Keep Mom Home!!

The most challenging job in the world is being a mom, but it also has perks that you can't find in any other vocation.

Being the mother of 13, I have spent a lot of time with children and dealing with all the ups and downs. I also have spent about 15 years providing day dare for other children, along with my own. Through that time I noticed some commonalities with children who are in day care every day.

I love children!! I loved my children when they were small (and big) and now that I don't have small children, I work with small children in my church, teaching a Sunday class. I don't have any trouble getting close to children, and they to me. I am truly a "mother" at heart, and children can sense that. 

The children that I had come to my home for day care were all good kids with parents that loved them. They knew that I loved them in a caring way, but love was not the same as with their parents. They were jealous at what my own kids had ... a mom who was home with them. They wanted their own moms' to be home with them. For me, I could always see the difference in the eyes, but eyes speak to me. I could always tell when my own children were really sick .... from the eyes.

There are too many different kids from day care to really go into, so I will give a few examples of the behavior and situations that I have seen. There were periods in-between these situations when I did no day care, because these examples are really spread out.

#1

My first experience with day care after having my own child, was with my first child. I cared for two little kids, a brother and sister aged 2 and 4, I'll call them Max and Susan for privacy sake. My son was 1 year old. The mother would bring the kids in the morning around 7:00, sometimes a little earlier, usually in their pajamas and without any breakfast. They would make a big fuss when she left and then be fine the rest of the day.

I fed them breakfast and got them dressed and then the day would begin. They would play until lunch time and then after lunch would take a nap for an hour or so. After nap they would again play, and do what all little kids do. Their mom would pick them up between 5:30 and 6:30. While talking to their mom, I found out that they were in bed by 8:00. They had just enough time to go home, have dinner, a bath and go to bed .... not much else. They were around their mom and dad 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours per day.

Too many times the mom would ask me if I could take them for the week-end, because she just had to get away. I couldn't figure out what she had to get away from, definitely no the kids because she was never around them. The kids were good through the week-end but starting with Sunday, they would cry for their mom and dad. I could give them what they wanted ... they wanted their parents and I couldn't even give them a good reason why they couldn't  be with them.

We moved out of state after a year of tending Max and Susan. I don't know what has become of them but I know that their mother found another person to take over being the mother, as she had hired me to be.

#2

My next day care situation was a few years later when our fifth child was about a year old, after the death of our fourth child , Alison, and while I had my grandmother living with us. In other words, I had four children of my own, my 86 year old grandmother and doing day care. I started with two brothers, I'll name them Sam and Joe. They were also 2 years old and 4 years old. The mother was divorced. Some mornings she would bring them, and other mornings the dad would bring them. Generally, they arrived at my home between 7:00 and 8:00, again without breakfast and generally, still in their pajamas. The route was always the same. They would have a big fuss in the morning when either the mother would drop them off, but when the father would drop them off he would stay and prolong the whole ordeal, to the point that the youngest, Joe, who force himself to vomit while he was eating breakfast.  It was so hard to see the torment that these two little boys went through because they wanted their parents, not a substitute. As the day went on they played and were seemingly fine.

#3

A few years later when I had 11 kids I began tending two kids, from the same family ages 3 years and 5 years old and I'll call them Josh and Rachael. Their parents were married and I could see that they tried to spend a little more time with the kids. They were better behaved and didn't go to extremes when the mother dropped them off, but they also got there dressed and having already eaten breakfast at home. Even with the added care, they were still jealous that my kids were with their mom and dad during the day. One day Rachael went to the bathroom and was in there a long time, I went to go check on her. She had spread fecis all over the bathroom. That was one of the last straws for me and I decided that day care wasn't a good thing for my own children to have to deal with, with this kind of behavior. I dare say, had her mother been home with her, she probably wouldn't have had to act out like this to get attention.

#4

The last example is not a child that I provided day care for, but a neighbor who had been in day care all of his life.

We moved into a new home the same time that our neighbors moved in. They had one son, the only child, the same age as my 8th child. When we moved in he was 4 years old, I'll call him Wes and he was known as Wes-next-door. We were neighbors for about 11 years until they moved out of state. In that time I saw him interact with my children. He would come over after he got home from day care and play with our children. He would act like a brother or sister, even getting into arguments like brothers and sisters do. When he was 10 years old, I had a son who was 12 years old, who was starting home schooling (we have kept our 7th and 8th graders home those two years). His mom asked me if maybe my son Jeff, the 12 year old, could provide day care for him after school and during the summer. He fit into the family even more. It was a great job for Jeff, he got to play video games, etc and get paid for it. Those two years were a great experience for Wes-next-door. It was when he moved out of state that he really strayed and it now someone none of us would recognize.

Being home with your children is essential for their well being and growth. There is no one else in the world who cares as much what happens to your child, than you. Mothers have a special God-given sense to know what her child needs. A quote that I always think of is:

"No other success can compensate for failure in the home". David O. McKay

I don't know what happened with these kids, who I provided day care for, but I do know what my kids are about. I do know that I have always tried to be there for my children. In later years, when the youngest was 5, I started working out of the home, but on one condition .... that my kids could be there with me. I was doing the final construction clean-up, preparing the home to be moved in by the new owners. My children were with me doing their homework, singing me songs, sometimes dancing, as well as helping me clean. It was a time when I could teach them as well as bond with them.

They learned valuable things about cleaning, and keeping things clean .... but most importantly .... they were sharing that time with me, not someone else!!

Whatever you do, make it work with your family not in spite of them. Make whatever you do benefit your children by being there with them. Keep MoM Home where she can do the most good!!!