okay um do you have children of your own
yeah got uh four
oh you do what ages are they
yeah uh let's see uh fourteen twelve
five and one and a half i was yeah how about you
oh my you sound like a busy parent
i have two a seven year old and three and a half mine are both girls
seven year old okay i've got one boy the oldest one's a boy and the three others are are girls
yeah
oh do you and your wife both work
no huh-uh no she um my wife stays home
well that's nice i
yeah how about you how about yourself
i stay home too yeah to me that's the ideal situation but i did work part-time when i had just one child and uh i'm pretty picky about my criteria of child care i
do you huh
yeah
um-hum
yeah
i don't care too much for day care centers and preschool well you know schools where the children stay all day long
um-hum
and so i i think the thing that i would think was most important is is if they're getting that individual attention that they need from an adult and i don't think they get enough of it
yeah
so what would you what is there a certain ratio that would scare you off or of teachers to kids
yeah mine's pretty low too uh the lady that i left my daughter with only kept only had two other children besides my daughter so three to one i felt comfortable with
uh-huh
uh-huh
i think if it got much more than that i would start feeling like someone was gonna be left out
so you're talking now now you're pretty well limited to to home care then someone someone taking your your your kid into their home yeah
yeah
right i don't think well i think once my uh child got to be maybe four years old i might feel a little better about a larger group setting
uh-huh
but up until that time both of my girls had such passive personalities that if they had been around a whole lot of other children i really think they would have been
yeah
you know taken for granted some of the other kids would have pushed them around and um probably taken advantage of them a little bit what do you think
uh-huh
um-hum um i guess i ideally um uh i would if i if my wife had to go to work we'd probably look for a home where the ratio of of uh
um adults to children was was you know low and i don't think you won't find that in a in a commercially run day care what was that beep
yeah
no
no
oh i didn't even hear one no it might have been i have call waiting but if so i'll just try later that's fine
did you
you didn't
so do i
okay
um what so what what were we saying that um
yeah you said that uh you would like if your wife had to go back to work you probably would prefer that they stayed in a home
yeah
yeah because how can you um you know did you see the did you see the um i think it was on it was either Twenty Twenty or 60 Minutes about that the day care in Louisiana
oh yeah
and it looked when the parents visited it looked like um that everything looked fine and they told them one ratio of adults to kids and and and that appeared to be what what the case when they were there but then
yeah
yeah
right
then uh it turned out that uh so how do you protect yourself against that i wonder
yeah i don't know see i feel real sorry for couples where both people are you know have to work to make ends meet because you're kind of
yeah
you know stuck there i i know that um if i had to go to work right now i would really have a hard time finding someone
because i babysitters are just really hard to come by and especially real good ones and you know ones that uh don't keep that many children and give them the individual attention that i think they need and that kind of thing
yeah
so i would really be hard pressed to find something that i felt like was quality child care
uh-huh
so i don't know i feel real sorry for you know working moms that are really looking hard and trying to do a good job with their kids
i'm just thankful i'm able to stay home it makes the choice a lot easier
yeah
well we've been my wife has stayed home uh fourteen years now and it yeah it's not always been easy
wow that's great
oh i know
um to do because there are many times when another salary would be real helpful
yeah
yeah oh yeah we feel that way i mean even now it's really hard to make ends meet even with two children so i can imagine with four
yeah
yeah
but you learn how to to stretch money how to use hand-me-downs and that kind of thing really makes a big difference too
uh-huh
but i don't know i uh i worked at a little preschool it was a private one you know like a church sponsored type thing where it was only two days a week Tuesday and Thursday from like nine till two
um-hum
um-hum
and even that i was not totally satisfied with the way the kids were treated uh
yeah my wife worked at a has worked at a couple of those too and she's never
uh-huh
never been uh um satisfied with with uh with what the children were were getting and and and then she worked um not to long ago for just
yeah
filling in she filled in at a real large commercial commercially run where there were like i don't know how many kids there were but it was twenty kids in a room and i don't know how many adults they had but um
um-hum
oh
yeah
so
she didn't
