Forgive me, Amy Dacyszyn*, for I have sinned. I chose to have two children, I love my children, and in order to preserve my sanity, I must spend productive time away from my children. It is with great shame that I reveal to you that they go to….gasp!....daycare.
You see, if I were an adequate, truly frugal, real mother, I would never even consider daycare. My freshly scrubbed, television-free homeschooled children would play with great concentration for hours with their charming wooden toys out in the fresh air of our organic garden. We would laugh and play together as we made jam. I would find it deeply satisfying to watch their little minds develop as they slowly counted the change at the grocery store or marveled at the bubble reaction between vinegar and baking soda as we cleaned the bathroom sink together. Sadly, I was not issued these children. I was issued actual children -the sort who whine for crappy plastic toys in the grocery store. They were issued the kind of mother who hurries them up when we are taking a walk for fun.
This is a touchy subject, I understand. Most parents work for money that they need, and they wish their children spent less time in daycare. The failure here is not that my children are harmed by going to daycare (please believe me when I tell you that they benefit from spending time with people who enjoy and are competent with children). The failure is that I become a crazy, cranky nightmare of a mother when I don’t get a break to run the household without being interrupted every 17 seconds. This defect in my personality causes me to spend a giant amount of money that I could, theoretically, be saving. Ever since the kids were each about four months old they have spent two days a week in the care first of the amazing Linda, then of the wonderful family who runs our preschool. When my older son started school I got one extra day of childcare.
I pay for daycare because this time feels like oxygen to me. It allows me to run errands, pay bills, exercise, cook, clean the house, use power tools and do all the other things that I find I can’t reasonably do with three- and six-year olds around. Apparently many people don’t have problems doing these activities with children. If you are one of these people, I hope this post gives you a sustaining little shot of moral superiority. All I know is that when there are two-week long winter vacations, or a kid is barfing, or the school really, really wants me to volunteer, it feels a lot like they are saying to me “look, you can’t have any oxygen today but you can always breathe again next Thursday.”
This will change in time. Kindergarten has changed to first grade. Eventually, in several years, they will both be in public school for a full school day five days a week. I am painfully aware how much I will miss having adorable toddlers around in ten years when they are rolling their eyes and their bedrooms smell like armpits. Still, right now their childcare time is directly proportional to my happiness.
*Amy Dacyszyn wrote the Tightwad Gazette newsletter that turned into a fabulous and utterly unique series of books in the 1990’s. She is the high priestess of all that is frugal. Needless to say, none of her six kids went to daycare.
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