Daycare teacher is not fluent in English? AITA?

[Mgmny]

Hello!

The care of our 15-month old has been a combination of my wife, my mother, and my wife's mother for 5 days a week care. My wife covers him every Thursday and Friday as she "works remotely" with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge agreement with her manager. As he gets older and we are expecting another child this fall, we are looking at enrolling him into daycare for Thursday and Friday so my wife doesn't go insane balancing a toddler, a newborn, and a full time job.

We toured a facility this weekend that was really great. The building just opened in August, the director seemed excellent, the location is good, and everything about the place seemed nice. That said, during the tour, the 1 other person that was staffing the event was one of the providers, and she was not fluent in English. There were a few moments where she misunderstood what we were saying or answered questions in a way that maybe didn't make sense. She was moderately conversational, but there were a few times when her responses didn't make sense, or she didn't understand our questions. Not fluent, but conversational.

We reached out to the director after our tour expressing the concern about the teacher of our son's class not having a super great grasp of the English language when he is supposed to be learning English. She responded this morning with basically the following: The teacher has a advanced training in early childhood education, a degree in learning from a university in Brazil, has been doing this job for 10+ years, and has been a wonderful, caring, asset to their team. She said that the teacher is well-equipped to help provide the care necessary for our son to reach his early literacy and language benchmarks for a 2-year-old. She then attached benchmarks for 1 and 2-year-old language skills from the CDC (who knew they had handouts for this?) along with ASL information that she would be teaching our son (and therefore, presumably, English is less important?).

She responded very nicely and thoroughly, and I don't think I upset her (at least not outwardly), but am I the asshole for asking whether or not my son's potential childcare provider doesn't speak good enough English? Or, am I rightly concerned about this?

[ixtap]

Why are you concerned? It sounds like you think your child won't learn to speak English well? Are you speaking a different language at home?

The owner is correct that reading literacy for toddlers has very little to do with language. It is more about learning to associate symbols with meaning.

Toddlers don't need to be exposed to perfect examples of language in order to pick up the language. Often, they will end up speaking better than even their own parents, as long as they have any examples of fluent language around them.

[Mgmny]

Why are you concerned? It sounds like you think your child won't learn to speak English well? Are you speaking a different language at home?

The owner is correct that reading literacy for toddlers has very little to do with language. It is more about learning to associate symbols with meaning.

Toddlers don't need to be exposed to perfect examples of language in order to pick up the language. Often, they will end up speaking better than even their own parents, as long as they have any examples of fluent language around them.

I guess I'm worried that if i give my child to someone who doesn't speak English well for 25% of his week, that he will not advance his language skills at the rate he needs to to "keep up."

If i were resolute in this thought, i wouldn't be posting here, so i want to know if a daycare provider not speaking english well is a concern, or if it doesn't matter because 15-24 month-year-olds can't speak english anyways.

I mean, for comparison, I was with my godson (just over 2 years old) over the weekend at the zoo, and the longest/most complex sentence he had was in response to: "What is the wolverine doing?" and his response "Lick his butt!" So... maybe language skills aren't super important and i'm being snooty or over-protective.   

[martyconlonontherun]

Yes you are because the correct answer should've been to ask that the care taker speak in Portuguese so your child gets a head start at picking up foreign languages.

[ixtap]

Yes you are because the correct answer should've been to ask that the car taker speak in Portuguese so your child gets a head start at picking up foreign languages.

Yeah, that was my first response, as well. Hence why I said the caregiver's fluency in English is only at all important if you aren't speaking English at home.

[erutio]

Yes, you ATA.

Your child should and will learn most about language from you and your wife talking to each other.  Studies have shown that children learn to speak by watching adults speak to one another, and less so from adults speaking directly to them. 
Also, another one of the most important things you can do for their development is reading to them every single day.   They will learn to listen, speak, concentrate, and all sorts of others things just from this simple daily activity. 
Regarding ASL, studies have shown kids that learn 2nd languages (including ASL) early, are smarter later in life.  <-- I really simplified the results of the studies, as the results are a lot more nuanced.  But the main takeaway is that learning other languages does not hinder development. 

[kanga1622]

There are tons of kids all over the world that hear multiple languages spoken to them every day. I know some bilingual couples where one parent speaks in English and the other speaks in Spanish to the child every day. We have kids in our school district that speak their "home" language in their house and English outside of it. Kids are SUPER resilient and can pick up on so much just having exposure to other language/accents. How many people have au pairs from other countries where they may not have a great grasp of English?

