Side Effects of Daycare

When people find out you're pregnant, after the initial questions: When are you due? How have you been feeling?  Are you finding out the sex?  Have you picked a name? I found that many people asked me if I was planning on returning to work.  After my response was yes, the next question that came was one I came to detest: What are you doing about childcare?  Or if they were more direct, the question was framed more like: So, you're getting a nanny, right?  Well as anyone who has read my blog before knows, no, I did not get a nanny.  When he was exactly 14 weeks old, Lukas started daycare.  As it would turn out, people are quite opinionated about daycare.  Especially older generations, as I've found they just don't seem to think kids should be sent to daycare.

I was a little nervous at first about daycare myself, especially since my childhood revolved around my mom  who stayed home with me and my brother.  Taking care of us was her career.  She was passionate about it and she's an amazing caregiver.  The closest I ever came to daycare was attending the after school program in elementary school for an hour or two until my older brother finished with school.

But for my child, I made the difficult decision to return to work as an attorney and "send him to daycare".  Gasp, I was going to have other women raising my child.  I know what some people think of this decision.   They are entitled to it.  But I am happy with my decision and my experience with daycare has had many pleasant surprises that I was not expecting.

(I should point out that Lukas is attending a new, in-town daycare/school and we pay a pretty penny for this care.  The cost rivals that of college tuition.  In fact, annually it costs more than what I paid for my law school tuition each year.  I realize that this fact alone sets my experience with daycare apart from many people who send their kids to "daycare".  Primrose is more of a "private school for babies", but in the end, Lukas is getting cared for during the day, so it's still "daycare".)

The first thing that I wasn't expecting from daycare was for the "strangers" who are taking care of him every day to become an extended part of our family.  His teachers and the administrators at Primrose spend more time with my son than most of my family.  They may not have the same kind of love for him that my family does, but they love him.  And we love them.  One of his two original teachers left a few months ago to start another job that allowed her more time with her young children, and I've missed her and was genuinely sad to see her go.  But we've stayed in touch (thanks to facebook) and have had one play date and another planned this weekend.  Another one of his teachers is leaving this Friday and she will be just as missed.  These women are such a huge part of my life and Lukas' life.  They are not strangers by any definition of the word.  They are amazing, patient and loving caregivers who I feel 100% confidence in caring for my son.

When I first went back to work, I felt like I was a horrible mother.  How could I possibly choose to return to work over staying at home devoting all of my time to raising my son?  There was a lot of doubt and we won't even talk about the guilt.  But over the past 8 months I've realized that I am a better mother because I work outside of the home.  I am fully present with Lukas when I am with him.  I devote all of my attention to him and whatever game we're playing, book we're reading or song we're singing.  I don't take the time I do spend with him for granted, and I think I would if I were not working.  I believe I would see taking care of him as another chore, another thing to do.  Instead, I really engage with him and cherish the time I am home with him in the mornings, evenings and weekends.  And they do more with him at baby school than I would at home - painting and drawing, reading lots of books, singing, dancing, learning sign language and gaining social skills by interacting daily with the other babies. I think he's getting the best of me as a mom and the best from daycare.  The combination is proving to work and so far he's an extremely happy baby, which is really all I could hope for at this point.

The last thing I wasn't expecting from daycare was making new friends.  I have had the joy and privilege of meeting some hilarious women in the other moms in Lukas' class.  It's nice to have other mothers who understand the frustrations of nursing and the questions about continuing to work.  These ladies know what I'm going through at any given time, be it juggling being a mom, working and being a wife; dealing with horrible diaper rash; projectile vomiting; not sleeping.  You name it, if it is baby related, they've likely experienced it.  I find that at the end of each work day I don't just look forward to picking up Lukas, I also have the added bonus of seeing friends.  The "boys club" as our boys have been dubbed, will all be together in the same class for at least another 6 months and I'm so glad because that means the moms will all get to be together for that long too.  It's not easy making new girlfriends, so I consider myself lucky to have met these women and be able to call them friends.

So the next time I'm pregnant and someone asks what I'm doing about childcare, I'm going to happily tell them that my baby will be going to daycare baby school at Primrose.