I love my kid... but I love daycare

Rachel Corbett: 00:00:02

Hi, welcome to the show. Today I've got a question from Fran, who says, do you feel bad about sending your kid to daycare? Fran? I don't know what the tone is in that question.

Should I feel bad about sending my kid to daycare? I don't know what other choice I have or I just don't know whether that's a genuine question. It's interesting, the whole daycare thing.

I remember when I was talking about sending her to daycare at first, because Mama's gotta work, I'm bringing the bacon in here, so what else am I supposed to do? And I did have nannies at home for the first little while and it bled me dry, but it was really good.

And I was just like, I'm just gonna push through this financially because it was best for her. So I did have nannies early. I was working from home. I was still breastfeeding her. Then I sort of slowly introduced daycare.

It took her a while to get comfortable with it. Honestly, I reckon it was a year before she stopped crying when I left. Now she had a great time there all the time.

I'd turn up and I'd like go and get her and she'd be happy. And I'd watch her sometimes when I came in and she's like having a really fun time.

But that daycare drop off is always hard, you know, and it did go on for what felt like a long time. I think when she sort of got towards the two stage, I could see she was really actually enjoying it.

Earlier than that, when I would say, oh, we're going to school today, she would sometimes not be that jazzed about it. And she wouldn't protest. It's not like she wouldn't want to go, but I just know she would have been, you know, happier to sort of stay home with me.

Naturally. Now, when I say, we're going to school today, she'd be like, we go to the copy house and we do this.

And so, like, with anything, right, there's the hard bit at the beginning. And then eventually they start to get to the point where they're like, happy to be there.

And you can see, like, the educators at my daycare are really great. They love her, she loves them. She'll say to them all the time, I love you and it's so nice. And she's meeting different people.

And I think my big thing, being a solo mum and not having family around is that I didn't want her to be just dependent and attached to me. I didn't Want it to be that she couldn't go and be social and talk to other people or that she needed to be around me all the time.

And I think daycare has been a massive benefit for that. She's really happy to engage with other people. She loves talking to people. Now, this is her personality, right? And this is interesting.

It's one of the things where I'm like, I love talking to people I know and I could talk all day to people I know, but talking to brand new people, just like randomly going up to them in the street, not my bag. You know, you set me adrift at a cocktail party where I don't know anyone and I will run out the door as swiftly as I arrived.

That is my idea of hell on earth. But my kid, it's. She's really the kind of person that I'm like, you're going to actually be really good at those kind of things.

Because she will talk to anybody. And I feel like, yes, that's her personality. And it's clearly the part of the donor's personality, not mine.

But it's also, I think, a consequence of her being around other kids and around other people and meeting people and. And the activities and things that they do are stuff that I would never do at.

I'm not setting up the fake baking powder snow in the kitchen for her to put all over the joint and build snow men out of and put little toys and things in. No, that's not happening here. That's happening at daycare.

So all of that stuff and the activities where they're planning stuff out for them every day, they've basically got their own version of the park, literally in the center where they can play on all the play equipment all the time. Like, I just feel. I've never felt bad about sending her to daycare. I have to work. And here is the thing.

I could not be here seven days a week with her. And if I was here with her seven days a week, I would not be an excellent mother.

I would be absolutely tapped out, mental breakdown central, really losing my mind, not a happy camper. So going to work is essential for me. It's essential for me to pay the bills, but it's also essential for me mentally.

I think she really enjoys being at daycare now and she loves the people there.

And I've always felt really good about it, I think, because I've sort of transitioned into it slowly and dropped the kind of nannies bit by bit and gone in. And she's now, three days a week, she'll eventually go to four days a week and I'll keep a day in the middle to be with her.

And I think that's kind of a really nice spot. And I feel like it's really nice to see her get excited when she wakes up in the morning.

And she always says the same thing to me every morning, where are we going? And wherever we're going, I'll tell her. And when I say, oh, we're going to school today, she's excited about that now.

And I really think that's a good thing. So I haven't felt guilty about that.

I know that I wouldn't be able to even if I had the financial capability to do it, I wouldn't be able to be here with her seven days a week. I need the break and I think that's okay to admit. So I'm really grateful.

