We had a big life change happen for us this year, and I have attempted to write about it many times this summer. I am always stopped short of completion, though, and I decided finally that I needed a little time and space to work through the emotion of it before I commit it to paper.
To be brief, we have decided we no longer need daycare services. When I write that cold and precise sentence, it seems so trivial, so banal, that one might wonder what the big deal really is. In our family, this marks the end of an era, and is something we are still, three months later, coming to terms with.
I often run across articles or blogs about the value of stay-at-home parenting. I don't think anyone anywhere doubts that stay-at-home-parenting is awesome when it can be done. Implied, however, is the idea that anyone who chooses daycare is somehow inferior to those who do not. I have encountered friends who comment that they are so glad they don't "have to have daycare" and have "strangers raising their kids." It is difficult for me to tamp down my fires when I hear that statement, because I utilized daycare services for the last nine years, yet I have never seen it as a business transaction, nor have I ever considered our providers to be "strangers." In fact, I can barely call them "providers"...it seems so impersonal and cold.
When Emma was born, I admit that I had a mini panic attack at the thought of handing her over to someone I didn't know very well, to be surrounded by children I didn't know very well, to have experiences I had no control over. I was saved, quite literally, by a dear friend who was already staying at home, whose children were already in school, and who would really enjoy having another baby in the house. Roxie was Emma's second mommy and her family became our second family. I grew terribly attached to the Green girls - they babysat and spent the night and basically became Emma's three big sisters.
Because Roxie incorporated us into her family, she set the bar very high for future providers. When we came to Fairmont, it was impossible to find someone with three openings, especially one with room for two children under 2 years old. We ended up with all three kids at three different daycares.
That, my friends, was a real eye-opener. With three kids in three different places, we were working with three different routines, three different sets of rules and procedures, and a whole lot of driving. We knew we had to find somewhere central for everybody.
I found Julie through a friend at school. I set up a meeting with her and knew in about 5.7 seconds that I would do almost anything to secure a spot for my kids. I could bore you with details about how clean her house is, or launch into a description of her play schedule, or her meal plan. None of that, while stellar, is what makes her so special to us.
Julie is that rare person who God clearly created to be a mentor/caregiver/second-mommy to children. She has a gentle and kind spirit; in 5 years, I never heard her raise her voice beyond a cautionary tone. She laughs easily and often, and has such a genuine love for the families in her care, that I felt instantly that I had a partner in parenting. She fostered their little bodies with homemade meals, outside play every day, lots of activity and exercise. She fostered their minds with a daily art project, with regular story times, and in fact taught all of my kids their alphabets and numbers before they even started pre-school.
Every day I got a full report of all of the little things that happened that day, good or bad. When my kids made bad choices, she and I discussed how to handle them together. I always felt like she was an extension of my own thinking, she was so eager to collaborate on the rearing of my babies. More than once, when I was at home in the evening a problem arose with my kids, I consulted Julie's wisdom to ask how she was handling that at daycare.
The biggest thing to me, though, is how excited my kids were every single day to see her. I never had one day that they didn't want to go. Sometimes when we would do something fun on a weekend I would hear, "I can't wait to tell Julie about this tomorrow!"
I've read that sometimes parents feel threatened by the influence of a non-family provider in the lives of their children; I can't say that I ever felt that way. To me, the happiness they had with her did not make me less of their mom, it raised my esteem for Julie. If they considered her a second mom, then she was loving them the same way I was loving them. And really, can kids ever have too many people who love them?
This summer, we determined that our schedules no longer required day care. The kids were all starting school in the fall and would be going to and from the building with me each day. We made the heart-wrenching decision to give up our spot.
When we sat down and discussed it with the kids, all three of my little ones cried. I struggled to frame it appropriately, because it felt like the loss of a family member. I finally was able to explain that if we let go of our spot, it would give three new kids the chance to grow up with Julie, and we wouldn't be there enough to need our spot anymore.
They seemed to understand that, but as Emma said, "I get it, Mom, but it still makes my heart hurt."
On our last day at Julie's we brought her a hydrangea bush for her garden (our favorite perennial - may it last forever and bloom often enough for her to think of us) and I paid her our last bill, minus $1. I told her if I didn't pay her that last dollar, I wouldn't be officially off her books and there would still be a reason to come back. We left that day, but I have to be honest with you - we've been back there 3 times this summer just to see her and play in the yard with the rest of the daycare kids, our extended family that we don't get to see every day.
The kids miss her terribly, and it is a sure sign of the stamp she left on our lives when they will slip and say something like, "Is today a Julie day?" One evening we were making late-night cinnamon rolls and Emma said, "Let me make the frosting - Julie taught me how!" And then her eyes filled up with tears and she dripped a few salty drops into the powdered sugar.
From my perspective, I miss Julie's friendship the most. I miss that "partner-in-crime" feeling I had when she and I conspired to parent my children. I miss hearing the stories that she had to tell about their daily adventures, and I miss that quiet, calm, and gentle spirit that became both a grounding and a guiding force in our world.
She is really something special, and I hope that the family that finds their way to her door really understands the value of what they have found.