My niece was born in Germany (military brat) and 20 years later still knows a spattering of German that she heard often in her first 2.5 years of life. She had zero delays due to exposure to other languages.

If she has been employed by that center for 10+ years with a great educational background, I'd be happy to go with it. They will work out how to converse and you may learn a few new words. And yes, so much of learning at that age is basic things like following directions, that we read books from left to right, the basic sounds of letters, counting to 20, etc.

[Metalcat]

Yes you are because the correct answer should've been to ask that the care taker speak in Portuguese so your child gets a head start at picking up foreign languages.

Yep. This.

You should go out of your way to expose your child to another language as much as possible at this age. I believe there is a lot of literature out there about how good this is for their learning.

Also, your kid won't suffer for hearing partially fluent English 25% of the time, they'll benefit from hearing different language structures being used.

All language exposure is good for kids, they don't actually learn language, they acquire it, so the more they pick up the better.

The language benchmarks aren't like tests in school they need to pass through effort, they're indicators of that something is going wrong with the process, not that they were taught wrong.

Your kid is going to learn ASL???

Man, this woman is solid gold.

[ETA: Linguistics was my second major, with a focus on language acquisition and neuro linguistics]

[erutio]

We lived in BFE in the US, and when our kids were little, we sought out the only language immersion school/daycare in the area.  We were happy with the decision. 
We moved to a bigger city when my oldest started K.  We wanted our kids to go to public school, and one of the most important criteria was a school which started foreign language instruction in K.  We were lucky this was available in our city. 

[dougules]

Just for reference, Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language in the world as well as being a really good springboard to learning Spanish.  If your family or your child's playmates are native English speakers, he will pick English up just fine.  On the other hand, the chance for him to learn some Portuguese is a golden opportunity. 

[Mgmny]

Yes, you ATA.

Your child should and will learn most about language from you and your wife talking to each other.  Studies have shown that children learn to speak by watching adults speak to one another, and less so from adults speaking directly to them. 
Also, another one of the most important things you can do for their development is reading to them every single day.   They will learn to listen, speak, concentrate, and all sorts of others things just from this simple daily activity. 
Regarding ASL, studies have shown kids that learn 2nd languages (including ASL) early, are smarter later in life.  <-- I really simplified the results of the studies, as the results are a lot more nuanced.  But the main takeaway is that learning other languages does not hinder development.

So, this is why i was concerned though? I narrate practically everything to my son whenever i'm with him because I read somewhere that is what helps them - exposure to language. My concern is that this teacher would not expose him to more language because her grasp of it was lower.

I would have to guess she isn't speaking Portuguese or Spanish (in the director's email back, it she said she knows all 3) in the classroom to the children, but I could be wrong. 

[Mgmny]

There are tons of kids all over the world that hear multiple languages spoken to them every day. I know some bilingual couples where one parent speaks in English and the other speaks in Spanish to the child every day. We have kids in our school district that speak their "home" language in their house and English outside of it. Kids are SUPER resilient and can pick up on so much just having exposure to other language/accents. How many people have au pairs from other countries where they may not have a great grasp of English?

My niece was born in Germany (military brat) and 20 years later still knows a spattering of German that she heard often in her first 2.5 years of life. She had zero delays due to exposure to other languages.

If she has been employed by that center for 10+ years with a great educational background, I'd be happy to go with it. They will work out how to converse and you may learn a few new words. And yes, so much of learning at that age is basic things like following directions, that we read books from left to right, the basic sounds of letters, counting to 20, etc.

2 things:

1. I think there's a common misconception in this thread that this woman who speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese will be speaking all three of these languages during classes. My understanding is that all communication during the class would be in English - and she would not be speaking the other two languages (other than ASL which is part of the curriculum), so while exposure to more languages might be helpful, my son wouldn't be exposed to Portuguese or Spanish, just English at home and conversational English at the center. I don't know if this changes anyone's perception or not, but it's worth calling out. 
2. She just started at this particular center in January. She told us during the tour that she just moved up here from Florida.

[Mgmny]

Just for reference, Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language in the world as well as being a really good springboard to learning Spanish.  If your family or your child's playmates are native English speakers, he will pick English up just fine.  On the other hand, the chance for him to learn some Portuguese is a golden opportunity.

