Going the extra mile
Changes all the time
The workforce
Family decisions
These parents have faced unique circumstances that required some kind of additional work, time or effort to help sustain child care in their communities, or find the best option – or even just a workable one – for their family.
Click on images below to learn about a family's experience on this issue
Six weeks after my first son was born, I used up all of my vacation, sick and personal leave to return to work. 16 months later, I was off for the remaining four weeks I had available for the birth and bonding with my second son. As the manager of a children’s museum, I had full knowledge of the Child Care Resource and Referral services, Paths to Quality standings, plus a database of daycares and preschools spattered throughout Northwest Indiana. I still felt overwhelmed with no good place to start looking for the care of my own children. The following year, with the help of Mom to Mom, NWI, we hosted a "Preschool Fair" for others struggling to find the best fit for their families. Like many parents in the region, I work and live on one side of the county and then commute about 40 minutes to Bellaboo’s.
When I went back to work, we started like most fledgling families do, utilizing whoever in my network would volunteer to help us out. I had a flexible schedule so I could commit to working weekends. My husband is a teacher, so he had to stick to the standard Monday through Friday work week. Essentially, for the first two to three years of my kiddo’s lives, we didn’t have a day off together – unless it was planned. We jumped from family help (unreliable and temporary) to a nanny service (a moderately unsettling experience) to an in-home day care we could afford with the additional bartending job my husband picked up on weekend nights. The in-home day care experience was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We had already done everything in our power to try working less by paying less for child care. Knowing we were already sacrificing time together to pay for child care, we made a joint decision to keep working more and seek out the best possible child care we could afford. Having the knowledge that the first five years of a child’s life have more impact than their grade school years or their potential college education, it was imperative that we make this happen for our kids.
I was in my head trying to figure out the right spot for our kiddos when, literally, a van with a “Montessori Children’s World” sticker smiling from the side of the van pulled out in front of me. I followed the van, wrote down the number, made an appointment for a visit and was blown away. The school is made of windows peering out to the playground, surrounded by plants planted by the children, loaded with real tools and adorned with art and cozy slippers and colorful rag rugs for each child. We signed the contract before even figuring out how we were going to afford the first payment. At our first parent teacher conference, I remember the director saying something about my 2-year-old knowing his months of the year. I kept correcting her, knowing he most certainly did not. She called my little buddy over and asked him what month it was, and he responded correctly. Then he proceeded to provide the remaining 11 months in his adorable toddler tongue ending with "Octobee, Novembee, Decembee!" This was my first “wow” moment of his education. The second came when my other son and I were making pancakes one morning and he asked me why I don’t make homemade butter for our pancakes like Miss Karen does.
I sleep so well knowing that I came into the knowledge of this important time frame of a child’s life in time to give my children the best leg-up in life I could: a high quality early childhood experience. Committing to making this happen for our kids opened up an opportunity for me to do a children’s yoga program in the school that helped pay for their education so my husband could stop bartending. It aligned our work weeks, grew our community of like-minded-ish parents that have become like family and has given us two brilliant little boys. Their education was nurtured there. They were loved there and we all graduated from Montessori Children’s World a bit more bright-eyed and confident. We recognize that not sacrificing quality is a choice so many are not afforded, and it’s a shame that this hasn’t been rectified on the sake of all of Northwest Indiana’s youngest citizens.
My husband and I were both born and raised in Perry County. Once we decided to get married, I began looking towards the future and knew there was no where I would want to raise my future kids other than Perry County. I knew I wanted the best for my kids. I wanted opportunities for growth, socialization, and the best early childhood education available.
Fast forward a few years and it was time to get serious about finding our source of childcare. I remember calling Perry Child Care within days after announcing our pregnancy to get on the waitlist. We were blessed to find a spot for our oldest and she started at 8 weeks old. Moving ahead a couple years and our youngest also attends the facility. It was through spending my lunch hours at the facility, spending time with each of my at-the-time-infants, that I grew a close bond with the caretakers. I heard their concerns, I saw their joys, I shared their struggles.
Parents are donating countless hours to maintain the finances, to take care of HR issues, to clean and organize, to interview, to cook meals for students, to take all of the required steps to count in ratio as a caretaker. Our children deserve every opportunity given to any other child in a bigger city.
At what I hope to be the lowest, the center has had to close their doors to parents. They have turned away children at the door due to being so understaffed that they are out of ratio. They have closed full rooms for weeks at a time due to not having teachers available. This sends parents scrambling. My husband and I have called off work to stay home with the kids, we have asked family members to help out, I have worked with both kids at my office. The day that parents were told at the door that they cannot drop their child off today due to staffing, is the day I decided I needed to help make a bigger impact. After hours of training, background checks, drug screens, etc., I am now a volunteer that can count in ratio at the facility. I have used vacation time at my own job to go out to the facility to work in a room when a staff member has called in and they are out of ratio. To me, this is nothing. If this keeps the room open so other parents don't struggle, then I'm doing what I need to do. Other parents are doing much, much more than I am to keep the facility running. Caretakers are doing much much more than I am. We need the support of more than just us to make this sustainable.
Communities need young leaders to grow. Young leaders need child care.
My husband and I have two beautiful daughters and both work full-time.
Our day care struggles started back when our first daughter was born. We started off with trying in-home daycares, where we would take her to someone’s house in Rensselaer. We quickly learned this was not going to work for our schedules as we needed something more reliable and longer hours as we were both working full-time.
