the prospect of my staying home with The Manatee! has never been an option for us. I think it comes down to the fact that we love our Dish Network DVR’s too much to forego the monthly expense. but, because we are responsible parents-to-be and believe dropping The Manatee! off at the local homeless mission would be an awful way to get a head start on life, I have been scouring the city looking for a decent and reputable child care facility. and oh my good christ in heaven there are so many options! in-home, national chain, in-church, family providers, state funded, privately funded: take your pick. with each option comes different levels of care: ratios of teachers to infants can range from 1:3 or 1:5. and while on paper those ratios only differ in 2 children, those are the 2 children who could be taking the teacher’s attention from YOUR child.
kev and I were both raised in child care. I adored my nursery school teachers and if they weren’t all deceased I would probably send them Christmas cards. when I asked my mother how she came to choose the child care facility that she did I expected some heart-wrenching tale about how she desperately wanted to stay home with me and spent months and months of research looking for that perfect place to help raise her daughter. sadly, it was not the Hallmark movie-of-the-week story I had envisioned. it was more of a “we’ve got to put this child SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE” kind of decision. in fact, the place they had originally chosen closed down suddenly forcing my mother to throw darts at the yellow pages. thankfully the school she found had thoughtful, well educated people running the joint, as you can witness from my ever expanding vocabulary of synonyms for “poop”.
one afternoon kev and I had made an appointment to meet a child care provider near our home. the woman sounded gracious and articulate on the phone. because I had made the appointment while driving home one afternoon I failed to ask any pertinent questions such as how long have you been caring for children, are you sanctioned or monitored by any governmental agencies, will I get need to dodge gunfire coming to and from your location? I was appalled when we reached the facility. it was a house in the worst possible neighborhood of Birmingham. a liquor store was directly across the street with 3 very ragged looking men drinking out of paper sacks. I believe my words to kev were “not only no, but hell no”. we promptly turned around and drove away, dust trailing behind us.
feeling defeated we decided to stop at a local church I had interviewed via phone, to see if we could at least meet the director. when we walked in there was an overwhelming fragrance of baby shit and lysol. the only person in the vicinity was a 400 pound woman sitting in a chair with her eyes glued to a television set while two children sat in high chairs with nothing to occupy them. she informed us the director was at lunch but someone would walk us through the facility. a few minutes later a petite woman with four teeth in her head appeared and swept us through the halls, stopping only momentarily to point out what age groups occupied what rooms. I noticed that in every single room a television was on some trashy talk show or soap opera. in one room specifically, the lights were off, the teacher was sitting in a chair and was telling four children who were huddled under a window sill to “shut up”. I wanted to run as fast as I could to get out of there. I fought back the urge to cry at the prospect that those children were stuck there. did their parents know what they left their children to every day? surely not.
several weeks went by and our search for a nursery to care for The Manatee! was proving fruitless. I was becoming frantic and kev and I discussed at length the option of my staying home with the baby. no one would not provide the kind of care that I could, then again we would be hopelessly broke at all times. it was during one particularly emotional “oh my dear shit what shall we ever dooooo!?” that I received an email from a friend of mine stating to calm the fuck down and call Preschool A (totally not the real name. do you think I would be crazy enough to tell you where I am going to put my child?). so I did. and we set up an interview! and they were awesome! and polite! and oh my god, they are so clean they make you put on hospital booties before you even enter the infant room! there was not a television in sight and all of the babies were either having “tummy time”, being rocked by a swing or by a teacher and there was a musical cd playing quiet lullabies in the background. when we walked out a sense of calm washed over me. this was it.
of course nothing will ever take the place of the care I could provide at home, but atleast I felt we were putting our baby into very capable and caring hands. hands that would foster playfulness and verbal skills and love. and hopefully a vocabulary that does not include twelve synonyms for “poop”.