Again, I don't think that he will learn Portuguese or Spanish in the classroom.

[Metalcat]

Just for reference, Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language in the world as well as being a really good springboard to learning Spanish.  If your family or your child's playmates are native English speakers, he will pick English up just fine.  On the other hand, the chance for him to learn some Portuguese is a golden opportunity.

Again, I don't think that he will learn Portuguese or Spanish in the classroom.

Then that's the only downside. Too bad.

The point still stands though, I wasn't assuming your kid would be exposed to another language (other than ASL, which is so awesome), but your kid will be exposed to other linguistic structures if her English isn't fluent, which is still arguably a benefit.

[CNM]

I wouldn't be concerned at all about the language issue.  As long as your child will be getting good care (safe environment, getting fed, getting diaper changed, opportunities to play, etc) that is what matters most.  Personally, I would consider it a plus to have my child exposed to a variety of people at a young age, including those who speak English as a second language.

[Captain FIRE]

One kid's toddler room (14 mo-33 mo) had a teacher who had a thicker accent making it harder to understand her.

My kid LOVED her.  She was much more caring than the other teacher (who was older and I felt a bit more checked out).  He listed her as one of his favorite people (sometimes ahead of mom & dad!), was excited when he ran into her and her son at the local spots, and she even passed on her son's old clothes to us (she knew we dressed our son in used clothing) and gave us a thank you gift for the gift card we gave her (a gift tailored to help our son with the new baby) when we transitioned rooms.

I would happily have her teach my younger kid over others at the center who are native speakers.  My kid is IMHO, extremely verbal, with a very large vocabulary and clear enunciation such that I have to repeat very few of his words for other people.  He just turned three less than a month ago, yet regularly uses 3-syllable words properly (e.g. comfortable, appreciate - "I appreciate it, but I don't need it", commission - "The ship is out of commission", many many more I can't think of right now).  We read to him every night and don't dumb down our language with him (though I'll try to repeat/explain myself with an "easier" word if I realize I've used a "complicated one.  He'll also repeat the word to me if I use a word he doesn't recognize, which is his way of asking me to explain it).  Obviously this is anecdotal, but I'd prioritize personality and training over perfect language skills.

[Laura33]

First kid, right?

Short answer:  the teacher sounds wonderful.  By far the most important thing at this age is to be in a safe, well-managed environment where they are loved and supported and nurtured appropriately for their age and developmental stage.  Someone with 10 years' experience and advanced training in early childhood education is far, far above the vast majority of caregivers at that age.

I get that you want to maximize your kid's everything.  But life doesn't tend you hand you perfect.  Hell, my son's kindergarten teacher apostrophized her plurals -- and this at an age where he's supposed to be learning to write! (gasp!).  And we're even zoned for the "wrong" middle school.  And yet he somehow continues to peg his standardized tests.  Because he comes from some pretty fortunate nature and nurture.

You need to get a little more perspective that comes with a little more experience.  Prioritize the things that really matter.  (And the real secret?  Most everything that we fret about for our kids doesn't.)

[lhamo]

My kids went to Chinese-language preschools from ages 2.5-5, and bilingual Engish-Chinese schools through 8th grade for my son and 5th grade for my daughter.  We spoke mostly English at home, though we did speak Chinese with them and our PT caregivers who watched them in the afternoons while they were little and helped with housekeeping and cooking.  We also speak Chinese with them when around friends and family from China.

Both kids were always at the top of their classes in English and other subjects taught in English.  DS entered a US university through a special program at age 15, and will graduate with a 3.9ish GPA in computer science at age 19.  He tested out of the foreign language requirement using Chinese.  DD tested into the gifted and talented program for high school and has a 4.0 GPA.  She also recently passed a test to get 4 years high school credit and a bilingual certificate for her Chinese.

We never did any special tutoring or prep classes for our kids in either language.  We did talk to them a lot, and read to them every night until they could read to themselves.

[Freedomin5]

Your kid will be fine. My kindergartener was exposed to accented, imperfect Mandarin about 25% of the time, for two years (since DH and I both speak Mandarin with an English accent), but she attended an all Mandarin preschool where they spoke perfect Mandarin. Her exposure to our sucky Mandarin didn't appear to hurt her as she speaks Mandarin without a weird accent. I'm sure your son's 25% exposure to the Brazilian teacher's less-than-perfect English won't impact his English learning at all.