The only thing I would say about daycare is the if you are like me, I hate a dress up party, right? I hate a dress up party.

It's if you provided me the dress up clothes and I just had to put them on when I got to your party, I'll dress up all day long. You can make me look like an absolute. I do not care. It's not about looking good. I can look absolutely idiotic.

It's about, please do not make me find time in the weeks before this party to have to prep an outfit for this party. I do not. I can't.

I haven't got the time to do the work to actually go to this social engagement because it's already going to be work to go to a social engagement. What am I, an extroverted introvert? I can do stuff on telly or on the podcast, but if I'm at a party, it's not my natural habitat.

I'm not great at a party. I like a dinner of four, six maximum. Really good. That's my sort of happy place. Anything bigger than that? No.

But the idea that you then have to do work and that if you can't find the time to find the outfit and then you haven't found an outfit that's good enough, and then you're like, oh gosh, is this the mental load? No.

And all of a sudden at daycare, I turn up, I what feels like twice a week, look around the room and I say to the educators, what have I not seen in the app? Because I walk in, everybody's dressed as a Disney princess. Not Olivia? Nah. She's dressed in tracksuit pants, a T shirt and a Jumper like she is.

Every single day we turn up, everyone's in their pajamas. Not Olivia, she's in tracksuit pants, a T shirt and a jumper every single week. There is something I will say.

I did manage to make an Easter hat for the Easter Hat Parade at no small cost to my life, I can tell you, because the only time I had available was the weekend before the Easter Hat Parade. Olivia had to come with me to go to the shops.

It took me an hour and a half to just get to one shop and back because we went to the $2 shop which has a lot of stuff that toddlers like to look at. And it was real hard getting out of that joint and we were late for a nap. It was just a real punish.

But I got her a hat and I gave it to her, I will admit. And this I feel a bit bad about. But also this is another bit of a bugbear with daycare apart.

Like, let's not do a dress up every two times a week because that is a lot.

But the let's run an event at 10am when you've dropped your kid off because you have a job and then you got to come back at 10am and then you got to leave them again. Like I can't leave.

I can't say goodbye to my kid at like 8:30 or whenever I drop her off, come back an hour and a half later and then make her go through the goodbye all over again. So I didn't go the Easter Hat Parade. And to be honest, she's kind of in that age where she doesn't really know that I'm invited.

Maybe next year she'll be more at a stage where she's like every. She understands. I don't know, I'm just kind of judging it on her.

As soon as she understands mummies are here and my mummy is not here, well, you better believe I'm going to be there. But up until that point, no.

I made the mistake of going to the Christmas event last year and it was really just turn up at 2 o' clock and then take your child home and do that. And Santa was just wandering around and everybody was just playing like they were normally playing.

Like my kid would have just been playing on the play equipment. Like she had no idea what was going on. She didn't know why Santa was there, she didn't know why I was there.

So I was like, no, until we actually need to be there. And you know, and it means something to you for me to be there, then will be there all day long.

But until then, I'm sorry, I'm not coming back an hour and a half after I drop her off to watch her in the Easter hat Parade when she doesn't even care if I'm there or not. And then I'm having to get her to melt down again because I have to leave again. And she's like, why are you leaving me twice in one day?

Once it's hard enough. Okay. Once it's hard enough. So those are a few of my bug bears. About daycare, not that you asked for any of that.

You just asked if I felt bad about sending my kid to daycare. But no, I don't. I never have. I feel like she's really enjoying it there. I think she really thrives. It's interesting when she.

I sent her there at about 10 months, I think she was. She wasn't walking yet.

And as soon as she saw other kids walking, pulling themselves up, that was the first time she started to walk, pull herself up. I think her language has gotten so much better because she's got so many people to talk to all the time that she. And she loves to chat.

So I think there are so many benefits to her being in daycare and there's so many benefits to me as well. And so I'm really grateful that I found a place that I really like and that she likes it too. And so I haven't felt a day guilt about it.

You're not going to make me feel one either. Thanks so much for the question. I do appreciate it. I don't know whether there was shade attached. If there was, I'm sorry, I didn't bite.

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