Can't get your child into daycare?

Why do you want to get your child into daycare?

Apparently one of the main reasons for putting your child into daycare is so you can go back to work. 

"I need to go back to work. We need the money." I am wondering how often I have heard that excuse.

Yes, it is an excuse. Sending your child to be looked after by other people because you "need" to go back to work is something that "needs" to be looked at more closely.

There is one mother in this street who did not go back to work at all. Her twin daughters went to a local day care centre for several hours a week. They went so that they could meet other children, join in the activities and develop some skills. She used the time they were there to do the major weekly shop and get some housework done. It was hard work but it gave her time to do other things with the two girls. D... did it that way out of a conviction that, while the girls were not old enough to go to school, the best place for them was at home and learning.

Not all parents can do that. Not all parents want to do that. The argument though that both parents need to go to work because they "need the money" is something else.  Yes, I do know there are families who are genuinely struggling financially.  What worries me is that some of them have not really thought about the cost of both parents going back to work when they really don't need to.

If you are not in a profession with a career structure and you don't need to maintain your professional qualifications you might well be in a role where you are not earning a lot anyway. Sending your child to daycare is an expensive business. Is the cost of sending your child there, often five days a week, so high that you end up "earning" very little? There will be very little after you have paid for the associated costs of going to work. All too often there is the second car - the "old banger" which costs more to run that it at first seems. There are other expenses too. Not everyone has "Granny" to rely when then child is sick either.

I think we need to think more about the actual economics of daycare. We tend to say and think it is a good thing. It is said to be the "right" thing to do. 

All the children in the street have been to daycare, preschool, kindergarten and a combination of these things. Only two of them went full time. It is those two children who do not mix with the other children in the street. They are never outside playing the way the others are. I know there are multiple reasons for this but they are also the children who seem the least able to entertain themselves. I have talked to their parents. I know what they do in their limited free time at home. They are both intelligent children but they are not as able to hold a conversation with an adult. I know that too because all the other children in the street will stop and tell me things. If I ask them something they can answer and keep the conversation going. 

I am wondering if the other two are so used to being told what to do and even what to think they simply cannot do these things. They have, so far, spent their lives being controlled by adults. The other children all have at least some freedom to work things out for themselves.

When it stopped raining yesterday there was a knocking on the front door. I opened it up to four young faces. Could they use our driveway (which slopes gently downwards) to try doing "u-turns" on their scooters and skateboards? 

"Go for it!" I told them. They were off, up and down the street and into this driveway and one belonging to their families. There were shouts and laughter and, when one of them fell, concern. She was picked up and scrutinised and then put back on her scooter. They were off again. One of the fathers was watching from across the street. He wandered over to me and we watched together.

"Isn't it great? This is the best time of day," he told me. I couldn't agree more.