[dougules]

How is her ASL fluency?  If you're putting emphasis on ASL I'd think you'd want to find a native signer given sign languages have all the same nuances learned at a young age as a spoken language. 

[wellactually]

I really really doubt this is a full-fledged ASL situation. Most daycare centers in our area do baby sign language. These are signs for more, done, milk, etc. This is not putting together ASL sentences with appropriate facial expressions. Which is not to say it's not a good thing!

I don't think you're an asshole just for asking. You need to be confident about the place where your kiddo is spending time. But it's going to be fine.

I'm mostly shocked you will be able to find a place where you don't have to pay a full week of infant care just to save thursday/friday. Around my parts, it's full week or nothing at centers.

[Mgmny]

How is her ASL fluency?  If you're putting emphasis on ASL I'd think you'd want to find a native signer given sign languages have all the same nuances learned at a young age as a spoken language.

I don't think we're putting the emphasis on ASL, it was just communicated to us that it would be taught at the daycare.

[Mgmny]

I really really doubt this is a full-fledged ASL situation. Most daycare centers in our area do baby sign language. These are signs for more, done, milk, etc. This is not putting together ASL sentences with appropriate facial expressions. Which is not to say it's not a good thing!

I don't think you're an asshole just for asking. You need to be confident about the place where your kiddo is spending time. But it's going to be fine.

I'm mostly shocked you will be able to find a place where you don't have to pay a full week of infant care just to save thursday/friday. Around my parts, it's full week or nothing at centers.

Thanks for the understandig and kind words!

I think because they just opened in August 2029, they are still trying to fill spots, also we would be sending him on Thurs and Friday which apparently are the days other parents have less desire to send kids if part time, so it works out well.

That said, 2 days a week is still $200 a week. A full week is like $350, so we aren't exactly getting a great deal...

Of the 12 closest places to us, the prices ranged from $125 - $230 for 2 day care per week. Definitely not cheap.

[Mgmny]

First kid, right?

Short answer:  the teacher sounds wonderful.  By far the most important thing at this age is to be in a safe, well-managed environment where they are loved and supported and nurtured appropriately for their age and developmental stage.  Someone with 10 years' experience and advanced training in early childhood education is far, far above the vast majority of caregivers at that age.

I get that you want to maximize your kid's everything.  But life doesn't tend you hand you perfect.  Hell, my son's kindergarten teacher apostrophized her plurals -- and this at an age where he's supposed to be learning to write! (gasp!).  And we're even zoned for the "wrong" middle school.  And yet he somehow continues to peg his standardized tests.  Because he comes from some pretty fortunate nature and nurture.

You need to get a little more perspective that comes with a little more experience.  Prioritize the things that really matter.  (And the real secret?  Most everything that we fret about for our kids doesn't.)

Ha, you caught me. We just want everything to be perfect and we don't want to knowingly disadvantage our son. But, I'm sure everything will be all right even if she spoke to English.

Thanks!

[mm1970]

Yes you are because the correct answer should've been to ask that the care taker speak in Portuguese so your child gets a head start at picking up foreign languages.

Yep. This.

You should go out of your way to expose your child to another language as much as possible at this age. I believe there is a lot of literature out there about how good this is for their learning.

Also, your kid won't suffer for hearing partially fluent English 25% of the time, they'll benefit from hearing different language structures being used.

All language exposure is good for kids, they don't actually learn language, they acquire it, so the more they pick up the better.

The language benchmarks aren't like tests in school they need to pass through effort, they're indicators of that something is going wrong with the process, not that they were taught wrong.

Your kid is going to learn ASL???

Man, this woman is solid gold.

[ETA: Linguistics was my second major, with a focus on language acquisition and neuro linguistics]

Totally!

That reminds me that my older son had a child in his daycare and we NEVER knew what he was saying.  His mom spoke Swedish at home and his dad spoke Spanish and he was learning English at daycare.

[Metalcat]

Totally!

That reminds me that my older son had a child in his daycare and we NEVER knew what he was saying.  His mom spoke Swedish at home and his dad spoke Spanish and he was learning English at daycare.

Lol, yeah, most of the kids in my family are multilingual and sometimes what they say is total gibberish.