We enrolled her in Jasper County Youth Center when she was 2 years old and loved having the reliability and stability of the youth center with their hours. She learned so much while she was there, and we were so devastated when the center was forced to be closed. She went back to an in-home day care until we could figure out another option. We put her on the waitlist down at The Growing Patch Learning Center in Remington, in hopes they would have a spot open for her. We luckily only had to wait a few months until a spot opened for her. She attended The Growing Patch Learning Center until she was 4 years old and could attend all day preschool. We were blessed that the school corporation let her enroll a year early as she missed the deadline by two weeks since her birthday falls just after the Aug. 1 cutoff. She did two full years of all day preschool with the primary school before starting kindergarten this past fall.
As soon as we found out we were pregnant with our second daughter and knew I would only be taking off 10 weeks for maternity leave, we spoke with the director at The Growing Patch Learning Center to get our future daughter on the waitlist for after my maternity leave was done. The Growing Patch Learning Center has been wonderful for both of our girls and our second daughter still attends day care there.
However, being one of the only licensed daycares in Jasper County it does have its downfalls. It’s a 35-minute drive one way from our house to the day care and is on a different time zone than what we live on (Remington is on Eastern time and Rensselaer is on Central time). I luckily work in Lafayette, which is on Eastern time, so I’m able to take our daughter to day care on my way down to work. However, with the time change, we are always rushed to get there before breakfast is served and I must leave work early every day to have her picked up before they close because my husband doesn’t get off work until a half hour later. We have struggled with having our girls in two different towns and going to day care and school in two different time zones. We are at least grateful to at least have a place for both to go and receive wonderful care and education.
The impact of having a licensed day care back in Rensselaer would be tremendous for our family because we would not have to worry about leaving work early to get our youngest picked up and would be able to have family help with picking the girls up from school and day care if they were both in the same town. The day care shortage in the Rensselaer area has hindered a lot of families and we are really hoping for a change in the near future for a licensed day care in our town.
I have a 4-year-old son who is the joy of my life. I am originally from Tell City, but my son was born in Hawai'i. When he was 3-months-old, his dad and I decided to go our separate ways and I decided to come back home. All of my family is here in Tell City and I knew moving back home to raise my son was the best decision for us.
When we arrived here in December 2017, I struggled to find a job and struggled even more so to find child care. I could have never imagined it would be like that. So six months later, I got a full-time job in Hardinsburg, Kentucky, and luckily found a day care right across the street from my work at the time. I kept that job for about nine months, but the drive was taking its toll on us, so I decided to try to look for something here in Tell City.
Luckily I found a job here and was able to have a friend watch my son. However, I worked a full-time job and she did not watch kids on Wednesdays, so I always had to struggle to find someone to watch him that day, as everyone in my family also works full-time jobs.
Earlier this year, I was lucky to get him into Perry Preschool and Childcare. I had contacted them years before, when he was a baby but there weren’t any openings. He has been attending for about three months now and he absolutely loves it! He sings new songs that he learns all the time and constantly talks about his friends and his teachers! I love that I get pictures and updates on how he is doing throughout the day. I’m so very fortunate to send my son to a place where I don’t ever have to worry about him. I feel very lucky and fortunate.
We have definitely had our struggles over the years, but being in my hometown with family and having my son attend a school that we both love makes me know I did the right thing by moving home.
I am a working mother of two children – a 4th grader and a preschooler. I also serve as the volunteer board president for Perry County’s only licensed child care center. I am in a unique position in that I can see the child care issue from both the provider and the parent perspective. And after more than six years with one foot in both worlds, I can attest to the fact that it absolutely does not work from any angle.
Our center has wait lists for every room, some longer than actual classroom capacity; for those families fortunate enough to get a spot, they are paying as much as 50 percent of their income just to be able to go to work. At the same time, our teachers – who are tasked with molding the minds of our children during their most critical developmental years – are making poverty level wages. Still, our center runs substantial annual operating losses that can only be offset by having our volunteer board carry the heavy load of managing daily operations while simultaneously conducting never-ending funding campaigns. Simply put, it’s nearly impossible to keep a center open and operating within state licensing guidelines while also constantly fundraising to keep the doors open.
With that being said, this model of center-based care is worth fighting for because despite all of its flaws there is something really beautiful about it. The center is more than a building where children stay while their parents work. As cliché as it sounds, it’s like having a big extended family all under one roof – a tiny village of babies and toddlers being raised by caregivers who spend more waking hours with our children than, as working parents, we do. This aspect is amplified even more in our rural community where it is not uncommon for staff to be related to one another. Over the years we’ve employed mothers and daughters, grandmothers and grandchildren, aunts and nieces, sisters and brothers, cousins, etc. Likewise, families have been related to our caregivers and to one another, and it’s not uncommon to have an aunt teaching her niece or nephew or to have siblings or cousins in the same or neighboring classrooms. These dynamics create an environment where even unrelated children grow very real and meaningful bonds with their caregivers and classmates.
As an example, my daughter is close with many of the staff at the facility, especially Miss Susana or as we call her “Nana.” Susana has been a teacher in the infant room since opening day in 2015. Affectionately referred to as “the baby whisperer,” she was once a 4th grade teacher in her home-country of the Philippines and she is without a doubt one of my daughter’s favorite human beings. Our family has grown close to Susana and her family over the years, and it’s not uncommon for “Nana” to ask to take my daughter home with her after work or to spend time with her on the weekends. As a working parent with very few extended family members in the area, this relationship is invaluable.
The center-based care model has also allowed my daughter to develop very strong bonds with her classmates. Many of them began attending the center together as early as six weeks of age and at this point, they are much more like siblings than classmates or friends. They’ve spent thousands of hours together – sharing meals, singing songs, doing crafts, playing made-up games, using their imaginations, laughing, crying, fighting and learning to make up, reaching milestones, growing up together. Over the years, I have also observed the relationships that have developed between my daughter and her classmates and the children in the younger and older classrooms and how these interactions allow for even young children to serve as role models.