The one clear benefit of being late to motherhood is that many of my friends have older children, and I have a glimpse of the future.
This week is March Break here – the kids out of school and the parents on vacation or scrambling for childcare. The morning subway was emptier than usual all week so it was a bit of a surprise to run into a friend on the dawn run downtown. She was heading to the gym before work, I was on the early shift. And her two girls? Edging into their teens, they had March-break jobs – providing before-and-after care at a dance camp for kids. Instead of having to find someone – a camp, a babysitter, a grandparent, a neighbour – to watch her girls during the week’s break from school, my friend for the first time could just relax and go to work, unhassled by the relentless school calendar, with its PA Days and Snow Days, holiday and vacation weeks, early dismissals and shortened weeks.
My friend is so glad to be through the worst of the childcare dilemma. The constant battle to keep our children safe and possible entertained when the school day runs from 9 to 3 and her workdays run from 8 to 4 (at best). When the school’s official after-care program is booked solid and the waiting list years long. When every summer daycamp starts at 9:30 and ends at 4, and no one offers transportation. The rush to school for dropoffs, the arrival late at work, the search for a babysitter or older student to do pickups and supervision until mom can get home at 4:30. “It is just awful,” said my friend, shaking her head. “I don’t envy you just starting this.”
A glimpse of the next 10 years. My kids are just starting school, part-time kindergarten for one and the other still a toddler. For now we have full-time childcare, but it all ends when they start school, and the scramble for before-and-after care begins. The race for summer camp spots. The desperate search for programs during the school’s December break and March break, the plea to work from home on teacher development days.
Last week in our city, on the last day of school before March Break, the compromise and imperfection of school-related childcare needs were thrown in stark relief with the horrible news of a 5-year-old child killed by a truck at an intersection near her school. She was walking home from class in the company not of her parents but that of a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old – the teenagers her parents no doubt had arranged to cover the gap after school but before the work day ended. Local media accused vehicles of speeding near the school, the principal called for more crossing guards at the intersections nearby, and the parents wore black in the newspaper photos of the girl’s funeral. No one talked about the childcare problems every working parent faces when the school day is two or three hours shorter than the shortest shift at the office or plant. No one talked about the scars those teenagers will have for life, having seen a child killed while they walked her home from school.
My friend’s girls are about the same age, in charge of smaller children at the end of a dance camp, waiting for parents to rush in from work to pick up their offspring, take them home for a hurried dinner and no homework. As I contemplate my next 10 years of childcare compromise and school breaks that cause desperation instead of relaxation, I pray my girls will be safe and their caregivers vigilant, and wonder how old my girls will be before someone is paying THEM to take care of little ones until that parent can get home from work. A glimpse of our future.