Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
20. Daycare Dilemma: Gut vs. Guilt
What if putting my child in daycare is going to mess them up forever? Am I sacrificing their wellbeing for my personal ambition? These are the kinds of questions many mothers face as they consider college and/or joining the workforce. We respond to a listener question about navigating the guilt that is often heaped upon mothers who break the family tradition of being a stay-at-home mom. We reflect on our own experiences with childcare while acknowledging the irony of hesitating to ask for childcare when we've been providers ourselves. We unpack some of the challenges that come with making the best choices for our children while pointing out how broader gender norms and social policies shape the limited options available to American parents. (Warning: It gets a little punchy!) In the long run, arbitrary rules and cultural prejudices won't keep children safe; children thrive when they have curious, connected, and fulfilled parents.
Links (we should have) mentioned in the show:
- Child care and the damage myth - The Conversation
- What Do We Know About the Effects of Early Child Care? (pdf)
- 5 Lies I Believed About Childcare - Motherly
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi.
Speaker 2:And this is Rebecca. We're so excited to be back again. Naomi, what's been happening in your life?
Speaker 1:Well, this week my kids had a short school week, so they're with their dad for the rest of the week, and this is Friday when we're recording. So that means I'll have lots of time to grade and grade and grade some more and get midterm grades turned in by Tuesday. So you're still working, yeah, and doing laundry and a week's worth of housework over the weekend. But it's all good. All the things right, all the things, all the things. What about?
Speaker 2:you, man. It's been a busy week and I'm not sure why I'm kind of excited about. A month ago one of my kids was texting me and telling me we need to see Hades Town. So her and I went online and we booked tickets for this coming weekend. So we're going to Toledo to see Hades Town.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah. So is it a live production, a musical? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Very cool. I think one of the most incredible things that I didn't think would come with parenting was like my kids want to spend time with me. It's so cool.
Speaker 1:That is amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:That is really something to celebrate. Well, it is, and it's kind of redemptive. I mean, like you know, having a relationship with your kids in a way that you've never had with your parents is kind of it's like okay, this does work Right. And, by the way, for what it's worth, it makes gentle parenting worthwhile, but anyway, that's a whole other subject.
Speaker 1:Well, and I'm sure it's also really gratifying after I don't like to put it this way, but surviving the middle school years we were.
Speaker 1:We had conferences this week, so I got Worst Mom of the Year Award because I was talking about things that didn't need to be talked about at the conferences. I was dragging them out and then also I insisted on looking at somebody's locker and I wanted to bring home the moldy to-go cups and bring home the winter coats and gloves and all these things that had collected there. It was a lot. It was a lot for an 11-year-old to deal with, so yeah, Well, and that's the thing that people often, I think, get confused.
Speaker 2:They want to talk about gentle parenting as if it's this rainbows and unicorns and passive you know Permissives, yeah, yeah, and actually it's not.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's more. At least, what it meant for me in that moment was just not taking it personally, that he was upset and realizing he's had a long day, he's tired, he's at the end of his rope and, yeah, it is so weird to have your mom in a space where you don't usually have mom. Mom is part of home and here he was having his two worlds collide and I know I mean as an adult, that's weird. So much more for a kid who is just trying to figure things out.
Speaker 2:And with my kids. If I had told them three days previously that, oh, by the way, we're going to be cleaning out your locker as well, they would have had time to prepare for that fact, which I don't do well with that, and you can't as a parent. You can't know what you're going to be doing three days in advance, right, but springing just being like, oh, by the way, we're going to do this while we're here adds a whole other level of processing to a tired mind.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And he was already avoiding his locker because there were things that he needed in there that he wasn't getting because they were brewing.
Speaker 2:It was a mess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but at his school they have this thing where seventh graders who have free time are available to work with sixth graders who need help with their lockers, managing their lockers.
Speaker 2:So I got him signed up for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good for you, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's actually a really good idea.
Speaker 1:I thought so too. I thought so too. I guess he has had help in the past. But I let his teachers know it's time to step that game up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got an interesting letter, didn't we, we sure?
Speaker 1:did. Maybe we could talk about what our experience with daycare has been.
