What really happens in daycare?

For three years during college and two years after college, I worked in the child care industry. Both of the places I worked were top of the line in their niche. I worked with 3-9 year olds with the first job and mainly with infants in the second job. My experiences in child care, mostly the second position, caused me to make the firm decision that my children would never go to center based childcare if I could help it.

Let me first state, that I enjoy working with children. I love watching them learn and develop, I love their optimism and the way they view the world. Child development, especially the first five years is very interesting to me, especially now that I am a mother myself. Watching this small boy, who I first saw as a ball of cells with a dangerous blood clot threatening his very survival, grow to birth and change daily since, it's absolutely magical at times. It's not been all sweetness and light, there have been snags and heartache but it doesn't stop me from marveling at him daily. Before I love my son, I loved other people's children. 

My first childcare job was an accident. I applied for a part time job in a place that had a childcare center that I did not know existed. Overall it was a pleasant experience, my supervisor was amazing, the job was union so there were limits in place, breaks and lunches were guaranteed, as was sick time. Sticking to ratios was not an option, it was mandatory and because it was a drop in place, we could limit the number of children to ensure we stuck to our ratios. It did expose me to some of the harsh realities of child care, such as not being able to take breaks, even bathroom breaks when they were needed, you had to wait for someone else. I learned quickly that I was going to constantly be ill no matter how many times I washed my hands, the older workers assured me it was completely normal to be constantly sick for your first year in childcare but that it would lessen in subsequent years. I learned that if I had to call of sick, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions, so I worked through various contagious illnesses and if a parent noticed (which was very rare) I was instructed to tell them it was my allergies. 

I transferred colleges and left the first job. I went into various retail positions for a while until I found a place at a museum, I thought I had landed my dream job. I was working in a museum which was right in line with my degree in history. I again worked a lot with children, doing museum orientation, interacting with the kids on the floor, and helping out with the museum education program. Towards the end of my degree a curatorial position became open, I did the interviews, I was told that if I graduated that quarter, the job was mine. Unfortunately, I graduated right before 9/11 and that became a time of horrid budget cuts for the museum. Layoff after layoff happened, my potential job was frozen, it still is frozen all these years later. Economic necessity forced me to look for a new job in what was the beginning of this recession. 

I was offered a position in the premier childcare facility in the city, they paid more and had better benefits than any other center. The center was brand new and a showpiece for the company that had it incorporated into its brand new campus. The center only hired people with 4 year degrees. I was to be an infant teacher. It sounded wonderful, it really did. The company that the center served offered its employees 12 weeks of paid maternity leave and then 8 weeks of free childcare in the on site center. Additionally, every child of every employee was entitled to 20 free days of child care a year in our center. I was starting at $10 an hour, which was a substantial raise for me. It seemed too good to be true. It was.

The idea of having 12 infants in one room didn't seem that daunting at first. There were to be 3-4 teacher in the room at all times, so that made the ratio 1 teacher per 3 infants. Seems easy enough compared to the state ratios that most centers follow. In the State of Ohio, if there is one teacher in the room, there can be five infants, if there are two teachers, they can care for twelve infants. Let me say that again, twelve infants. For two teachers. They let me know right away that our ratios were much better than the average daycare center and it just didn't seem that bad to me. 

Fast forward about six months. I have now learned that the quiet babies get ignored. It's just a fact of daycare life. The noisy, fussy, and needy babies get most of the attention all day long and no matter how much you wish to spend equal time with each child, you just can't. Everyone has to be fed, everyone has to be changed. That alone takes up a good chunk of every day. I constantly felt guilty about not having enough time with the babies in my care.

I took a course in communicable disease that is required by the state of Ohio and our instructor told us that if we followed all the sanitation rules when changing the child, including leaving the bleach water on the table long enough for it to actually kill germs that in an 8 hour day we wouldn't even have enough time to change all the children. They know we have to cut corners, even at the state level they know, and no one cares. We propped bottles when we could, more often than not, we were feeding one or two children and bouncing another at our feet in a bouncy chair. If a child came in that required constant one on one care, which was quite regular, it took a caregiver out of the rest of the work, thus making the rest of the team take care of more babies. 

