Daycare: Letting Other People Take Care Of Your Kids, For A Price

Day care is the childcare during the day by a person other than the child's parents or legal guardians, typically someone outside the child's immediate family. Day care centers are known in British English as creches. In Australia, day care is generally called child care.

Babysitting is the occasional temporary care of a child during the absence of his or her parents. Day care usually refers to ongoing care during specific periods, such as the parents' time at work. Day care tends to take a more formal structure, with education, child development, discipline and even preschool falling into the fold of services.

Some day care providers care for children from several families at the same time, in the home of the day care worker or in a specialized day care facility. Some employers provide day care for their employees at or near the place of employment. Day care in the child's own home is traditionally provided by a nanny.

Non profit day cares have some structural advantages over for profit operations. They may receive preferential treatment in rents especially if they are affiliated with a church that is otherwise unoccupied during the week, or with a school that has surplus space. Location within a school may further bring the advantage of coordinated programs with the school and the advantage of a single location for parents who have older school age children as well. Parents are typically the legal owners of the non-profit day care and will routinely provide consulting services, for example accounting, legal, human resource, for free. Non profits have an advantage in fund-raising as most people will not donate to a for profit organization. Non profits, however, are typically limited in size to a single location as the parent owners have no motivation to manage other locations where their children are not present. They may suffer from succession issues as children grow and parents leave the management of the day care to others. Local governments, often municipalities, may operate non-profit day care centers.

Home day cares are operated by a single individual out of their home. This is often a stay at home parent who seeks supplemental income while caring for their own child. Local legislation may regulate the number and ages of children allowed before the home is considered an official day care centre and subject to more stringent safety regulations. Some home day cares operate illegally with respect to tax legislation where the care provider does not report fees as income and the parent does not receive a receipt to qualify for childcare tax deductions. As home day cares do not pay rent, they are typically less expensive than day care centers. Franchising of home day care attempts to bring economies of scale to home day cares. A central operator handles marketing, administration and perhaps some central purchasing while the actual care occurs in individual homes. The central operator may provide training to the individual care providers.