Speaker 2:I think we both took care of kids either as babysitting or in-home daycare or that kind of thing, you know how is it possible that some of us babysat for so many other people, for so many other kids, even for our siblings, but yet we put ourselves through grief about getting someone to babysit our kids? How does that work exactly? I never had that thought until you brought it up and I'm like dang it. It's true, We've babysat.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:So children go to daycare so when the girls were born we were pretty poor. We were buying a lot of Pampers, but pretty early on I realized for my mental health I needed one day a week. So at that point I had an Amish girl come in one day a week. That was when I would run errands, get groceries, that type of thing. But as luck would have it, she was the oldest in her family and her family was so excited to meet these twins. So they ended up being our childcare for probably eight years. Wow, maybe even longer than that yeah.
Speaker 2:And I would have the kids there probably two days a week. And you know what it was fabulous. It was wonderful. My advice is, if possible, find yourself a good Amish family and get the oldest girl to babysit so that you can go through all the younger girls as they come up, as they come up. Yeah, and you know what? I know how fortunate I was and not everyone has that chance Right Of finding the whole little Amish family who will watch your kids. Not everyone has that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Right and where it's someone you feel your kids feel comfortable with, you feel comfortable with just everything fits. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean my kids, before the twins could even talk as we rounded the curve to go up their drive, they would recognize it and their little legs would start kicking and it'd be like Aw. So yeah, it was something they looked forward to.
Speaker 1:It was something.
Speaker 2:it was a good fit Right.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful.
Speaker 2:And I know how lucky I am Right.
Speaker 1:Right, how about you? I had my children when I was in grad school and the university where I attended had an on-campus daycare for parenting students and it wasn't cheap, but we made it work and it was certainly, the location was really convenient, and so both of my children went there. Well, liberty went almost all the way up through until kindergarten. Barrett was there for the first two years and that was a really positive experience to. In fact, just this morning I was texting with the daycare provider for Liberty back when she was an infant, and Ms Emmy would babysit her in the evenings, and then we, of course, paid her. But while she was babysitting Liberty, she'd take her to the mall and buy her all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, that's where the daycare, that's where the babysitting money went. So she was so sweet and since then the daycare has been torn down. That's a whole other story we could talk about sometime, but Liberty and I are going back to that area in a couple of weeks, so we're gonna meet up with her and she's really excited. So we were texting about that and making plans to meet up, even though we haven't really been in touch with her much in recent years. Just that memory of her is something that has really stuck with Liberty. Also, when we were there, we planned to meet up with one of the little kids that Liberty was good friends with and his mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so and he and Liberty are just like a few weeks apart in age and when she was little and when he got to daycare in the morning before Liberty did, there were a couple of toys there. He'd grabbed two of them, like if it was a favorite toy or something, and he'd hang on to it till she got there and then give it to her, give the second toy to her.
Speaker 2:Seriously.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, it's so sweet. So now they're both turning 15 and we're all gonna meet up and they haven't seen each other since they were like five.
Speaker 2:So that'll be fun. So did you have a lot of emotional conflict as you were putting your kids into daycare?
Speaker 1:No, I didn't have a lot of conflict about that. I had conflict earlier in terms of what it would look like to have children and if I had the resources, if we had the resources to do it, right. But I knew that if I was going to have children that it would involve daycare, Right. And when the time came I knew it was the right thing to do. I didn't have that emotional turmoil that I know some people do. In fact I almost had that more with the second one. Then I dropped off the first one. But million and one different reasons, just different scenarios. But yeah, let's get into the letter, Do you wanna?
Speaker 2:go ahead and read it All right. So our listener wrote Hi ladies, thank you for the encouraging podcast. It has been very helpful for me as I start the journey toward my health information technology degree. I have two little children. The older one has Down syndrome and we'll start kindergarten this fall. The younger one will have to go to daycare in order for me to go to school.
