Do you feel like we do?

Daycare.

For parents, few words elicit such strong feelings as this one. Every day, as maternity leaves end or family circumstances demand, moms and dads begin the long search for quality, affordable childcare. With a baby or young child to advocate for, dozens of questions arise.  What kind of daycare is it? How many hours of childcare do I need?  What’s the rate? How close is it to my work, or to my other child’s school?  Can I come by on my lunch hour to nurse? Is there an opening for my child that coincides with when my job begins? Is the daycare licensed? Clean? Well-recommended? Consistent? Religious? Secular?  What about staff turnover? Will I be charged a fee if I’m a few minutes late for pick-up?

Where I live, there’s a listserv where members can post questions and answers about any topic related to parenting. Childcare seems to come up more than any other subject. “Daycare needed…” the messages will read. Every time they pop up on my screen, my heart aches a little. When I had our first child, I called my friend C., a mother of two, to ask about vetting daycares. She offered several helpful suggestions. Then she added, “The first week your baby’s in daycare is hell. There’s just no getting around that.” When I see the childcare posts on the local parenting site, I still remember my friend’s piercing words. I toured numerous daycare centers when my daughter was an infant, from big ones to private ones in homes. I asked questions like, “what is your fire escape plan?” I’m an architect and that’s how I think.  A tour was routine to the childcare providers. But to me, it was like being poised on the edge of an abyss.

In my neighborhood there are several in-home daycares. When our friends up the street had their first child, they placed him in one of them. A couple of weeks later, I saw the wife and asked how it was working out. “We pulled him after a few days,” she said. “Really, why?” I replied. “I’ve got four words for you, Whitney,” she said, shaking her head. “Dog hair in stool.”

Because I live very close to this daycare, I see a little of what goes on there. I know there are three dogs that mill about with the five children. “You know,” my friend said, “we couldn’t figure out what was going on with James at first. But then we realized that somehow, he was swallowing a lot of dog hair.”

No one would have been able to say to my friend, as she reviewed daycare options, “Be sure to notice if there’s a lot of doghair. Because your newborn might ingest tons of it and produce furry stools.” My seasoned friend C. didn’t share that tip, nor did the authors of the “What to Expect…” books.  I’m sure my friend looked carefully at the neighborhood daycare as she toured it. But how much can you learn in a thirty-minute visit? And if there turns out to be a problem, many employers aren’t exactly sympathetic to your struggle to secure new childcare. (Which my friends did, happily.)

When my husband and I were looking to buy a house a few years ago, we developed a code word for nasty homes we’d see advertised in the real estate section. It was an acronym, really: IPTLOIS. It stands for “It puts the lotion on its skin.” This is our shorthand for a house so gross, it could belong to the serial killer from “Silence of the Lambs.” Now we have “DHIS” (dog hair in stool) for childcare centers that make us shudder. Fortunately, they are few and far-between. The vast majority of daycares in our community are established, quality facilities.

At the bank the other day, I met with a customer service representative who had a picture of her son on her wall. He looked to be about three, barely younger than my own son. In the photo, he was curled up asleep, wrapped in a blue blanket, and sucking his thumb.  I looked at the representative while she entered my information on her computer. I know God hears a lot of weird prayers, and that day he got mine: “Dear Lord, please for this nice family, NDHIS.”

{ 1 comment }