I have to disagree. There are lots of workplaces that don't allow people to leave. Parents are not special and get to take off whenever they please. I used to work in daycare centres and this sorta drove me crazy.......we would phone to have a sick child picked up and if the parent couldn't come for an hour or had to find an alternate person to pick up and it took awhile my coworkers would be livid! However, if one of them got a call to pick up their child from school for the same reason, they were not allowed to leave right away either. We either had to juggle staff and children around or call in a sub because we could not be out of ratio for any amount of time. I also worked in healthcare where this was the same thing, we had a ratio to follow and unless it was a REAL emergency you just couldn't leave whenever. A child puking at dc is not a REAL emergency.

It is annoying though when parents don't have an alternate pick up and I do stress how important a back up is when I am interviewing. If a parent was constantly doing this to me than yes I would ask them to find another dc but I do understand having to wait while they figure out what they are going to do. Sometimes I call a mom but then it's the dad that picks up, sometimes its 5 minutes and sometimes it's an hour. Other than the potential of the child throwing up and making a mess again it's not a matter of life and death and the other children and myself would have been exposed to it already anyways.

I make the child stay in the kitchen with a bowl until their parent picks up. This helps if they end up puking again and this way I can still supervise all the children.