It is true that kids who acquire multiple languages do appear to have some delays in perfecting each language, but it only appears that way as the brain sorts it's shit out.

I live in a very bilingual area though, so people and teachers here are just used to it.

[davisgang90]

We had child #3 with a home-run daycare for a year or so.  The proprietor had been a pediatrician in Argentina before coming to the states. We joked that our son was safer with her than with us.  Her fluency in English was pretty far down the list of qualifications we were concerned about.

We were more concerned about a loving, caring environment for our son to learn and explore.  She worked out great!

[centwise]

No this is not really a concern at all. Your child will not "behind" in language development. He will be madly developing his social skills and every possible communication skill (including language).

I know a family where the dad speaks exclusively Russian to the kids, the mom speaks exclusively German to the kids, and they learned English as the "environmental" language. All of them speak English completely fluently (better than Russian or German) and are near the top of their respective classes in school.

[diapasoun]

PhD linguist here.

Your kid is gonna be fine. Having a non-native English speaker caring for him is not going to muck up his fluency in English. It's pretty unlikely to have any sort of noticeable effect, to be honest. If it does, it might be that it'll be a little easier for him to understand Portuguese-accented English than it would be for another kid.

There's a very widespread perception that multilingualism/exposure to imperfect English will damage a child's development, so I'm not surprised you have questions and concerns. However, I don't think you have any cause for any worry whatsoever.

[ditheca]

Her exposure to our sucky Mandarin didn't appear to hurt her as she speaks Mandarin without a weird accent.

... Come again? Everyone speaks Mandarin with a weird accent.. Most cities have their own dialect! 

"Foreigner" Chinese is actually one of the easiest to understand.

[Goldielocks]

Zero problem as others noted..

... as long as there is someone at the school that you as parents can communicate with, if there is every any concern or question that requires a bit of fluency or nuance to convey.

[bluebelle]

just another perspective:
my DH spoke no english until he entered kindergarten, and said there was an english speaking teacher and a teacher's aide that did the translating.   There was no english spoken in his home growing up, no one was reading to him.   He became a voracious reader and his command of the english language is far superior to mine (and mine is pretty damn good).   I often need him to correct my pronunciation as my comprehension vocabulary far exceeds my pronunciation abilities.   I grew up in an english only environment - it may have given me a head start in kindergarten, but I'm betting that edge was gone by grade 2.

[Hula Hoop]

I agree with others that your kid will be fine.  You are way over-thinking this. He's 15 months old - this is not university we're talking about here.  The most important thing is that he has a loving and nurturing environment at daycare and this teacher sounds great.  I doubt a daycare teacher, even a native speaker of English, would have the time or energy to narrate to your kid all day long anyway (and why are you doing that?  I'm sure it's not doing your kid any harm but sounds exhausing!)

My kids are bilingual Italian-English.  From age 9-10 months onwards they were in 35-40 hours a week of Italian language only childcare and then school and my husband and I speak English mostly (probably 85 percent of the words we speak at home are in English) at home.  When I'm alone with the kids I speak 100% English.  At this point, the kids are completely bilingual and their English level is just fine.  Yes, maybe there are some kids in English speaking countries whose English is more advanced as they didn't get that 40+ hours a week of another language all their lives but in the scheme of things, who cares?  We read to them and nurture them and their language skills are just fine. 

Life is not a race to keep up - and daycare should not be a hothouse environment.  My kids (like most bilingual kids) were behind their peers in both languages at 3-4 years of age.  But now if you spoke to them in either of their languages, you'd never know that they were bilingual.  The most important thing, though, is that they are good kids who have enjoyed their school experiences so far.

[Freedomin5]

Her exposure to our sucky Mandarin didn't appear to hurt her as she speaks Mandarin without a weird accent.

... Come again? Everyone speaks Mandarin with a weird accent.. Most cities have their own dialect! 

"Foreigner" Chinese is actually one of the easiest to understand.

Teachers who teach Chinese in China need to pass a test to ensure that they have standard pronunciation.

[Luz]

I assure you that parents a few generations ago didn't worry about this stuff. It might be the norm nowadays to fret about your toddler getting ahead (or at least not falling behind) but I don't think it's doing anyone (least of all the kids) a favor. He's not even 2! He's got time to come into his own. And he likely leads a charmed life to begin with, which will be to his advantage.

