Childcare

Today two nannies failed to show up for work, leaving two mothers of 20-month old girls in the lurch.

In our case, our nanny not only used a text message to let us know she wouldn’t be able to come in today, but also that she would no longer be able to be our nanny. So much for contracts that stipulate 3-weeks notice. In my friend’s case, her nanny called in sick while both she and her husband had important work obligations.

So instead of having a day to go in to the office and get errands done, I ended up looking after two toddlers. At nap time this involved sitting on a mattress on the floor, rubbing the tummy of one sleepy child while my own fell asleep on my shoulder. I was then pinned for the next hour between two sleeping girls. It was tender, beautiful and boring.

And now I’m back in the position of frantically seeking childcare.

Before having a child, I had never anticipated how difficult childcare would be. In theory it’s shouldn’t be so hard to find a responsible, loving adult to look after your child while you do other work. But as I have discovered with so many parenting issues, theory and practice are miles apart.

Everyone parents their child a little differently, tweaking our own style to the temperaments of ourselves and our children, our expectations, our beliefs, our ideologies. When it comes to finding someone to parent in our absence, we want that person to take on all of these theories and practices. But of course, no one will ever parent quite like we do. The best we can hope for is some sort of compromise, someone who at least agrees with our core values.

And so it is that finding child care becomes a process not only of screening and interviewing, but also of assessing our values – what is non-negotiable? On what can we be flexible? And then there are the practical details that can weigh in just as much – how many days? How many hours? At what rate? Shared care or private care? It can easily be quite overwhelming.

And here we go again.