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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Kind of related, but our daycare just shutdown for more than a month and asked us to keep paying monthly tuition. It makes sense, the daycare workers still need to live, but it feels kind of weird in that we have to have this burden on our own since a lot of us are affected also.

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Is it the kind of place if you can't pay for a month they would keep watching your kid? (serious question)

If it isn't, then you should cancel the monthly. It's pretty simple.

But good luck getting back in when they reopen. The waitlist was brutal before, and now you're on the bottom of it.

If you don’t pay, you lose your place in line and there is usually a waiting list (though with the upcoming recession, those might go away). You also don’t endear yourself with the staff if you don’t plan on switching.

Do you think putting your kids in daycare will be a popular choice going forward? There will be plenty of spaces for a while after this ends.

People generally don’t choose daycare. It’s a requirement because they have to work.

It’s a business relationship at the heart of it. If my business associates can’t provide the service I’ve contracted for, that doesn’t endear me to them, either.

Except these are people taking care of your kids during the day, it isn’t that simple.

Not when they’re shut down. Requiring a full tuition payment because “wouldn’t it be a shame if you lost your spot...” is extortionate.

Well, you stopped being a client. I don't find it all that strange.

They are stopping the service. Continuing to pay is a bit crazy. Just check what it sounds like if they write out the quid pro quo:

"Keep paying us for the service we aren't giving you or else we'll blacklist you when service resumes."

I don't think you'll get a lot of people signing up for that.

The other risk than losing your spot is paying them and they go out of business anyway. So you're out both the cash and the service.

Or, we could all be kind to each other.

That is not a very practical or realistic solution. Humans are going to human - for better or worse.

You're right, we shouldn't even bother trying to be kind. /s

I don't accept your assertion that it's not practical or realistic. People have been doing it for thousands of years, and will -- and should continue to do so. Just because it's hard, just because it doesn't directly benefit you, doesn't mean it should be abandoned.

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