by Leah
For all our British readers: daycare is day-long childcare outside the home for infants whose parent(s) work full time. I think the equivalent is nursery?
Last week was Little Bit's first week of daycare, a big rite of passage for American families. Moms and dads going back to work outside the home swap tales of tearful meltdowns in the car as they drive away from the childcare center, then reassure each other that they aren't bad parents for leaving their kids in someone else's hands for 8-10 hours a day.*
But for whatever reason, it wasn't nearly as hard on me as I'd been prepared to expect. I'm sure it helps that Little Bit is just a few flights of stairs away in the daycare located in the basement of the church where I work; I go down once or twice a day to drop off milk and can love on her whenever I want. But even so, the days I've been too busy to see her haven't broken my heart.
I attribute this in part to
For all our British readers: daycare is day-long childcare outside the home for infants whose parent(s) work full time. I think the equivalent is nursery?
Last week was Little Bit's first week of daycare, a big rite of passage for American families. Moms and dads going back to work outside the home swap tales of tearful meltdowns in the car as they drive away from the childcare center, then reassure each other that they aren't bad parents for leaving their kids in someone else's hands for 8-10 hours a day.*
But for whatever reason, it wasn't nearly as hard on me as I'd been prepared to expect. I'm sure it helps that Little Bit is just a few flights of stairs away in the daycare located in the basement of the church where I work; I go down once or twice a day to drop off milk and can love on her whenever I want. But even so, the days I've been too busy to see her haven't broken my heart.
I attribute this in part to
the narrative in my head, influenced by Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé**, that daycare can be a vital part of a child's, even an infant's, emotional, physical, and social development. Daycare can be where babies learn to trust other adults besides their parents; figure out the ins and outs of interacting with their peers; and, let's face it, get more cognitive stimulation than I am prepared to offer my child for 8 hours straight. I can only read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" so many times before I need a glass of wine, which doesn't fly so much at 9am.
But Miss Lynn and Miss Mel, the women who take care of Little Bit during the day? They are pros. They've got a whole repertoire of baby-stimulation techniques down that I can't even touch. (Although it is nice to know that I'm the one who makes Little Bit's face light up at the end of the day.)
And the kids in Little Bit's class? They are fascinating to her, the littlest--she so clearly pays attention to what they're doing and one day soon she'll be mimicking their every move. At home, Little Bit just has the cat to copy, and we can all imagine how that would turn out:
"Aghh, don't eat the grass outside and then throw up on the carpet, Little Bit!!!"
or
"Little Bit, we have visitors, please come out of your hidey hole in the closet to say hello."
or:
"Quick licking yourself, Little Bit, you're going to get a hairball!"
But it did occur to me this week that dropping your child off to full-time care is a little bit like Jochebed, the mother of Moses, putting her baby boy in a basket and setting him down amidst the Nile reeds, trusting him entirely to God's care in a world that was out to do him harm. (See the lectionary*** readings for Sunday after next for more.)
Let me be clear--I don't envision my first-world community as a scary, threat-filled place where my child's well-being is in danger at every turn. God knows that reality is all too palpable in places like Honduras or Israel/Palestine, and I am not under any first-world illusions that catching a cold from a daycare playmate will endanger my child in a similar way.
Skipping over the crocodile-filled Nile and the infanticide of the Hebrew baby boys, though--the anxiety of handing your child over to someone else to care for him or her rings true to me. There is trust in putting your child in that basket; there is surrender; there is hope.
- - -
But really, the true comparison here isn't with me sending my kid off to (licensed, pricey, right-down-stairs) daycare. It's with the parents in Central America sending their children to the US border to keep them safe from horrific violence. That requires true trust in God, true surrender, true hope against hope.
A coworker asked me the other week, "What would have to happen for you to send your child off on a journey thousands of miles long, alone, with just a note pinned to their t-shirt?" That about summed it up for me--namely, that I can't even imagine something so bad. And if it's that bad, I sure as hell want something better for those children until the Angel of Death has passed over their communities (sorry, conflating my Exodus stories here). In fact, send one to my house! My Spanish is mediocre at best, but we have a cute baby to distract from the awfulness of being separated from home and loved ones, and I hear cats (even misbehaving ones) make good therapy animals when you've witnessed horrific violence.
Not to make light of tragic circumstances--or how incredibly difficult it can be to foster kids who have been traumatized--but seriously, our very own Jesus was once a refugee fleeing a massacre of the innocent. As an adult, Jesus goes on to remind us that the heart of Christian life lies in treating those in dire circumstances as we'd treat Jesus. As it happens, I can't imagine a more exact parallel to these children's plight than Jesus crossing the border into Egypt to escape Herod's death squads.
