First full year of being a daycare teacher… most likely my last
This is such a long rant so I’m sorry…..
I got into ECE at the end of 2024. It was great until it wasn’t. I’ve been at three daycares since I’ve started and honestly they were all awful. The first one was management, I had directors stealing from me, lying on me, lying to parents about me etc. I stayed as long as I did because my parents seen I was serious about my role with their kids and even though I was fun I kept them on a strict routine. But I had to leave because they tried to steal my gifts, stole a bunch of canvas that I paid for and a gift card from one of my favorite parents during teachers appreciation week. I left a few weeks later because they began to ice me out of conversations and made a huge deal out of the gift card saying I had to share it with another teacher. I quit shortly after that. Dec-May
I found another daycare shortly after that. Now this was suppose to be a fresh start in my career. I was planning on starting school to get my degree in this field. I had originally applied for a lead position that was suppose to have came with a $1000 sign-on bonus. Turns out the work I was doing didn’t qualify me as a lead even though that’s what I applied for and was doing lead work. Then came my directors nasty attitude and beef with me. She tore my class apart while me and my co-teachers were taking a walk with the babies and left a huge mess in the middle of our room and told us to clean it. After that I was done. She kept changing my schedule, changing my position. I went from lead to floater in a matter of a few months because we couldn’t keep anyone here. I eventually got my own class again working with 1’s which was fun. I tried to do activities with my kids and even tried to be on better terms with my director. That was stupid of me. She wouldn’t get the supplies I asked her for and was always nitpicking me about everything wrong with my room. I finally hit my breaking point when I was told I was no longer going to be the lead for the 1’s and became a floater again. I was stressed, depressed, overworked, underpaid and constantly disrespected. I left back in February. May-Feb
Now skip forward to now, I’m in my third daycare and honestly this is the best one I have been in management wise. I love the people I work with and the environment isn’t awful and filled with dread. However the parents and upper/higher management are absolutely trash. The kids we work with come from lower income backgrounds which is cool. But the kids don’t have no home training. These 2’s are completely different from the 2’s I started working with in the beginning. And I feel awful saying this but I don’t enjoy this group at all. Parents don’t offer me any solutions other than letting them do what they want. I had a child literally smack my glasses off my face in front of his guardian and she pulled the permissive parenting card out so hard. I’ve talked with this child’s mother, father, grandmother and aunt about the behavior and honestly it was my final straw. The parents are lazy. They don’t potty train, the higher ups won’t purchase pull-ups for us to start and I’m not allowed to ask their parents for any. We don’t have consequences for any child or the parents who refuse to step up.
Childcare use to be my passion. I use to be so excited thinking I was going to be this great teacher. That dream has been chewed up and spat out. This will be my last year doing this. And honestly I don’t think I’ll do anything child related ever again.