Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Friday, July 30, 2010

"In Demand" Caregivers

In child rearing and child management issues the clear priorities for many families remain who will tend to the needs of these children while their parents are out of the house, both working at paid employment? The search for day-care alternatives for these children of parents, neither of whom see the need to remain with their children to offer them the care, emotional support and stimulation that growing children require to attain their full potential, consumes their time and their thoughts.

So that when, finally, a source is discovered where the child or children can be left in the care of someone other than themselves, it presents as a huge relief. Relieving the parents of the responsibility of looking after their own children, and permitting them the option of leaving their home to travel to and from their workplace, knowing that their children are secure in the capable hands of a day-care caregiver, a child-minder.

How many women are functionally capable of looking after five children at various stages of growth and maturity, emotional needs and age-appropriate stimulation? With the required patience, the reflexive action to respond as and when needed, the fond need to fulfill for these children the parental duties that their natural parents have chosen to abrogate. Someone who is not related to the children by blood.

Someone for whom this is a paid occupation, however much that someone may declare themselves to be fully committed to the welfare of other peoples' children. Five children under the age of ten, excluding the caregiver's natural children, is the limit to which the province will legally permit child care caregivers to have in their home. This applies to registered and unregistered home care situations alike.

Does a parent, eagerly searching for a handy and reliable place to park their child while they're off working, really want to know all the necessary details, other than to be shown the play equipment their child will be using, the food-quality of the menus that will be served (perhaps surpassing in nutritional quality the convenience foods used at home) and the medicine cabinet usage in the event of trivial little accidents.

Unlicensed day-care givers are swamped with requests. They reach the maximum they can accommodate, then reluctantly turn away all others anxious to make use of their services. Some registered childcare service agencies will not permit their licensed providers to own pools. Which practise is a sound and sensible one, neatly discounting the potential for child drownings. They do, however, encourage their caregivers to 'get together' for play dates with the children in their care.

Resulting in a situation where a handful of caregivers, four for example, assemble with their charges, say four to five for each caregiver for a total of 16 to 20 children of various ages, in someone's backyard for a get-together for the caregivers, and a 'play date' for the children. If that backyard has a pool within it, then all those children are placed in a situation of potential danger.

Which is precisely what occurred at a home on Rougemount Crescent in Orleans, when a two-year-old child drowned while all those caregivers were present, discussing what women will discuss when they're together, while children play together. Despite the death of the young child, one of the mothers of one of the youngsters in the care of the woman in whose backyard the pool is installed, swears by her trust in the capability of her child's care-giver.

A care-giver who enjoys an excellent reputation in the neighbourhood, whose services are zealously sought after, and who, unfortunately, has her child-roster full at the moment, and has been turning away enquiries from other parents anxious to find minders for their children so they may be free to do as they will.

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1 Comments:

  • At 5:00 PM, Blogger Alison said…

    You are so right and I am so with you.Again, thank you for voicing your mind about this injustice and carelessness that cost so many precious little lifes.

     

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