Speaker 2:All of this goes completely against the way I was raised and my mother is very disappointed that I am not just planning on staying home and homeschooling. The reality is I am trying to do the best for my family, especially because I know school is the best fit for my special needs daughter. I would love to hear an episode geared for younger moms who are making different choices for their childcare. Daycare was always seen as the most unloving thing I could do, but here I am planning to send my two year old son. I would be lying if I said I didn't struggle with some guilt due to the messages I have heard my whole life. Thanks again for the wonderful podcast and if you do an episode on the topic of daycare and school, I would just love it. Thanks again. Thank you for your letter. Seriously, there's so many points in here. I'm like, yeah, sister, all of us, I mean disappointing your mom. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Doing the thing you've always believed is the worst thing you could do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're with you. Yeah, thank you for your vulnerability and for writing the letter in our discussions about podcasts topics. For some reason, I didn't really think about daycare, and it's a very important process.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's huge. I have some thoughts right off the cuff. That is that we've all heard daycare horror stories. Maybe they're not as common now as they once were. Maybe I'm just not in those spaces as much. But when we really think about it, if we compare the number of convicted daycare abusers with the number of convicted family predators or church predators, our kids are no safer at home than they are at daycare. And when I think about how the traditional patriarchal narrative tells us follow the rules that others have made, you're not trusting your own judgment. You're following the rules, ignoring our own inner wisdom. It teaches that we should shush our children and if we do all this we will get certain results at the end. But the thing is, those conditions of shutting down, doubting yourself, shutting down your children all of those are conditions that actually make a situation right for abuse.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I think the bottom line is we've got to listen to our gut, not to our guilt. And whether daycare is a good thing or a bad thing, it all depends. And if we listen to our kids, are they comfortable and relaxed around the caretakers? Are they showing signs of distress or dysregulation? How do we feel? Do we feel, what's our gut sense, when you pay attention and if something's not good, you change the situation. That's what will keep our kids safe.
Speaker 2:And the interesting thing is, this is what you're going to have to do for the next 18 years of their lives.
Speaker 1:You're going to have to do this with school settings.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to do this with peer groups. This skill is not a one and done skill for daycare Right.
Speaker 1:And the thing is that while children are young, yes, they are more vulnerable, like physically vulnerable but when they are older, they're vulnerable in other ways too, as far as who they are around and the kinds of things that can happen, and so absolutely, that risk does not go away when they turn five or six because they start going to school.
Speaker 2:Well, and this whole promise that if you never have your kids in daycare and if you are with them all the time and if you protect them and if you homeschool them, it comes with this promise of protection, and it's a promise that it's an empty promise. It's an empty promise. You can't guarantee that. No, no. And do I believe in vetting your daycare people? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Do I believe in vetting your friends? Yeah, Heck. I believe in vetting your family? Yes, I mean. But the world just isn't always safe and I know that for myself. Being around my kids day in, day out, day in, day out, is not a good mental health recipe for me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And maybe that works for some people and that's great, right, but for those of us who need a little more space, yeah, we are not good mothers when we're not good parents when we're maxed out and all of human history, children weren't raised with just one caregiver. Children were raised with multiple caregivers, like that.
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately, this narrative also is harming women, because I was primarily a stay-at-home mom. I was in my 40s before I started school and a lot of that was guilt motivating me. I was in my 40s when I was offered a job for $12 an hour, like, come on, people, this isn't hurting the men in our lives. I now get to work for other men for $12 an hour, yeah. So again, it's not wrong. If you want to be the primary caregiver and stay at home mom or whatever, that's not a problem. But don't do it because of guilt or because you think you can somehow protect your kids by doing this. And I think, even if you are a stay at home mom, for the love of God, every year, do a photography class, do a cake decorating class, do a gardening class, do something so that you keep learning and you know what your interests are.
Speaker 1:Something you genuinely enjoy and get daycare Right.
Speaker 2:And get daycare. When you do that, get someone else invested in your kids' lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You know, we had generally positive daycare experiences, but not always, and I thought it might be helpful to talk about one that wasn't so great, just because sometimes these are not open and shut, you know, clear cut cases as far as what you should do, right? So, like I said, my daughter went to the on-campus daycare for parenting students at the university where I was attending, and this location was super convenient. Now, the care providers, the teachers, were underpaid, under resourced, you know, but they were so loving, they were very warm, she was thriving, she loved them, she loved the other children she was playing with and, you know, since we were so far from family in a lot of ways, they were like cousins were to me when I was growing up. So, but then, when she was about three, a Montessori preschool opened up nearby and just because of all the different factors that were involved, it seemed like a really good option and so we moved her over there and, of course, with the Montessori approach, the curriculum, the philosophy, there was so much more training involved, there was just, you know, supposed to be so much better and there were a lot of things about it that were really impressive. She would come home talking about which is a primary color and which is a tertiary color, a primary, secondary, tertiary, yeah, and so like it was really impressive in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:But we started kind of getting this weird feeling, kind of an odd vibe, from some of the administrators and some of the teachers not all of them, but kind of got to a point where I would always feel ill at ease when I went to pick her up and I felt like I was always self-conscious that I wasn't parenting in a Montessori approved way. And it became clear that the staff well, our impression was that the priority was for the children and families to conform to their program, their philosophy, and the well-being of the children wasn't the priority. And I'm not saying they were hurting the children, just that their philosophy, their program was what mattered. And so Liberty started begging not to go to school. Her dad was taking her and her little brother was newborn at the time, and so her dad would be taking her to school and she'd be begging not to go, and that was awful and it was not the way it had been before at the other place.
