It is known that educational practice is under the direct influence of European, public and local policies as sources of financing in order to include as many children as possible in institutional education. The progress of the initial education of preschool educators responded to the needs of practice, the preschool educator is a professional, but with an unrecognized status in society due to numerous factors. Socio-economic conditions have caused a shortage of educators on the labor market, so non-professional replacements are employing in educational practice, which is legally allowed by the current and disputed Amendments to the Preschool Education Act (2022). The aim of this paper was to examine the experiences of non-professionals in educational work and their opinions about the preschool teaching profession. The research was approached using a qualitative method and a semi-structured interview. The interview contained two groups of questions formed according to the research questions: experiences of non-professionals about the educational work and opinions about the educational profession. The research was conducted on a convenience sample of ten female educators from five Croatian counties. The paper presents experiences and challenges for non-professional replacements in the preschool educational work, factors that influence self-assessment of competence, opinions on additional qualifications and competencies of educators, as well as the status of the preschool teaching profession in society and ideas for its improvement. This paper contributes to the educational activity because it confirms the importance of its professionalization for the benefit of all participants in education. The research points to the importance of initial education for educational work, the importance of continuous informal professional development and the need for well-structured retraining of non-professionals with an emphasis on quality-led pedagogical practice.