Going the extra mile
Changes all the time
The workforce
Family decisions
These are stories from parents who have taken on different changes to their child's care – either because of unexpected closures or providers deciding to do something else. These parents have experienced repeated changes to the type and timing of the care their child or children have received, again and again.
Click on images below to learn about a family's experience on this issue
My husband and I both work full time in the agriculture industry. We have one child in preschool and one that goes to an in-home sitter. Whenever there are school delays, cancellations and during summer break, the sitter has been very accommodating for our eldest child so we don’t have to miss work. However, the sitter – like anyone else – takes vacation, has sick days or time off for other reasons. When this happens, I do my best to work from home or use vacation time to stay home with the youngest. I find that most of my vacation time is used when the sitter is unavailable.
We had a difficult transition with our firstborn going from in-home care to a structured preschool setting. Interacting with multiple kids his own age, keeping busy with arts, crafts and learning all day was a big change for him from toys and TV. Basic skills like socializing, communicating and participating in group activities are hard to teach in the in-home setting. Kids learn just as much from each other as they do from a parent or sitter and they need that interaction.
We also rely heavily on our parents to help with late nights during our busy season. We have full-time working parents picking up our kids and filling in to cover vacation days and school breaks. Without the help of our parents, we would have had to move into a different community that has more options for child care.
My child care struggle began when I first started looking for child care when I was around three months pregnant.
My husband works full time and does not have any flexibility to take off without loss of pay, so the child care hunt fell on me. Every person I talked to was either completely full, or could or would not take an infant. There was a waiting list at our only licensed facility, along with other child care centers that were semi-close to us. I had my name on multiple wait lists. I had my son in February 2020 and went on maternity leave still unsure of what I was going to do with him full time. COVID happened in March 2020 and I was actually able to work from home rather than go back to the office so I got “lucky."
July and August 2020 I was able to get my son into Perry Child Care two days a week and I worked from home three days a week. Luckily, a teacher had decided to leave the local school system and start her own day care and preschool program. My son was finally able to start full time care mid-August 2020. He loved where he was going and I was able to return to full time work.
Come May 2021, I found myself in need of full-time child care again as our current provider decided to return to the school system to teach. Not only did I need full time child care for my 1-year-old, but I just found out we were expecting again, and I would need child care for a newborn as well.
I was frantic and devastated and thought I would have to quit my job. I had meetings set up with a few in-home sitters who were able to take my 1-year-old, but not a newborn. Do I send my kids to two different places? Do I quit my job? Most sitters could not take my son as early as I needed to drop off, or needed him picked up before I got off work. I again was unsure of what I was going to do. I got very fortunate after about a month and I was able to find a full-time in-home sitter that could take my 1-year-old and a newborn in 2022, when I will need to go back to work.
Our family has been on an emotional roller coaster when it comes to child care in our county. We will get back on that roller coaster when it is time to figure out preschool, since most of our programs are only part time. It is the absolute hardest thing dropping your child off with someone that you do not know. Are they being treated appropriately? Will they be prepared for school when that time comes? As a parent, you just want to do everything you can to make sure your children are taken care of. We need a better solution to this crisis.
When our daughter was born in 2015, child care was an afterthought for us. We believed that it would be easy to find affordable, quality child care in Rensselaer due to the size of our city, along with other amenities offered within. At first, we thought we were correct.
We attempted to enroll our daughter at the first facility, but were placed on a waitlist behind a child who had yet to be born. We were finally able to enroll her in a Christian-based, full-time day care at seven weeks and she flourished. However, within the first year, the ownership group decided that they no longer wished to offer child care services and decided to close. We were heart-broken.
The teachers and workers that we had entrusted our infant with were suddenly without jobs and we were forced to scramble to coordinate new care. As we were both working professionals – a teacher and a lawyer – we had very little room in our schedules for this task. We spent a few weeks researching and considering our options and family filled in. Fortunately, at the time, Rensselaer boasted another day care facility of which we knew that some of our daughter's classmates would be attending.
