The Nightmare

As a former family day care provider, I realize the story that follows my palaver goes both ways. I remember the day I quit providing family care. I was talking to a friend on the phone who had just quit providing care in her home and was going back to nursing. "I can't stand the demands," she said. "I'm only one person, and then I have to wait and wait and wait to be paid." I thought a lot about this and realized how hard my job had become.

Like Sudie, I saw 30 children a day; before school for breakfast, preschool for education, and then another bus load for snack and after school care. The work never stopped; I had trails in my hardwood floors; I was anxious all the time; I couldn't get the help or the consideration necessary to feel good about the job. I had to let my own children's activities go because I was busy on other people's kids. In utter frustration, gave my notice too.

I was in my eighth year of providing childcare. The typical bill a family day care provider is left with is thousands of dollars a year in unpaid fees. "Doing all you can" for your families usually involves not being paid for hours of your time.

If you need dental work or have to go to the doctor - forget it. Someone else needs your time.

Providing childcare at home is isolating. You rarely have adult company until the end of the day when you need to swing into second gear and get things done. Then, neither the kids nor the parents want to go home. Your home is inviting, it smells good with dinner cooking and the remnants of cookies in the air. Your home has all the toys, the activities and the lights are on.

Personally, I was wondering about myself. I had completed a baccalaureate degree on a Saturday in May and was back at work two days later taking orders about some kid's refusal to eat anything but Barbie cereal. I wondered if this was all I could do, so I quit to write poetry and novels, to play the piano, and to bake cookies. At the time, it sounded like a fine life.

That world lasted two years when a priest friend asked me to create a preschool for my parish. I obliged never thinking I would be sucked into the teaching. It was a furious year, and at the end of it, the parish sweetheart decided my job "looked cute" so she got elected to the school board and swiped my job. She lasted 18 days. She was afraid of children up close and personal, so she decided to be a "children's consultant" instead. (I wrote a novel about all that. It's hilarious - called Porkchops.")

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Edith and I decided to start our own school - the Garden School.

What's the difference between home and school? When you work in a company as loving and caring as someone like Edith, when your daughter wants to "come play too." When people beg you for jobs because it's a fun place to be, and when you have parents who support you in a what seems more like a covenant than a pay-for-time place, it makes a huge difference. It's like being home and at work at the same time.

Childcare is a very personal thing. It's a pact between adults and child. We (teachers) were talking yesterday in school about how unprofessional we must seem to parents who have been to big places with industrial strength goods and services. We're "one step from home" in every possible way. We're loaded with animals and plants and colors and books and places to play. It's a warm place, and sometimes it smells like rabbits, and sometimes it smells like cookies. Depends. But you can bet it's going to smell like something because we are not industrial strength and we believe that children need to be in a real world with real stuff - like cookies and rabbits. We're hands on and far from antiseptic.

Today we're going on a field trip to the tumble zone. It's a gift from one of our favorite parents. Parents are welcome to join us. It's going to be a great day.



Dealing with Day Care Dilemmas
Where does a working mom turn when she loses her day care provider?

BY DENISE NEIL
The Wichita Eagle

A couple of days after I got the devastating news that my daughter's day care provider was quitting, I was trying to describe my feelings about it to a co-worker, who's also a mom.

I was surprised, I told her, that the news left me panicked and distressed, but more hurt than anything else. I felt like I'd just been dumped by a boyfriend.

How could she leave us? Didn't she care?

The mom looked at me with pity. "This is your first day care provider, isn't it?" she said.

Like many working mothers, I deal daily with the guilt-inducing, panic-prompting,
unpredictable world of day care.

Until now, I've been pretty lucky. Though it was hard to do, we found someone who lives just a few doors from our house.

She was competent, loving, and loved Alexis, who just turned 11 months old this weekend.
Even better, it was clear that Alexis loved her, too.

In the back of my mind, I knew it was too easy. And of course, it was. Our day care provider's doctor recently told her that her back is in no shape to be lifting heavy kiddos every day.

She has to give up the day care.

And I am now where I naively hoped I'd never be -- desperately (and, so far, unsuccessfully) searching for someone new.

Before you have kids, you assume that the day care issue will be no big deal. At least I did.

I work with a lot of mothers, including many whom I deeply admire, and they've always made it seem so simple.

I knew only that they dropped their kids off every day, that they seemed calm and that their kids seemed happy and healthy.

What I didn't know was all they'd been through to achieve that appearance of calm, happy healthiness.

Once a working mom quiets the competing voices in her head -- the one that tells her a decent mom would stay home and the one that reminds her that her job is too perfect to give up -- she's just getting started.

Then there's the near impossible feat of finding a reliable, nearby day care without a six-month waiting list and that doesn't cost $200 a week.

The terrifying prospect of leaving her innocent, defenseless child with a stranger.

The inevitable sick days -- the day care provider's and the child's -- that leave her scrambling for backup.

And the inescapable reality that, with no warning, she might have to start the process all over again.

So far, I've done everything you're supposed to do when looking for day care. I've obtained the Child Care Association list, which is lean on options near my house.

I've asked every mom friend, all their friends and all their friends' friends for leads.

I've put Alexis on at least four waiting lists, some of which require hefty, nonrefundable deposits.

And, so far, all I've turned up is a promising-sounding day care center that might have an opening this summer, and a friend's former day care provider who will have an opening in April -- and who lives eight miles (and a whole lot of stoplights) in the opposite direction of The Eagle.

In several WichiTalk meetings, the staff has talked about doing a story on day care issues. We want to give working moms like me tips on how to find answers to these heart-wrenching questions.

So far, this is the first article we've published, and I'm learning why. There are no easy solutions.