An Ideal Situation

Earlier this week, it was my duty to deliver a somewhat unpleasant message. The recipient: my boys’ daycare center. The message: you’re fired.

Having our boys in daycare while my wife and I spend our days at our respective jobs is not our ideal situation, but it is our reality and we do the best we can with it. Or at least we strive to. And as of late, it has become abundantly clear that we were not doing the best we could in terms of our choice of the boys’ care during the day while we’re at work trying to earn a living so that we can make ends meet with our budget, a significant portion of which is devoted to paying for daycare, which we need to send our boys to during the day while we’re at work trying to earn a living so that we can make ends meet with our budget, a significant portion of which is devoted to daycare -- you can see how this gets frustrating real quick. Believe me, we’ve been through it.

But yes, the daycare. It had its failings, some slight, others more alarming. Some we could ignore, others we could let go by as one-time failings, the actions of a rogue employee or some such. Some we complained about and received assurances that it would not happen again. Others seemed to be just the way things were. “No place is perfect,” we told ourselves. “There will be problems where ever we send them.” This got to be like a mantra.

Of course, on the other side of that coin were all the reasons to stay. It was the only daycare center that the boys had ever looked forward to going to in the mornings. Our eldest had friends there. And the teachers, most of them anyway, genuinely seemed interested in the kids as individuals. Plus it’s close to our house. Plus, and here’s the part where we get really honest folks, there was the cost. Oh yes, cost played a part in our decision to leave our children in a place that my wife and I both had misgivings about. If you’re aghast at this, see the above section regarding ideal situations and making ends meet.

Finally though, it got to be too much. Ideal or not, my wife and I came to the agreement that we could do better with this situation of ours, and that we owed it to our boys to find a way to do so. We found another place. It’s farther from our house and a fair piece more expensive, but it’s got so much more to offer it’s almost ridiculous. It’s sad that opportunities like this are only available to those that can manage to fork over the dough, but that’s a rant for another post. Or for the comments section, feel free to unload.

As I drove to the daycare to pick up the boys and deliver the message, I felt a bit apprehensive. I had an envelope in my pocket containing a brief letter stating our intentions. I would hand it to the director and I would tell her, in brief, what it said. The letter did not spell out any reasons for our decision to withdraw, but if asked, I was determined I wasn’t going to lie. Of course, this didn’t stop my brain from trying to dream up all sorts of pleasant excuses, but again and again, I reigned it in.

“No, Brain!” I told it. “We’re not doing the excuse thing!”

“Fine, whatever. Ooh, what if we tell them--”

“No!”

“Fine. Be honest. See if I care.”

As I pulled into the center’s driveway, I reminded myself that these are our kids we’re talking about, and that our agreement with this place is a business transaction which either of us are free to bring to a close at any time. Except that it comes to be more than that when you’re paying someone to care for your kids. There’s trust involved, trust that they will not only keep your kids alive during the day while you’re gone, but that they’ll actually care for them. And I think they did.

In the end, they didn’t ask for any reasons, so I didn’t have to give any. In just under two weeks, our boys will start at a new daycare. Eldest is ready to go now. Last night, he asked when he was going to start at his new school, and he observed, with a note of alarm in his voice, “my old school just keeps getting older and older!” Indeed it does, son.