Today I want to tell you what has happened to a friend with her daughter of less than a year, who started going to daycare a month ago. It is a particular case that cannot be extended to the group of educators in nursery schools, but it can happen because, as happens in all jobs, there are those who do by vocation and there are those who do it because, simply, you need money at the end of the month.
Weeks of nerves choosing nursery, the uncertainty of knowing what will happen, questions about whether to reach a milestone before entering the nursery, how they will do to give him food, what will happen when he wants to take a nap without the nap teti of mom and how the girl will wear it. A thousand doubts, anxiety and anguish wishing that I have a caregiver capable of responding to all of them and when you finally know her it turns out that she tells you that "There are times when I wonder what I am doing here, with how well I would be a Carrefour cashier."
A thousand problems because the girl was normal
The girl began to eat and chunks after six months and apparently liked the invention so much that this has been her way of eating from then: bits in addition to breast milk. But of course, this was a problem in kindergarten because children under one year old eat the most crushed: “What if we crushed it? Of course, feed her only pieces… ” "Well, she eats it anyway, I don't know ... she doesn't eat crushed, she eats like we do ..."
He took a nap with his chest, because it's what babies who suck do, fall asleep with his chest. It is often said wrongly that they are using the mother as a pacifier to calm down, and I say wrongly because if we ask ourselves what was before, the pacifier or the tit, it is clear that the pacifier is much more recent, so the children have fallen asleep always to the tit, until the moment when it occurred to someone to substitute one thing for another. Of course, the girl fell asleep to the chest but does not use a pacifier. Well, this was another problem: "This is, of course, a problem because if you don't have a pacifier to see how I sleep it".
It is logical, she is a girl of months accustomed to being with her mother who is going to suffer a separation. The main problem is for the girl, who will have to learn to do things differently, the problem is for the mother, who leaves her daughter feeling that it is still too early and the problem is for the caregiver, who has a group from very different children who do very different things.
Who is the professional?
Now the question is, of the three, Who is the professional? Who is the one who has already lived dozens of separations? Who is the one with experience in this matter? The mother and the daughter are the first time they separate, so for them it is clear that everything will be a problem, but the caretaker is doing her job and what a mother expects is for her to say something like: “Quiet, that if necessary I will be with her until she falls asleep, ”“ I know how to do it, ”“ we will surely find a way, ”“ if she eats pieces we can always give her food from the group of the elders ”or similar things, to prove that it is a educator and who has resources to adapt herself to children.
If that does not come, if she is not able to give the assurance to a mother that they will do their best there so that the girl is well, to understand her individuality, her way of being and her way of doing, trust can be resentful and doubts increase.
Sometimes I would rather be a cashier at Carrefour
If, in addition to all this, it turns out that the caregiver tells you that she has many children, that she cannot take care of them all and that she often thinks that I would be better as a cashier at Carrefour, because I would have much less worries, the face that should be left will be more like a poem than an "I understand you".
It is clear that taking care of many children is hard. If it already is for a father and a mother who have a baby, imagine for a caregiver who has several. However, as I say, she is the professional, the educator. She has chosen that profession, she has studied for it. She is the one who has to know when to talk about children, when to educate and when to check out the supermarket checkout.
