Today, I took Spawnling to Ikea. It's not a place where I regularly frequent as of late for several reasons, not the least of which that I try very hard not to be an allen key toting consumer whore. Look, with three kids under my belt I'm sure there are rumours of other types of whoring in my life, so why make things harder on myself? It would be nice to leave at least my consumerism unsullied.
Still, I was drawn to the magical promise of uninterrupted coffee and browsing. With Spawnling being three, potty trained, and of the required magical height, he now qualifies for an hour in free daycare the Ikea ball pit. And what does that mean for mommy? A type of freedom I don't often experience during the day: Alone Time.
Except I wasn't alone, because I met two other stay-at-home-mom friends there and we all unceremoniously plopped our preschool-aged boys into the germ haven at the store's entrance before purchasing some cheap, shitty coffee at the store's exit. We started to wander aimlessly. We had an hour. One complete, beautiful hour to look forward to, where we knew our children were safely behind plexiglass with some energetic, undoubtedly childless young man to keep an eye on them.
We made it through 15 minutes before the pager went off.
Do you have any idea how long it takes to walk through an Ikea? The place goes on forever, even if you happen to know all the shortcuts (which we did). It was like a giant obstacle course full of strollers (almost sideswiped a toddler in the restaurant), shuffling old ladies who stop to look at everything (and I mean everything), and a concerning number of career-aged people who seem to not have a career to go to on a Thursday morning yet have a cart full of Swedish lots-of-assembly-required products. I think I may have broken a sweat as I sped walked, in high-heeled sandals, toward what I was sure would be a sobbing Spawnling who missed his mommy.
It wasn't. It was a nonplussed Spawnling's friend who wanted out of the chaos and into our would-be adult time. Spawnling saw me and waved, grinning wide before diving into the balls again.
We sat in a fake living room with a rocking moose - yes, I said moose - just out of site from the ball pit. We were there for perhaps ten more minutes before we heard "Spawnling's mom?"
It was the happy ball of energy employed by the European megacorp who was calling to me to come get my son. Spawn had also had enough of coating himself full of disease and wanted a slice of that rocking moose action.
Well, it was a nice 30 minutes.
It's funny, because I don't usually leave my kids with complete and utter strangers. Heck, I've never even put them in daycare. The closest we've come before the age of five is part-time preschool. I have trust issues that have apparently taken over thirteen years to work through.
And just as I'm starting to get into the mindset of maybe putting my youngest gremlin into a new preschool for two days a week in the fall so I can get some contracts done, I see a major daycare faux pas. I have dubbed it:
(Like that? You just add an "s." I really am that creative. Does that intimidate you?)
You may not know that your child is in DayScare. You may think that he or she is in the hands of responsible, hands-on professionals. And you may be right. I certainly hope you are. On the other hand, you may have your child with one of the four scary dayscare providers I saw at the park two days ago. I can tell you right now at least 20 parents have no idea they're not getting top quality care for their money.
These dayscare ladies pulled up their minivans, unloaded a herd of children, let them loose in the park, and sat down at a table.
When I showed up, the little darlings were running wild, pushing other children to the ground, hitting and kicking each other, dangling dangerously off a play structure meant for older kids. One of my friends showed up with her son, who was then shoved abruptly down the slide by one of the dayscare kids. He tumbled all the way down and was hurt pretty badly. My friend asked who this child belonged two in both official languages, yet nobody responded. Not one of the dayscare divas even bothered to glance over. My friend ended up talking to the boy herself about how there is no pushing.
This went on for about two hours. The other parents and I had to hover around our children constantly to make sure they didn't get hurt by the kids left to run wild.
Look, I'm not coming down on childcare workers. I was one (and will never be one again now that I'm well on my way to becoming a world famous author and sex symbol), and many of my friends take other kids into their homes for a living. But the difference is that the providers I know personally actually work for their pay by, you know, paying attention. Making sure the sweet pumpkins don't trample each other. Teaching empathy and kindness. When you spend 40+ hours every week with a little somebody, you don't just make sure they're fed and watered.
I get that it's an exhausting job. Heck, that's why you couldn't pay me enough to do it anymore. The scariest part about daycare is that it's a bulk business. In my community, the only way to make any decent money at it is to take in as many children as possible, feed them as inexpensively as possible, and hope to god they don't smash your flatscreen with a wooden train. I didn't make a killing because I would only take in two full-time kids at once. I don't pride myself on being the world's best business woman (just the world's most awesome woman).
But now that I see you can just dump them in a park, turn your back to them and drink coffee with your friends, I see that I had it all wrong. Why did I put myself under so much pressure to do a good job when I could get paid the same amount to do nothing at all?
So, in short, it took a lot for me to let my gremlin go wander into the ball pit under someone else's supervision today. He did not get hurt, he had a lot of fun, I enjoyed my 30 minutes, but I was a little relieved to have him back by my side after what I saw at the park this week. Hopefully I'll regain some trust in time to enrol him in preschool.
Or maybe I'll just bring my laptop to Ikea twice a week and work there. The coffee sucks, but there is a Starbucks right across the street.