Due to the proximity to Saint Joseph’s College, this facility allowed for more students and additional staff to assist in the children’s care. Thankfully, she adjusted well for the next two years. Unfortunately, with the closure of Saint Joseph’s College and other budgetary constraints, this facility closed as well. This left no day care facility in Rensselaer and this scared us. As we are not from Rensselaer, we did not know any of the in-home day care providers nor did we feel comfortable with those options.
Fortunately, both of us work outside of Rensselaer and there was a new daycare facility that had just opened about 15 minutes south in Remington, and it was on the way to work for one of us. Coincidentally, several of our daughter's classmates transferred there as well, making the transition a bit easier.
This out-of-town facility had its challenges. First, it was in a different time zone which affected the hours of operation. Second, due to its location, it was grossly inconvenient for one of us when the other was detained at work. Ultimately, our daughter attended this facility until she was able to start the all-day, pre-kindergarten program at our local public school. The public school offers care before and after school, of which we take full advantage. Our main remaining issue is coordinating care on two-hour delay and e-learning days.
We believe that our daughter's start in day care facilities provided her a strong foundation that helped her transition easily into the public education system. She has excelled both socially and intellectually and we have day care facilities to thank. We would like other children to have the same access to quality child care and believe that Jasper County could do more in providing opportunities for that quality care, especially in Rensselaer.
We moved back to our home town in 2017 after a terrible experience with a day care center near Louisville, Kentucky. I swore my babies wouldn’t have to go through that experience again.
Perry Childcare was a comfort to find. I knew most of the workers at the facility and they treated my babies as their own. Our eldest is now attending the elementary school. We currently have a preschooler and a newborn enrolled at Perry Childcare.
I gave birth to my youngest child in September of this year. This was around the same time the center really began struggling and was forced to close several rooms. The infant room was one of these rooms. I immediately started crying, on the verge of a panic attack I called several different sitters and the day care at my work. Everyone had a waitlist or were not taking infants.
The feeling that overtakes you when you have to consider taking your baby to someone unknown is sickening. If the center had not reopened, I would have quit my job. I am a speech therapist with nearly 100 children on my caseload and I would have been forced to leave, resulting in loss of services for all of those children.
We need this center. We need to know our newborn is being loved and taken care of every second that we are away. We need to know that our preschooler is learning, socializing and is genuinely happy being somewhere all day. We moved back home to give our children a safer and happier life. Perry Childcare is a big part of their lives. We would be very lost without it.
My husband and I have three children. My husband works in a factory where he works 12-16 hour shifts 4-6 days per week. I worked as a nurse for eight years and now I am a family nurse practitioner.
When we had our first child, my mother helped us watch her. We both worked 12-hour shifts and took turns keeping her on our days off. As time went on and we added our second daughter, we had to find something different. We finally had a sitter, but the sitter’s early pick-up hours required my mom to pick them up. We also worked weekends, so again, my mother was the only option for those days. Within a year, that sitter quit and we were on the search again.
After years of this struggle and being so dependent on my parents, my husband’s hours increased. I knew that I could not have my parents watching our kids every time we both worked holidays, weekends, late evenings, or even overnight. I ended up going back to school for my master’s so I could finally have a better schedule. After years of working full-time in addition to graduate school, I finally had normal weekday hours only three days per week.
However, as soon as we had our third baby and I started my new job, our newest babysitter quit. I spent months searching for a sitter and put my kids on multiple waiting lists. The only place that actually stayed open late enough was a local day care, but the wait list was long and I wasn’t even sure we could afford it.
We currently have child care, but the hours don’t match normal work hours, so I have had to try to change mine or once again depend on my mother to pick them up. It’s a constant stressor for my family. I don’t feel we can afford to pay for more days of child care, and I don’t feel I can go to full-time hours due to not having someone available to pick up our littles on time. We have steady jobs with supportive family, and this is a major problem for us. I cannot imagine what other families go through.