20 December 2006
Day Care Dad - Guilty as charged
Every morning, it pains me to leave my son at day care. I give him a kiss, tell him I love him and to "have a good day" (to which responds: "Bye!"), and trudge out the door back to the car focusing in front of me and not looking back.
I don't want to leave him with those people who can't love him as much as we do. I don't want to subject him to the inevitable hurts of the unknowing cruelty of other kids. I don't want to leave him vulnerable to those colds and coughs and runny noses.
But it's not as if we didn't think about this, my wife and I. We thought about our wants and desires. About our needs. About the potentialities of our child's life.
Ideally, one of us would be at home. No - Ideally we both would. We would all be spending every day getting up and breakfasting together. Learning and exploring the world together. Enjoying him growing up. We'd be pretty content to just do that. He's a pretty fascinating little guy.
At some point, however, we decided we wanted somethings like a house and career and food on the table. And my wife found a job she liked in the career she dreamed of since childhood. And to leave near it, and to pay the bills that made it possible, we have a mortgage that also has to be paid. And car payments that enable her to get there. And we have expenses for the house and things. And so my job helps pay for that.
And in order for us to work and provide for us all, our son gets relegated to the care of stranger in a school-like setting much too early for school.
We don't want to do it. But we took precautions. We made our studies. We follow-up on his care. And we feel he's doing well there. He likes it. They seem to care for him a great deal, too. And it's neat to go and see him interact with those people and those other kids.
So understand that we feel and will always feel some guilt for not being able to give him the life we had - staying home with our mothers to teach us and play with us and love us. And we really don't need you telling us how terrible it is that he's got to go "to that place".
It's not ideal. But it's working. He's happy and he's a growing up to be a great person. And we're doing our best.
I don't want to leave him with those people who can't love him as much as we do. I don't want to subject him to the inevitable hurts of the unknowing cruelty of other kids. I don't want to leave him vulnerable to those colds and coughs and runny noses.
But it's not as if we didn't think about this, my wife and I. We thought about our wants and desires. About our needs. About the potentialities of our child's life.
Ideally, one of us would be at home. No - Ideally we both would. We would all be spending every day getting up and breakfasting together. Learning and exploring the world together. Enjoying him growing up. We'd be pretty content to just do that. He's a pretty fascinating little guy.
At some point, however, we decided we wanted somethings like a house and career and food on the table. And my wife found a job she liked in the career she dreamed of since childhood. And to leave near it, and to pay the bills that made it possible, we have a mortgage that also has to be paid. And car payments that enable her to get there. And we have expenses for the house and things. And so my job helps pay for that.
And in order for us to work and provide for us all, our son gets relegated to the care of stranger in a school-like setting much too early for school.
We don't want to do it. But we took precautions. We made our studies. We follow-up on his care. And we feel he's doing well there. He likes it. They seem to care for him a great deal, too. And it's neat to go and see him interact with those people and those other kids.
So understand that we feel and will always feel some guilt for not being able to give him the life we had - staying home with our mothers to teach us and play with us and love us. And we really don't need you telling us how terrible it is that he's got to go "to that place".
It's not ideal. But it's working. He's happy and he's a growing up to be a great person. And we're doing our best.
Labels: day care, support, work