In short, I think we need to Matthew 25 it up on those kids.
'Nuff said.
*American parents love telling each other why they are bad parents, then engaging in a mutual reassurance session. It's practically a national sport.
**A look into French parenting, including the crèche, a public daycare funded by the government, staffed by college- or master's-level pros, and serving gourmet meals to kids. Don't get me started...
***The lectionary is a three-year cycle of Bible readings followed (in one form or another) by the Roman Catholic church and many mainline Protestant churches. It helps congregations cover a wide variety of biblical texts and gives a rhythm to the church year. Plus it makes you preach on stuff you'd rather not address, like texts about murder, genocide, Jesus' "harsh" teachings, etc. As a wise preacher friend once said, better to talk about it in church than let it fester silently in people's hearts, undermining faith and causing undue spiritual harm.
But Miss Lynn and Miss Mel, the women who take care of Little Bit during the day? They are pros. They've got a whole repertoire of baby-stimulation techniques down that I can't even touch. (Although it is nice to know that I'm the one who makes Little Bit's face light up at the end of the day.)
And the kids in Little Bit's class? They are fascinating to her, the littlest--she so clearly pays attention to what they're doing and one day soon she'll be mimicking their every move. At home, Little Bit just has the cat to copy, and we can all imagine how that would turn out:
"Aghh, don't eat the grass outside and then throw up on the carpet, Little Bit!!!"
or
"Little Bit, we have visitors, please come out of your hidey hole in the closet to say hello."
or:
"Quick licking yourself, Little Bit, you're going to get a hairball!"
But it did occur to me this week that dropping your child off to full-time care is a little bit like Jochebed, the mother of Moses, putting her baby boy in a basket and setting him down amidst the Nile reeds, trusting him entirely to God's care in a world that was out to do him harm. (See the lectionary*** readings for Sunday after next for more.)
Let me be clear--I don't envision my first-world community as a scary, threat-filled place where my child's well-being is in danger at every turn. God knows that reality is all too palpable in places like Honduras or Israel/Palestine, and I am not under any first-world illusions that catching a cold from a daycare playmate will endanger my child in a similar way.
Skipping over the crocodile-filled Nile and the infanticide of the Hebrew baby boys, though--the anxiety of handing your child over to someone else to care for him or her rings true to me. There is trust in putting your child in that basket; there is surrender; there is hope.
- - -
But really, the true comparison here isn't with me sending my kid off to (licensed, pricey, right-down-stairs) daycare. It's with the parents in Central America sending their children to the US border to keep them safe from horrific violence. That requires true trust in God, true surrender, true hope against hope.
A coworker asked me the other week, "What would have to happen for you to send your child off on a journey thousands of miles long, alone, with just a note pinned to their t-shirt?" That about summed it up for me--namely, that I can't even imagine something so bad. And if it's that bad, I sure as hell want something better for those children until the Angel of Death has passed over their communities (sorry, conflating my Exodus stories here). In fact, send one to my house! My Spanish is mediocre at best, but we have a cute baby to distract from the awfulness of being separated from home and loved ones, and I hear cats (even misbehaving ones) make good therapy animals when you've witnessed horrific violence.
Not to make light of tragic circumstances--or how incredibly difficult it can be to foster kids who have been traumatized--but seriously, our very own Jesus was once a refugee fleeing a massacre of the innocent. As an adult, Jesus goes on to remind us that the heart of Christian life lies in treating those in dire circumstances as we'd treat Jesus. As it happens, I can't imagine a more exact parallel to these children's plight than Jesus crossing the border into Egypt to escape Herod's death squads.
In short, I think we need to Matthew 25 it up on those kids.
'Nuff said.
*American parents love telling each other why they are bad parents, then engaging in a mutual reassurance session. It's practically a national sport.
**A look into French parenting, including the crèche, a public daycare funded by the government, staffed by college- or master's-level pros, and serving gourmet meals to kids. Don't get me started...
***The lectionary is a three-year cycle of Bible readings followed (in one form or another) by the Roman Catholic church and many mainline Protestant churches. It helps congregations cover a wide variety of biblical texts and gives a rhythm to the church year. Plus it makes you preach on stuff you'd rather not address, like texts about murder, genocide, Jesus' "harsh" teachings, etc. As a wise preacher friend once said, better to talk about it in church than let it fester silently in people's hearts, undermining faith and causing undue spiritual harm.