After returning from Japan and still not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I took up some casual work in childcare.
I worked primarily at a couple of very good quality centres in an affluent suburb in Sydney. The staff were amazing, the centres were clean, activities well organised. They served nutritious AND delicious freshly cooked meals, which were really so good I promptly stopped bringing my own lunch so I could eat with the kids. I imagine the waiting lists for these places went on for years. I can't imagine childcare centres could get any better.
And yet, working there with the babies and children under 2 years old I witnessed modern life's most miserable (supposed) progression: Babies of breastfeeding age separated from their, let's be honest, mums.
While the very best childcare centres endevour to provide a warm, engaging, happy and caring place for babies, it is simply not right. The most well-adjusted babies seemed disengaged with their actual carers, not overly fussed who bottle fed them their formula or changed their nappy, not completely interested in the book being read to them or which toy to crawl after.
The least well-adjusted babies were simply broken hearted, crying constantly and needing the attention of a single carer with whom they trusted the most, a surrogate mum.
When I look at my 6 month old baby girl and see her eyes light up when I enter the room , her smile bursting from her face, her arms reaching out to me when she wakes. When i hear her delighted giggle. When I watch her fall asleep in my arms, deeply content after a big feed from my breasts... I feel ill at the mere thought of leaving her in the company of strangers.
I cannot imagine handing her over and walking away. She's just a baby and she couldn't possibly understand. It would break her heart for me to suddenly abandon her, and yet...
People do abandon their babies to childcare at such a young age. Even 2 year olds don't understand. I know this because I've seen it first hand, and I have children of my own now who I could never abandon.
Sometimes I honestly wonder why some people have children.
Disclaimer: we've lived on the borderline poverty line for years, so I know all about not being able to afford things. But I made a choice to have children and I'm going to see it through.
3 comments:
This post is interesting timing because I've been toying with the idea of writing a post about why child care has been so good for Maya. :) I just haven't had the time.
I agree that I don't like the idea of very young children in child care and I waited till she was 16 months before I put her into child care. And yes it was extremely tough to leave her.
It wasn't for financial reasons that I went back but for career/personal reasons, which I guess you could call selfish, but it's hard to work many years establishing a career then step out and lose all of that hard work.
Anyway, I felt that child care was my only option even though I would have loved my mother to take care of her. It broke my heart to put her in there and I worried constantly at first that I had done the wrong thing for her. But I can now see all the benefits from her being in child care.
Also those child cares don't sound very good that you worked at if kids were crying all day long and miserable. The carers where Maya goes are extremely loving and caring towards all the kids. Her care centre feels like a second home rather than a centre. There are less kids than at other centres and better ratios of staff to kids. They spend a lot of time integrating each child into the centre, setting them up with whichever carer they most respond to, to spend quality one on one time with them until they are more settled and happy to spend time with other children and on their own. And other children make the new children feel really welcome there too.
I saw other child care centres that I would never ever put a child in! And honestly if there wasn't a centre like the one I found, I wouldn't have gone back to work.
We all weigh up the pros and cons to make our choices, but parents don't necessarily know the truth about babies and childcare.
The main centre I worked at was excellent and every care was taken to meet the needs of every child. It was at that centre there was one baby who could only be held by one carer she had chosen like a surrogate mother. That baby received plenty of individual attention from her chosen carer, but was truly unhappy and just wanted her mother.
One evening at that same centre I held an inconsolable baby in my arms for hours. I took her to a quiet, dimly lit corner and rocked her, sang to her, held her gently, read her stories, fed her milk, changed her nappy. Eventually she fell asleep in my arms. When her parents finally arrived they cooed over how sweet and angelic she was. I smiled and handed her over carefully not to wake her. I didn't tell them she had been crying for hours. They probably would have blamed me.
I witnessed a lot of sadness and detachment in babies in childcare. One little boy was so quiet a casual observer might assume he was perfectly content, but he was so quiet he didn't even make a squeak when he cried his silent tears. He may have been deaf but my attempts to uncover his situation went nowhere, it's not the business of childcare to meddle.
The simple fact is, babies need their parents. They don't need a strange-smelling lady singing and rocking them until they fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion.
Yes I agree babies need to be with their mothers and I said that in my comment. :) That's why I wouldn't put a baby in child care & like you I can't fathom why someone would put their baby in child care. I can't get over the fact that some parents will put their babies in child care the minute their baby is 6 weeks old, which is when a centre will first accept a child.
A toddler on the other hand can really benefit from child care. Maya loves it there and looks forward to going. She has gained so much from child care, including skills I would not have thought possible from a toddler and would not have thought to try and teach her yet. The centre were Maya goes does not take children under one, so no babies there, which is one of the things that really appealed to me and I know of other centres that do this.
The other thing you need to remember is that there is no support for mothers in Australia. In tribal communities you would have a lot of help, support and company from other mothers, sisters, aunts, etc. It should not be a mother's sole responsibility to raise children but a community effort and unfortunately we just don't have a society set up which allows other family members to be involved. I truly would prefer this model, but it's just not feasibly possible. Child care then is the alternative to this support for mothers and it can be beneficial for children too given the right environment.
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