So how did these ratios affect the staff? We were constantly exhausted. We were supposed to have an hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks a day. If we had to use the bathroom or otherwise leave the room for a moment, it was a major production that required shuffling all over the center. You learn quickly to hold it and hope you get your breaks. The rest of the staff consisted of veteran workers, most of whom had degrees in Early Childhood development. They were jaded by the industry and felt stuck, they felt overworked and underpaid, which honestly, they were. Our health insurance was expensive, and the job we did was both mentally and physically demanding. And ours was the best. 

In my time there, I often heard my coworkers make fun of the babies and their parents. Yes, make fun of babies, as in saying, "This one is a PITA (pain in the ass.)" or poke fun at the way the child looked. Not all of us did this, but of the six people who worked in the infant room during my time there, half of them did. We were connected to the toddler room and I heard similar out of that room.  There were many many comments made about the parents, and I have to admit that there were times that I engaged in this. It is very difficult to stop a child from biting other babies all day long and at the end of the day have the parent tell you that their child doesn't bite. 

Were there improprieties? Yes, sadly. The first head teacher of the room in which I worked was fired for smacking an infant, the child was her own daughter but corporal punishment is not allowed in child care, someone just walking by would have no way of knowing that the child she was smacking was her own. This woman held a degree in Early Childhood Development and had years of center experience. She was fired from the job in our center and promptly hired to direct another center in the city. One day I was changing the diaper of a 17 month old baby. She was bleeding vaginally and looked very swollen, almost torn. There aren't very many logical reasons that a 17 month old baby would be bleeding vaginally. While I was changing her diaper, her mother came down acting odd. She said she had hoped to get there before I changed her diaper as the child had an 'infection'. I've seen bleeding diaper rashes, I have seen infected diaper rashes and infant yeast infections, this was a copious amount of blood, it soaked into the diaper, it wasn't just a smear or two. I immediately alerted my center director because I intended to call Children's Services and report my suspicions. The director took the side of the mother and told me not to worry about it. I stared at her in horror. She suggested if it was still bothering me that I could call the mother and talk to her, perhaps find out what the doctor said but the director did not want the police showing up at her center. I swallowed, nodded at her, then walked back to the break room and called Children's Services. Then I vomited. I spent my entire lunch that day crying me eyes out and on the phone to my fiance trying to decide if I could even go back to that place. In the end, economic necessity won.

A flood destroyed our home, necessitating a move. We moved back to where our families were, two hours north of where we had lived previously. I applied for all sorts of jobs, the economy was Bush II so jobs were scarce. Two childcare centers interviewed me and offered me positions. Because of my experience and four year degree, they offered me a bit more in pay, one place offered me a nickel above minimum wage and the other center offered me a dime. A dime above minimum wage to raise other people's children.

This is what you pay for when you pay your daycare fees. Those who work in early childhood know that they are not going to get rich in this field. That's not what attracts them, they are, for the most part, bright, intelligent, good women (there are so few men in the field) who love children. Their reward is very little for the very hard work they do. 

Customer Dis-Service: Why do we have to take it?

Earlier today I said, "I wish that once, just once, I could call a place and not have to jump through twenty five minutes of computer menu just to talk to a person. Or better yet, go and see a person to get my problem handled immediately." Crazy, isn't it?

In our fast paced, profit driven world, it's hard to find a company that allows you to speak with an actual person without jumping through a series of hoops designed (in my opinion) to frustrate you until you hang up deciding that your issue isn't dire enough for the hassle. But what do you do when you have no choice? When the issue is with your bank card or your utilities?

Well, you have to call. You have to jump through the menu hoops. You have to speak with the customer service representative. You have to repeat all of the information you submitted in the menu hoops to the customer service representative plus whatever additional information they desire. You have to pray to all you hold dear that the person speaks a dialect of English that you understand. You have to pray that they have the listening and comprehension skills to deal efficiently with your problem. You have to hope they are having a good day, are not over worked and are adequately paid so that they do not resent your very call from the minute it clicks on their headset. That's a lot of hoping, I know. And you pay for this hope.

Sadly, you are usually rewarded with one of the aforementioned hopes falling so far off the charts that it takes everything you have not to hang up on the call. What kind of service is this exactly? Who is this serving?

