A study on child day care is presented. The primary function of the research strategy was to pretest and develop an independent sample measurement scales to use in a panel study. The focus of the research is on family day care arrangements made by working mothers for children under six years of age. The sample used was a fairly successful one of ongoing private family day care arrangements of white, urban working mothers with at least one child under six years of age from a broadly representative cross section of occupations. One fact gleaned from data collection is that most mothers who have their children in private homes prefer these homes over day care centers and most mothers who would prefer day centers already have placed their children in them. Various facets of family day care arrangements which were studied include: (1) sitter motivation, (2) mother-sitter relationship, and (3) mothers' and sitters' satisfaction with the day care arrangement. (CK)