Patrick usually provides child care for six children  Parents leave their children at Patrick' s house in the morning and pick them up after work  At the end of each workweek, the parents pay Patrick at an hourly rate for the child care provided that week
The weekly income Patrick receives is usually adequate but not always uniform, particularly in the winter, when children are likely to get sick and be unpredictably absent
Replace payment by actual hours of child care provided with a fixed weekly fee based upon the number of hours of child care that Patrick would typically be expected to provide.