I was appalled by this post over at Dad Centric. How can it be “against policy” to clean up a child after a diarrhea accident? How can a daycare center possibly think it’s acceptable to let a child sit in his own feces for over 45 minutes? Daycare has the word “care” in it. I don’t call subjecting a child to humiliation and abuse “care.”

This reminded me of our own daycare horror story. When Keaton was just a year old I had to take him out of the daycare center I loved because I lost my job. I was going to college so I put him in the daycare center at the college I was attending. I figured that would be a safe place because it was a state college after all. Surely he’d be safe there. Yeah, not so much.

After just a few months I was getting some clues that this was not the place for him. One day I came to pick him up early. The rest of his class was playing outside, but he was inside with the babies. When I asked about this they told me they didn’t have enough teachers per children so he had to stay inside. WHAT?!?

But I was young [21] and stupid and continued to take him there.

One day, just a week later, when I picked him up from daycare, his teacher told me he’d been real quiet all afternoon and kind of moping around. I’m all “ok?” because that so wasn’t like him. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt and figured he must be coming down with a cold or something.

As soon as I got him home I could tell something wasn’t right. He had just learned to walk a few months before and was loving every moment of being mobile. But that night he refused to walk. Instead he was crawling and he was favoring one leg. “Hmmm..weird,” I thought.

I put him in his high chair to feed him. My mom was tickling his feet and he was screaming bloody murder. Usually he loved having his feet tickled. We knew something was up.

I took him to the ER. They x-rayed his foot. It was fractured. He was barely 18 months old and had a fractured foot. How does that happen? And, better yet, how does that happen and the daycare doesn’t know about it?

I went in the next day to gather his stuff and ask them how they could not have known he had fractured his foot. Were they not aware he was favoring his foot because they didn’t have enough teachers per child? I was pissed. And the more they made excuses and tripped over their words the more ticked off I got.

The director told me I couldn’t just pull him out. I had signed a contract and I was required to give two weeks notice. I told her the contract also stated they would care for my son and they broke that promise. The contract was null and void in my eyes. I told her she could shove that contract up her ass and gave her my lawyer’s name and number in case she had questions.

Within days I got a “bill” from the daycare center for the two weeks I hadn’t given notice for. I was young and didn’t know what to do. So I asked my mom for advice. She was livid. She called the dean of the college and ripped him a new one. She told him he better take care of this “bill” or Child Protective Services would be making a visit to the daycare center. He quickly remedied the situation and cleared up my bill immediately.

It’s been almost twelve years since this happened and it still boils my blood. I think back to how I would handle this situation today. I sure as hell wouldn’t be as naive as I was back then. Back then I was scared and ended up in tears in front of that bitch. She knew she had the upper hand. You better believe, if she was dealing with me today there wouldn’t be tears. And she certainly wouldn’t have felt like she was the bull dog in that conversation. Plus I would have called CPS right there on the spot, in front of that pathetic excuse for a director.

Luckily, once I started working again, I was able to get Keaton back in to that great daycare he was in originally. After Skyler & Spencer were born I was able to find somebody I really trusted to care for them. And then, of course, Lee stayed home for the last four years. So, other than that college daycare, we’ve been really lucky. Finding quality child care for kids is just so difficult these days. Why does it have to be so hard?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Misty watercolor memories. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.