Have you read any critiques on modern parenting and the anxiety involved? I think they provide an important challenge to the current way of doing things. My favorites are: "All Joy and No Fun" "How to Raise an Adult" "Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler" "Bringing up Bebe" and "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee".

Having a quality caregiver from another culture (whether or not they will speak their native language at the facility) will no doubt be fantastic for your child. He'll be exposed to a different way of being and thinking that comes from viewing life through a different lens.

[shelivesthedream]

Apologies for all the language. I have a two week old and am really tired.

Are you fucking kidding me? Yes YATA. But not because of this specific thing. Because you are concerned about hothousing your baby! "Behind" my fat postpartum ass. "Behind" shouldn't exist unless it means clinically developmentally delayed until at least school age. For fuck's sake, give your child a break! He will speak English perfectly well by the time he goes to school whatever happens, especially as you apparently expose him to a never-ending stream of words (which sounds kinda crazy-making). What if you send your child to the "right" daycare and he ends up "behind" anyway? Will he not be good enough for you? Will you get a tutor for your preschooler? That is so fucked up.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/12/avoiding-ivy-league-preschool-syndrome/

You should be way more concerned with his emotional health than his "achievements". Probably for his entire life.

[Mgmny]

Apologies for all the language. I have a two week old and am really tired.

Are you fucking kidding me? Yes YATA. But not because of this specific thing. Because you are concerned about hothousing your baby! "Behind" my fat postpartum ass. "Behind" shouldn't exist unless it means clinically developmentally delayed until at least school age. For fuck's sake, give your child a break! He will speak English perfectly well by the time he goes to school whatever happens, especially as you apparently expose him to a never-ending stream of words (which sounds kinda crazy-making). What if you send your child to the "right" daycare and he ends up "behind" anyway? Will he not be good enough for you? Will you get a tutor for your preschooler? That is so fucked up.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/12/avoiding-ivy-league-preschool-syndrome/

You should be way more concerned with his emotional health than his "achievements". Probably for his entire life.

Yes, you caught me. I'm worried that my son won't be good enough for me if he falls behind.  I mean, who could love a child like that anyways??

For christsake people! This daycare costs $200 for TWO DAYS A WEEK.  That's $10k a YEAR for someone to watch my kid for two days a week. I just wanted to make sure I was making an ok choice. I'm not a child psychologist. I've never picked a daycare before. Never did I say that I wouldn't love him if he's behind or that he needs to get ahead. I was simply asking the question if his provider speaking English mattered. It's clear from this group that the general answer is no.

[br89]

Just for reference, Portuguese is the 6th most spoken language in the world as well as being a really good springboard to learning Spanish.  If your family or your child's playmates are native English speakers, he will pick English up just fine.  On the other hand, the chance for him to learn some Portuguese is a golden opportunity.

Again, I don't think that he will learn Portuguese or Spanish in the classroom.

Why do you think she wouldn't speak to them in Spanish or Portuguese? About 99% of childcare workers are Spanish speakers where I live and it's great. Almost all of my friends' toddlers are bilingual (or at least understand Spanish and can ask for things like "agua"). I personally wouldn't want to send my child to a daycare where Spanish wasn't spoken because it's SO much easier to acquire a second language as a toddler than it is as an older child and because Spanish is a really important language to know in the US (I use it almost every day even though I didn't grow up speaking it at home). Since you already speak to your child in English, he or she will have absolutely no problem becoming fluent in English. Any second language exposure is definitely a bonus and not a negative.

[waltworks]

As others have pointed out, you are massively, massively overthinking this.

The big developmental benefit here is interacting with other children. They could all be speaking mangled Esperanto, it doesn't matter.

If you don't like the price, fine. Your pickiness about the daycare provider herself is, frankly, bizarre and shows a sort of hilarious naivete about how childcare works. Childcare is super hard and pays like shit, so most of the people doing it full time at any kind of reasonable price come from low education backgrounds or are running a side gig out of their houses. Many of them don't really care that much about the kids but can still do an ok job. Some of them are terrible. If you find someone who is awesome and nice and loves interacting with kids 8 hours a day... you freaking take your kid there, because that right there is GOLD. They don't need a PhD. They don't need perfect English. None of those things matter to a 2 year old, and they won't keep your kid out of an Ivy someday.

-W