Today I noted an unfamiliar pending transaction on my debit card account. I called the customer service number immediately. I explained that I did not know of the charge, answered all the requisite questions, including whether or not this was a child support account. The CSR went through asking me, "Are you sure no one had access to the account." Yes. "Are you sure your husband did not make the charge?" Hi, it's a child support account, therefore I do not have a husband. "Are you sure your boyfriend did not make the charge?" Uh, yes, nosy bitch. "Are you sure that no one you know made the charge?" ...yes. "Are you sure that you were not in Miami on the day the charge was made?" Um, on Thanksgiving? I am pretty sure I was in Ohio which is nowhere near Miami.

After being grilled as to whether the charge was *really* a charge I did not make, she went into crimestoppers mode, I guess. She informed me that she could see that the company was out of Miami, Florida and that the transaction was an internet transaction. "Have you made any internet purchases recently that you may have forgotten about?" Now, this lady has in front of her, my entire financial history from this month and all proceeding months. A quick scan would show her that I do not have enough money to go making purchases that I forget about. I know, asking for logic is just going too far.

"Well since a fraudulent purchases has been attempted on this account, we are going to have to cancel your card." Wait, a minute, hold the phones, I only have one way to access this account and my money, this card. I attempt to explain this to her and she repeats that my account has been compromised and that she has to cancel the card. I explain that I will not be able to get gas or groceries or take my child to doctor appointments without this card. She says the card should arrive in 5-10 business days. Do these people never jump off the script to think about what they are saying? 5-10 business days could take 2-3 weeks in real time. How many people do you know that could survive for 2-3 weeks without access to their money? I ask her this. Her suggestion? Borrow money from my family. She must have worked for the Romney campaign. If only it were that simple.

I'm getting upset by this point, I ask for a supervisor. She ignores the request and says that she can offer me expedited service that will cost me $18.  I ask how this is benefiting me and again ask for a supervisor. She says, "How do you want your card mailed, regular, or expedited?" I ask for a supervisor. She continues to badger me with this phrase no matter what I say until which point I am in tears and shaking and tell her I do not want to hear another syllable out of her mouth, I demand a supervisor. She puts me on hold...for forty-five minutes. And then hangs up.

I proceed to have an anxiety attack.

Trying to calm myself and listen to my partner who continuously tells me to call them back, I try to call back. Computer hoops. I put in my card number and the computer tells me that card is no longer active. Beautiful. I start crying harder. I put in a series of other personal things until it asks for my pin, when I put in my pin, I am told that pin belongs to a card that is no longer active and the menu restarts. Somehow I managed to get through it again and talk to a Customer Service Representative who at least showed some emotion, when I explained what happened, I heard her intake of breath. She said she would get a supervisor and if it took more than a few minutes, she would come back to me and tell me. She comes back to tell me that my card had indeed been cancelled and the call had been escalated to a supervisor the last time which is likely when it hung up. She told me she was transferring me to that department and I should immediately ask for a supervisor when someone picked up.

Hold music again. Being eaten by anxiety and overwhelmed, I handed the phone off to my partner while I broke down crying. When someone got on the line my partner explained what was wrong and tried to handle the situation for me. He was told by that CSR that he did not care what was wrong with me if I did not get on the phone immediately that he was disconnecting the call. So I took the phone.

This guy wasn't any better. He kept saying that this was no one's fault and that I just had to take the expedited ship because that was the best way to handle this situation to everyone's benefit. I asked how exactly this benefited me and he said, "Well you will get access to your funds." Oh, I didn't know that was a privilege now. It's child support to which I am entitled. And for this benefit, I would be paying $18 for shipping, but he would waive their $5 processing fee. Awesome. In the end, I was beaten, I have to be able to buy groceries and gas.

At some point in the conversation, I asked if I could ensure that the first CSR was disciplined for her disservice. The answer? "We have no way of knowing who that was or what center she was out of." And there in lies our problem.

There is no accountability. That person who is handling your sensitive information and treating you like dirt for calling in about services for which you pay, they can do as they wish. Sure some call centers have tracking information and IDs which are supposed to be given to the customer but more times than not, they are neglected or ignored. I have found that more and more frequently. No one knows with whom you spoke or how to find that person.

But what recourse do we have? Right now I am feeling pretty powerless. The State of Ohio chose this program, if I do not have a personal checking account, which I do not as I am recently divorced and still trying to handle such things, then I default into this card program. I can deal with banks--my last bank has twice been sued and settled lawsuits for fraudulently charging customers--or I can deal with them. Any way I go, I am at a disservice.