The Question of Childcare by Judy Lyden

Running a home is a lot like running a business. Sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's not. A basic business strategy is: be prepared. It's the same at home. Preparation does not come from behind, it's not catch up, it's not when and if I feel like it. Child care, and the premium word is "care," should come at the head of the line with someone who has a plan. It's the same at home as with a child care business.

A man wrote to me asking: If I buy a house and turn it into a childcare facility, how much will I make? I didn't clobber him. I didn't even respond. One doesn't "buy" a house to warehouse children in order to make money. It's immoral.

Beginning a child care business means clearly understanding the moral answer to the question: Do I have something to give unrelated children? If the answer is yes, then one proceeds one step at a time. You welcome children into your own house. You set up a childcare facility at your church. You find out if you really do have something to offer month after month. If so, then you take the next step and build a facility.

Giving your time, talent and treasure to children is only part of the job. There is the business of finances, just like in a home. It's not a part time job to be done on Saturday or every other Tuesday. It's a full time job. It's not a job that one does after the fact, or occasionally when the spirit moves one. It's a job one has an eye on all the time, every day, three times a day. Finances mean planning and planning again, and planning a third time, and it takes a consistency that is sometimes baffling because there is always more needing to go out than what comes in - just like at home. And just like at home, there is the business of charity and thoughtfulness because what comes around goes around.

There is the business of feeding children - just like at home. Food can't be bought after the fact or expectant plates will be empty. Food must be planned, purchased and presented as early as first thing Monday morning. It's not something to think about whenever, because Monday comes every week, and so does Tuesday, so for the person who is providing food to the public, it must be a constant in the back of the mind: Is there enough, how much do I need, what's on sale, will the children like this, is it good for them, how is it good for them, how can I cook this, can I serve this with... and the questions never cease. Food is expensive, and having the kind of food on hand that one can "just serve" will break a child care facility. It's the same at home. If you buy only "Johnny on the spot" food, your budget will break and your children will be poorly fed with premades, already cooked, and prepared. Cooking is an important part of feeding any child.

Cleaning is also a huge issue for both home and business. Cleaning takes time and it takes a plan as well. Who is going to do it, when and how and with what? Cleaning is done after the fact. Floors, walls, rugs, bathrooms, kitchens, counters and toys all have to be cleaned all the time. So for the helter skelter mind, or the guy who is going to "buy this house" it's never really under control.

Activities are the mainstay of a successful child care facility. Letting kids watch TV all day, or just play, is not childcare. Activities begin with teacher or provider planned activities. They should have continuity, a reason to be, and at the end of a couple of months, the adult should have an idea of what happened, who learned what and what the next step is. Emilio Regio says, "Let the child decide," but if uninstructed children decide, it will be chaos without an adult who can and will keep the lid on things.

A good provider will not do the same things every day. The plan will change, grow, and be inventive. The plan will evolve just the way children are evolving. Today we do science, tomorrow we do geography, then we will do something else, but every day we will do art, music, and at least one story, and those activities will all be joined by a magic thread. Takes a plan and someone open enough to foster the plan.

Planning activities takes more than a last minute coloring sheet. Children don't learn anything from a coloring sheet. A coloring sheet says, "I didn't take the time to plan, so I will just..." It puts the adult's interest ahead of the children. It's not good child care.

A child's life is important, and all the time a child wastes in early childhood is just that "wasted." Every minute is precious and every minute should be spent doing something of value. The value comes in the child's response, and that's why things like coloring sheets are a waste of time. The parameters of the page dictate the whole of the control. One's ideas are squeezed into a 11.5 x 8.5 piece of paper with what amounts to lines on it. Better to give children a big sheet of newspaper and a red crayon or a pair of scissors, because without lines, a child can invent the whole activity.

There should always be a larger plan for children in early childhood. Learning should be a path in the woods - lots of things to see, lots of things to hear, and lots of things to explore and discover. It's supposed to take time, and it's supposed to be fun. But that won't happen if a great deal of planning by the attending adult is not done, or he or she who is planning is bogged down with every other task. When they talk about a good ratio of child to adult, it includes all the extra work of childcare.

Organizing a day's worth of child care can be a huge job to people who are not familiar with kids or who don't really know what to do with a child. So when someone writes to me and says, "I'm going to buy what amounts to a kiddie warehouse and make money, now how do you do that?" I want to reach through my email and squeeze his pompous little neck till his head pops off!

Child care is a labor of love, it's a way of life, it's a whole world that is incredibly demanding, cost crazy, and neatly balanced on the teeter totter of joy and frustration. One never ever goes home from child care. It's a 24/7 job that requires all your time every day. People who are not willing to spend a great amount of time with it are either not successful, or they are not fully engaged. And the rewards - it is never money. It's something else.

Where else do you have your clients kissing you and telling you they love you? Where else can you wear flip flops and spend a paid day at the pool and your somewhat older and heavier body is never noticed? Where else can you sit down with two semi warm cups of milked tea and enter a very funny conversation about poop or bugs or an owie? Where else will you cry with both joy and sadness and in the next second laugh so hard it makes you pee... child care."

Now don't tell me about this house with a fast chaser question of money... that would be like a man proposing, "I want to marry you, now how much will you earn..." Yuck.