Loving daycare, or rather, not hating it quite as much

 

Truth is, I not only want to do paid work, I need to do paid work – but as strong as that conviction is for me, I’ve had difficulty finding personal peace with the external care that is consequently required for our daughter. Such care commenced when I returned to work on a part-time basis, the day after Lauca turned one. In hindsight it might have been six months too early for us, although I don’t think the transition would ever have been a happy one for Lauca and by that time on only one income we were starting to live a little too uncomfortably off credit anyway. She is never going to be the child who asks for more time at daycare, but I can’t even hold grudges with daycare, because sometimes she wasn’t even that fussed on spending the day with a devoted grandmother. It is certainly in Lauca’s personality but maybe it is also in her genetics. Reportedly neither her father nor I were that keen on separating from our mothers to start kindergarten. 

We’ve been through some rough times getting Lauca adjusted to external care. But I’m happy to say that Lauca now ranges from ‘quite happy’ all the way through to ‘very pleased’ on her days with her grandmothers  And, she has also finally adjusted to daycare, though it remains an appointment she resists. You might remember that we got off to a rocky start with daycare.. and eventually made some progress, only to slide frustratingly backwards to a very rocky middle. Now a year into daycare and almost two years into external care generally I feel that we’ve finally reached full adjustment.

In the interests of completing the story of adjustment, and particularly for any future readers who find their way here by Googling “the hell of daycare troubles”, I bring you my top ten highlights of alternative care. (If you’re the parent who is going through hell right now settling your distraught child into alternative care, well you can cry on my shoulder any time, and I hope this helps because truly, there is light at the end of the tunnel).

1. At the end of last year Lauca surprised us with a hand-made Christmas card (including a photo of her at daycare). There is something very nice about receiving a genuine surprise from your child. You know what I mean by genuine surprise? The opposite of the surprise you feign when she blurts out a week before Fathers’ Day the present we bought you, or the birthday card you can hear her constructing in the next room. 

2. I am continually pleased to see the range of skills, activities, interests and knowledge Lauca is exposed to by her carers. These are skills and interests I don’t or probably more accurately, can’t provide. My mother (pictured above with Lauca) was one of those creative stay-at-home mothers, and apparently one of the few benefits she experienced from her qualifications as an artist after abandoning her career to raise three children and follow my father around the world was the ability to accomplish wonderful craft projects with us. Now she and Lauca create and decorate musical instruments, they fold origami animals, they construct diorama farms, and they build herb beds together. I kid myself sometimes but really these are all things I’d never get around to doing in a million years of being a stay-at-home mother. Ditto to her other grandmother who bakes with her on the days she has Lauca and takes her to visit her great-grandmother. And come to think of it, daycare ran painting and collage activities with Lauca long before I got my act together at home with this. 

3. I see other people’s visions for my daughter, and it’s touching. She comes home with her hair styled by the daycarers or in clothes her grandmothers have bought for her. These people talk about Lauca’s future and what it might hold. They offer their ideas to me on who Lauca is and who she will become. Sometimes I disagree, sometimes I nod heartily with “I know, I know, she is so funny when she does that isn’t she”, and sometimes I reel back in surprise for what they have told me is a revealing insight, something I didn’t already know about Lauca. I’ve realised that other people not only have an interest in my daughter, but that they invest far more personally in her because of their autonomous involvement with her. And lets face it, everyone, including Lauca will need a large support base to get through life – that means more than just your parents and I like knowing that this is developing for Lauca, even now.  

4. Lauca is influenced by others. I enjoy knowing that her frame of reference is greater than mine alone, and that she is learning from others. Right now those things she is learning are simple, for instance she will only wear her leggings with the bottoms pushed up to just below her knees after seeing her favourite daycare teacher wearing them that way. But one day I seriously won’t have a clue about youthful fashion and she will need someone else apart from me to show her how to wear those leggings – and for the record I think they look uncomfortable pushed up like that. Sometimes Lauca tells me things I didn’t know, like that “the wind can be annoying because it makes a big mess”. She knows this from her grandmother, but what other more significant understandings of life will she come to know through listening to her grandmothers? Lauca also sings songs I can’t remember the lyrics to and insists upon foods being prepared particular ways because she’s learnt these things from her grandmothers .. and I stop and see that in short, she is a combined work of art.

5. She has her own unique relationships with people, relationships outside my own, and outside my direct influence, and I love seeing her grow in this way. At this age most of her world overlaps with mine but increasingly she has her own private world, with its own experiences. It used to hurt me but now I can really enjoy hearing about a day she’s spent away from me – with her own events and stories to tell, her own interpretations and perceptions. And I love the ritual we share after a day apart of telling one another about our day’s events. I also like seeing for myself that I can let my child go when she needs space, that I’m not afraid of her independence, of not being her ‘only’. This exposure to external care allows us both to safely test the waters of seperation before we do it for real.   

6. Her father and I have a tendency to indulge her as an only child, to parent her intensely. For the most part I enjoy being able to do this but I also like the idea that she is learning to compromise, to wait her turn, to not always be the centre of attention by being at daycare. Little by little she’s learning tolerance and flexibility.

7. Her grandmothers and daycare providers having Lauca only one day a week each means that they’re fresh and energetic for her, brimming with patience and enthusiasm for the day.

8. As we always guessed, daycare appears to be getting easier for Lauca as she gets older. It is not just her growing familiarity and maturity, as she gets older she is also getting more social and daycare is providing her with invaluable opportunities to play with other children. The joy of playing with children all day now has her rowdy and chattering when I come to pick her up, instead of exhausted and withdrawn. I hope eventually that her friendships with children at daycare provide her with an even deeper sense of ease there. 

9. One word – boredom. Spending almost half her week outside the home in external care means that she doesn’t easily get bored with her toys here. Lauca’s rediscovery of her own house each week means more  enjoyable time together and even sizeable quantities of time to myself.

10. People told me this would happen and I have to admit to seriously doubting it when it seemed for a long time to be doing the exact opposite, but eventually external care arrangements (including daycare) helped Lauca to overcome some of her shyness around new people. Like, is that you kid, allowing those women who aren’t even blood relatives to hold your hands on this trek while Mummy and Daddy are busy keeping themselves and their packs upright?