My husband and I got a stern talking to from the woman in charge of my son's (1.5yr) daycare for leaving him there too long during the day.

Background: My husband (34m) and I (32f) both work 9-5 office jobs in Canada about 30 minutes commute from our son's daycare. Our home is a 5 minute drive from the daycare or a 20 minute walk. My husband does drop-offs and I do pick-ups. In general, he gets to the daycare between 8:30 and 8:45 to arrive at work between 9 and 9:15. His office gives flex time, so if he arrives late, he just stays a bit later at the end of the day and it's no problem for his boss.I work 8:30am-5:00pm. Leaving at 5 is always a challenge. There's always more I have to do because I'm a specialist in my field. No one else can do my job. But I do my best to be there for my son. I end up getting to the daycare between 5:30pm and 5:45pm. On bad days, it might get to 5:55pm but I've never arrived past 6. It breaks my heart to think of my son sitting around as the last kid to leave daycare. But he's a happy kid and the girls who watch over the kids are great. He loves them and they think he's fantastic. Even so, my mom has offered to help on occasion, but frankly, we have a hard enough time getting my son into the carseat (we drive a small car, so it's a challenge fitting him into the seat without bonking his head on the doorframe, or getting a limb caught on something). I don't want to inconvenience her or cause my son distress if she struggles more than we do to get him in the car.Problem: We started my son at the daycare in September and since the beginning, the woman who runs it, who's passionate about her work and a smart, dedicated educator, has made off-hand remarks to both of us about needing to pick up my son earlier. We did our best to reassure her, but the reality is we're both working parents. I don't know how to have him be at the daycare for less than 9 hours. One day last week, I couldn't get to the daycare until 6 and I received a call the next day from the owner. She yelled at me for about 15 minutes, lecturing me about how hard it is on a toddler to be left at daycare for 10 hours a day. She also chewed me out because my son sometimes struggles with putting boots and snowpants on. For a week or so, he would roll around on the ground and cry when we forced him to wear boots or snowpants. The owner told me she was "concerned for the safety of her staff" which struck me as both absurd and a veiled threat. It was like: "are you threatening to kick my son out of daycare for not wanting to wear snowpants? I didn't say that, but I thought it. Instead I apologized and cried for an hour after getting off the phone with her. It's bad enough feeling guilty as is without getting the talking to. My husband saw her the next day and said what you'd expect: "there's nothing more we can do, we can't quit our jobs, we both have to work, we're doing the best we can." and the owner shrugged it off.I know there are other parents who are forced to leave their kids at daycare or with babysitters for longer hours than us. 9 hours a day (maybe 9.5 once in a while) can't be the worst. But it definitely feels like it. I guess what I'd like to know is how other parents dealt with this and how they got over it. I would really like to hear similar anecdotes about your experience just to know that we're not alone.*Edit: I just want to say thank you to everyone who's commenting below. The first few comments are suggesting we find another daycare. I should explain a bit more. We live in a city where it's hard to get into a daycare. Demand is high and supply is low. We actually got really lucky with ours, it's considered one of the best in the neighbourhood in terms of what the kids get out of it. They run it like a school: with a curriculum and lessons/activities for the kids designed to teach them things. Other daycares in our area seemed more like big babysitting facilities. We worked really hard to get him into this one, we can't/don't want to take him out. Plus if we took him out now, it could take months or longer to find him a new daycare and the quality of care would probably be a lot lower. I was just shocked that a situation like this would happen with the owner. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2QL3mGt