Speaker 1:And so after several months, when we saw this isn't getting better, we pulled her out and we put her back in the other daycare where she had been before and ultimately we felt it would be better for her to be with caregivers who were warm and caring, that she was attached to, even if they showed more Disney movies than we would have liked, and that that was better than being miserable in an environment where she had the best curriculum. So I think if we're talking about a worst case scenario where you put your kids in daycare and something bad happens, I mean first of all, bad things are unavoidable, like they're going to happen. But trauma is not what causes long-term problems for kids. It's trauma that's ignored or invalidated. That's what causes really long-term harm. Just like breaking a bone. It doesn't mean our kid will never walk again unless we don't attend to the broken bone and give it the support it needs to heal properly.
Speaker 2:Agreed, and I think we want easy formulas, easy solutions, easy rules, and it just doesn't always work.
Speaker 1:Right, if we somehow make daycare out to be the beast that will destroy our children, right? We ignore the truth of how the world works, how trauma works and the reality of where the predators are. So what are some of the things that you have heard about the dangers of daycare? What are some of the things that you hear as given as reasons that kids shouldn't be put in daycare?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we've all heard the concern that the quality of care isn't the same as what a mother would provide. Oh, I remember hearing about infections and illnesses, how that's going to be a big issue. The lack of one-on-one attention, which, let's be fair, when you have a large family, that doesn't happen anyway, right, isn't that the truth? Attachment and bonding concerns early academic pressure, cost and accessibility, which is fair, that's a real one. Culture and philosophical differences, which I don't understand, but anyway, and societal expectations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that philosophical differences, different values, is one of those things we heard about a lot and I've never really been clear about what exactly those differences are. Because my children, they were taught to share, they were taught how to sit at the table and eat with the group. They learned how to take turns. I'm not sure what exactly those cultural or value differences were that they were supposedly poisoned with.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think from what I remember hearing was well, what if you get into a situation where one of their friends parent is a single mom? Or what if you are there with another faith tradition? So what if you are? The way we live is not perfection, and I don't understand why the way someone else might live is such a threat to our practices, and I love the way that having a diverse social experience creates curiosity. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:For kids. That is a positive thing. It's not just plain Christian families that want their children to learn to be kind and take turns and do all that stuff. So it doesn't matter what your faith is. Most people want their kids to learn that too. Exactly I think what research shows is that it really depends. It depends If you have a good daycare setup, then it's going to have positive effects. Like the kids are going to learn how to play with other kids, how to negotiate, how to share, how to get along with others.
Speaker 1:I find it terrifying to think that my children's development would rest entirely on me. The world is too big for me to have the full responsibility for preparing them for it. I need the help of their teachers. No one person can do it alone. But if there's a daycare where they are not being challenged in that way, sure that's a concern. If we're talking about behavior issues or attachment issues, if there's these concerns, yeah then you want to address it. But it's not a given that that's going to be the case. It's not a given that a child's going to be neglected. Here's the thing. At least, in a daycare setting, there is usually some kind of oversight. There is usually more than one adult present. If someone is feeling stressed, if a care provider has reached their limit, there's someone there to give them a break, unlike a situation where there's just one adult and it's all on them. Sure, things can go wrong, but the way to avoid it is not by following rules, it's by paying attention, it's by getting to know people and by developing those relationships.
Speaker 2:What I would like to suggest here is if you're a mom who was a stay-at-home mom and it worked for you, and now you have a daughter, daughter-in-law, who truly wants to I don't know go to school, get a job. Yes, even if you don't understand, try your hardest to be curious, try your hardest to be supportive and just listen, maybe even offer to help with daycare. You don't have to do all of it. But your guilt and your shame is not going to help the situation. I think if we can learn to support each other even when we don't understand, that's where real relationships are built. That's where real growth happens Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I don't think we can judge someone else for their choices until we actually know what their options were. Life isn't a choice between what's awesome and terrible. It's a choice between what hurts and hurts worse. Sometimes, as parents, we don't have any good options. We have to choose the least problematic option or at least a less than perfect option. The pandemic was full of those situations for so many of us where we had to choose between. I mean, I thought I would never have my kids learning at home. I just didn't think it was even feasible. I could not imagine a world in which that would happen. But it did, it did and we got through it Right.
