Who You Calling A Jesse?

My past few months have been complicated by issues that every new parent has had to deal with at some point. It all centres around daycare… They aren’t new to more experienced parents but they are new to me, so I post.

A certain local daycare that is on or very near campus finally called us up the other day after two years on the waiting list to say they have an infant spot in September for what will be our 19 month old son. Their recommendation was to stick him in the more expensive spot with cribs, supervision, and day plans, etc. What they don’t know is that our little ‘infant’ can tackle a four year old already. I don’t think he would do well in an institutional style daycare with kids younger than him… but who knows. We won’t find out as he isn’t going.

Currently he is in a home care environment with a an amazing family. He gets to play with all older kids that don’t really care he can’t speak a language they know yet. It is not ideal in that there is no back up if she is ill but in my mind it is a lot better experience. However, finding someone you trust is a lot harder. Finding someone at all in Waterloo is pretty hard.

Then there is paying for it. Generally Waterloo salaries are at a professional level with both parents working (when there are two parents). Even so, the cost is close to a mortgage payment if you find a spot. Do any regional employers help out employees with that? Sure you get some back in taxes but that first year is hard.

Even with daycare, kids get sick (a lot) and you don’t work

Then there is the issue of the bugs these kids share. It doesn’t matter what you do, the moment kids start interacting in groups they start sharing bugs.

The Baby started daycare in January of this year, by the end of the month he had his first cold. Four weeks of coughing later with fevers that would last a day or two then go away for a few days, he clearly had something more going on.

A whole rant on the good and bad service you get out of Ontario’s health care system could fill this void but lets just sum it with: three rounds of antibiotics, a few visits to emerg, and many days off of work later was topped off this weekend with the messiest of all viruses that had two newb parents celebrating solid poo in the nappy.

On a positive note we did get a week and a half away with no medical drama. Funny enough, the baby wasn’t in daycare for 5 days leading up to leaving on that trip… Having to live through virus spreading period of daycare has left me scrambling for time to do anything.

My wife and I are lucky though. We work at the University of Waterloo where generally you can take time to deal with things like a sick baby. What do other people do? Take vacation?

What could be fixed?

Not sure. I have a suspicion that larger employers in town do not do a whole lot to help out the young professional family starting out in the world but I could be wrong. University of Waterloo does nothing to help its staff or faculty get spots in daycare or afford them. It does try to encourage an environment that does give you time to deal with family issues though and that is worth something.

I think the ideal would be to make daycare a taxable benefit from the employer coupled with the ‘family focused’ environment for staff that allows them the time to at least ‘adjust’ working hours so that issues can more easily be dealt with. Burning precious vacation days only punishes young staff by taking away their only opportunity to actually get away. I certainly feel like I get the time but every month I wish I didn’t have to pay so much to have someone watch my kid so I can earn money so I can spend it to fuel the local, provincial, and national economy. Never mind the future tax payer.

“Suck it up, we had it worse” are normal comments I receive if I moan about this. I know the cost and availability is far worse in Toronto as well so I am thankful to be in Waterloo but it still isn’t great here either.

Our ‘plan b’ is to actually go with a live in nanny when the next one arrives. Its far less money than two times daycare costs!