My husband's adult son and daughter-in-law, brag about their three-year-old in day care. They pay extra for her to have computer classes and "tumble" classes. But they brag that their daughter knows and can name every child's parent who comes into the day care to pick up or drop off their kid. She says, "That's Sally's mother!" Know how she can do this? She is the first child dropped off at 5:30am when the day care opens and she is the last child picked up at 6pm, when the day care closes.

All I can hear is you in my head, when these parents share their "good" day care stories. I think they must share these stories to help cover their shame of how long their child stays in day care each week. But sometimes I doubt they even know what they are doing. Oh yeah, they are having another baby this month. He will be in day care at 6 weeks of age for the same time period!

A.