Providers often bristle at people who think they know how to run a day care, who think they have all the answers about childcare.

Yet critics abound and providers are genuinely miffed when they hear compliments that sound like comparisons, questions that sound like statements and even the all-too-common aside, "Anyone could do that work."

When such "grades" are posted and providers take their D's on their methods of ministering to children's needs, teaching, buying equipment, hiring, firing, meal plans and the day-to-day activities from persons not engaged in childcare, strong providers can laugh it off, imagining the critics in a room filled with children, all by themselves.

Other providers often advocate the "inclusive delusion" profile in protest of the critics ‹ they adopt the sophisticated clean sweep of gray paint view: all providers are good, decent wonderful people ‹ each with his own talents and gifts to share. Each provider should be held in highest esteem, they feel, just because he's given his time, talent and treasure to be a provider.

However kindly the inclusive delusion version sounds, it, too, only works in fantasy land. The truth is, like any job, providers are not all equal, nor are all providers really good. Some are excellent, some are good, some are bumbling and some are just awful.

And it follows, too, that some excellent providers have no business sense. And that some with business sense can't understand children.

Running a childcare facility takes not only a jack of all trades, but a willing and able jack of all trades ‹ and nothing less. It takes someone who knows how to do a multitude of things well for people who are not yet altogether reasonable.

Now, the element that makes the show close with a profit? It's a clear understanding that the business end absolutely never, ever overrides the human element. The first and foremost priority of any childcare provider is the integrity of the families who depend on her. That means quality, and that makes success, which ultimately means profit.

Without her families, there is no need for a provider. Providers know that. An empty daycare facility or an emptying facility is a sign something is not right, and it probably begins with the provider. "What have I done and what have I failed to do?," are the first questions of the day.

Providers who succeed know that the most important concern of parents is the care of their child and that that's exactly what they provide. It's called "whole-childcare" and there's a plus to it. It's a great big plus ‹ a particular kind of extended care that involves not only the child, but the whole family. But that's hard to find and it's hard to do.

Whole childcare takes a personal commitment. It takes someone who is able to be ‹ emotionally, spiritually and intellectually ‹ attached and involved with the child and his family.

Not all people are able, or even willing, to reach out to others because self gets in the way. It's not everyone who can successfully run a childcare facility. It's not everyone who understands that.