Speaker 2:Just recently I had someone comment that she is not one of these moms that just puts her kids in front of the TV. And I remember just at first I kind of bristled and I was like okay, why are you bristling? And then I just said you know what? Can we pause and think about how quickly we judge other people for the situations they're in? We don't know what a mom went through to decide that. You know what watch TV after school. It's the lesser of the evil. But I think when we judge other people harshly, we in turn judge ourselves harshly. So maybe if we can offer the mom who we think allows her child to watch too much TV, if we can offer her grace, I think in turn we can maybe offer ourselves grace as well, absolutely, because I think that's often beneath the surface those kind of judgmental statements is wanting to prevent that same judgment from being turned to us, right?
Speaker 2:Or if we judge other people it kind of gives us a pass. I mean, at least we don't do that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and at least we disapprove of the ones who do. Yeah, and you know, and I think we can't avoid the gendered component of this, when men work hard, sacrifice for their jobs, they get promotions, they get more authority. And yet when women do all those things, when they try to take on three roles at one time, sacrifice their health, they're lucky if they get a Mother's Day card, right, and you know. And they're told oh yeah, family's worth any sacrifice you can make. So you know, the impulsive master just keeps sacrificing. And if you're a mother of color and you're doing all this, society dismisses you as a freeloader. Right, and it's time we realize that the expectations we have of mothers is not sustainable. We can't solve it by individuals making better choices. We collectively, as a society, have to get real.
Speaker 1:And you know, let's not forget that the older generation is the one that decimated our social safety net, our older voters had the privilege of being able to raise a family on one income, and the way things are, it just doesn't work Right, and their generation is largely responsible for making these policy changes, so that you can't live on one income anymore. They voted for policies that made housing, transportation, education and healthcare Like all these basic needs are so expensive now. And instead of investing in systems that would make our lives so much more secure, like virtually every other post-industrialized country is done, so that you don't have to go into debt to go to college, you don't have to hand over your whole paycheck to put your kids in daycare, their votes went to subsidize the lifestyles of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Right, and not to get political, but I'm going to get political because this matters to us.
Speaker 1:This changes the options we have, and you know, without those essential systems in place, like housing, transportation, education and healthcare and others, mothers in America are expected to run ourselves ragged, trying to be in three places at once, trying to do all the things and keep the ship afloat. And they voted for freedom for the yacht owning class and indentured servitude for the rest of us. And is that a polarizing statement? Yes, come at me. If you disagree, that's fine. You don't have to agree, but that's really how I see it. So I am not here for a guilt trip from anyone, in light of all the ways that we are swimming upstream just to survive.
Speaker 2:So, dear listener, my advice to you is trust yourself. Just trust your process. There is a thousand different ways you can check in with your kids Something I wish I would have done and I just heard another dad talking about how he does this every night and I'm like, oh, every night he just lays in bed with his kid, even if it's for 10 minutes, and he says so, what do you want to talk about tonight? You can do that in the car. That's what you want to talk about on the way home. You can build connections with your kids. You can know what's happening in your kids' life without being there 24-7.
Speaker 2:Your life is important too. Your dreams are important, your family's future is important, and you're also dealing with a special needs kid. You have a lot of things to consider, things that I don't even understand. So, as much as humanly possible, I give you permission to let go of the guilt, let go of the doubts. The doubts are going to always be there. Look at them. They get to be on the bus, but they're not going to run your bus. You can make decisions that make sense for you. You can make decisions that make sense for your family, and it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay because you're there, you're watching, you're observing and you're adjusting.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and no one has a crystal ball to say what decisions we make are going to hurt or not hurt our children. The reality is they will be hurt because that's life and I think, instead of evaluating a decision based on the outcome, you know where we go. Oh, I should have done this or I shouldn't have done that. We have to evaluate it on the basis of information that we have available when we make that decision.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And be open to adjusting when we need to Right, and the best thing your children have going for them is having a bright, intelligent and caring mother like you. The best any of us can do is focus on the next right thing we know to do and then prepare to change course when the situation changes Absolutely. You know balancing childcare and school and work and everything else shouldn't be this hard, but it is. You got this.
Speaker 2:You totally got this Absolutely. Thank you, naomi, and we will catch you the next time. Thanks again for your letter. Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high-demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at UncoveredLifeBeyond at gmailcom. That's UncoveredLifeBeyond at gmailcom. Uncoveredlifebeyondcom.
