortunately, my son’s daycare didn’t accept infants, so we had to look for other accomodations for my daughter. After hearing an enthusiastic recommendation of this particular in-home daycare, we decided to give it a try.

It was the best decision we could have made. In fact, it worked out so well, we withdrew our son from the large daycare center he was attending and sent him there as well. Again, it was a great decision and both kids appear to be thriving.

The small daycare is much, much calmer than the large centers we had used in the past. In general, the kids appear happy and busy whenever we drop in. I have never noticed anything untoward going on. Believe me, if I had, I would have pulled both kids out faster than you could blink an eye.

Some person doesn’t feel the same, however, and filed a complaint with the state licensing board, stating that S. & G. fight with each other frequently (hard to believe–these two have the patience of Job) and allow the kids to run around totally out-of-control (again, hard to believe-the environment is really calm and nurturing). I was stunned to hear this. I have never seen anything of the kind.

Responding to this complaint, a state agent dropped in unannounced and conducted another inspection. In addition, they fingerprinted S. & G. to run additional background checks on them. S. felt humiliated by this treatment. While the agent was there, my daughter clung to G. and refused to be put down, so he had to carry her around during the entire inspection. In my mind, that should speak volumes to the agent. I can’t imagine a child (especially my daughter) clinging like that to anyone who mistreated her.

Anyway, S. & G. don’t think it’s one of the parents who filed the complaint. They’re not sure who did, since the agent couldn’t say. We can only speculate…a neighbor who didn’t like all the activity next door…a rival daycare provider… Who knows? I do know this. Those people are totally wrong and they’ve hurt some incredibly nice people. This is their livlihood; their pride and joy. And now, that’s at risk. This makes me very angry.