I
wish I still had a proper lawn. Nonetheless, this comment gave me the
excuse I'd been seeking for a long while - to go back to a time when I did have one. That is, to a column I wrote for The Canberra Times on January 11, 2008, one
that surprisingly drew an inordinate amount of consistently positive and
supportive responses from Times readers. (I was concerned it might
confirm their worst suspicions about me, now apparently shared by The
Philosophy Teacher.)
It is my
misfortune – and I use that word self-advisedly – to live cheek-by-jowl with a
day care centre. This could not even be described as an occasionally entertaining experience, as most often I’m afraid to go out my back door for
fear of a gobful of abuse across the back fence from pre-schoolers. Believe me,
there is nothing more humiliating.
I had
often thought of writing a column about what it’s like to live in such close
proximity to a day care centre, but resisted for fear of seeming to be a Grumpy
Old Man, which I am but care not to generally concede. However, an Australian
study late last year [2007] came up with such outlandish claims that I am finally
moved to write out, as it were. The thing is, one cannot stand in one’s own
backyard arguing the toss over the fence with four-year-old kids, it’s just too
unseemly altogether, even for the privacy of one’s own patch. Thus I express my
frustrations here.
I shall illustrate with the following true story: The least offensive
behaviour of the banes of my life, those part-time residents of next-door’s
property, is to throw plastic hammers, soft toy animals and sundry sun hats across
the boundary.
One
Saturday morning I was visited by the innocently naïve mother of one of the
de-toppered cherubs, this poor dear mum wondering whether she could enter my side
of the Garden of Hades to retrieve her son’s bonnet. Naturally I acceded, but
in doing so failed to resist the temptation to say something about all this
careless cavorting with caps. “Oh,” the lady said, “the children were just
having a bit of non-confrontational fun and my boy’s beret just happened to get
accidentally flung from the climbing tower.” “Fun?” I said. “You call that
carry on fun?” A look of absolute shock and horror crossed the saintly matron’s
dial. I could tell in an instant that all her worst fears, her deepest apprehensions,
her profound guilt about leaving her child in the care of virtual strangers for
a day, were rapidly surfacing. Yet I couldn’t stop myself. “You ought to stand
on my side of the fence some time, if you think that’s fun.”
Mater
snatched the said fez from that unkempt piece of land that used to pass as my
back lawn and hurriedly existed left, my dire warnings about ,”If you saw and
heard what I see and hear every day, you’d never bring your bub to this joint …”
ringing in her hitherto coolish ears. She did not depart, however, before
leaving me the very distinct impression that junior was about to be withdrawn
from the Terror Squad at No 35.
No, I
know it’s the littlies that one has to really worry about. From over there, as
I stand shaking in my shoes at my kitchen window, I can hear all too clearly the
future John Howards of this nation, as they start to stake their claims to the
top spots on the pecking order, to exercise their innate qualities of
leadership, to hone their voices of authority, bossing others unmercifully
around. “I didn’t say YOU could join in. You stand over there, you’re not one
of us … ”
When I do
summons the courage to venture out into the hinder regions of my supposed
domain, I am subjected to a barrage of Big Brother interrogation. “Hey, Mr
Mister … ”. I deliberately ignore the inquisition. But that only makes matters
worse. From the unanswered questions, the real heat goes on. “Hey, Mr Pooface” … “Hey Mr Peepants”. I just don’t know where these tots get
it from.
Anyway,
the supervisors and the parents apparently hear none of it. The study I
mentioned says that working parents need have no guilt about leaving their
children in child-care all day. It claims day care can actually help the
children's social development. It has a “positive effect on children's social
and emotional well-being”. “The results differ from similar large-scale studies
conducted in the United
States Britain
Charles Sturt University early childhood education
researcher Linda Harrison says, “Children who attended more hours in centre-based child care
were more socially competent and children who received more hours in home-based
child care had fewer behaviour problems … Australia's national system of
quality assurance monitors levels of quality in all child-care centres and
family day care homes.''
I’m
inviting Linda round home, any day of the working week, any hour of the working
day. She can go out into my backyard.
I’m too scared to.
4 comments:
That was a wonderful piece, Robert. I do find it interesting how your writer's voice in that column differs somewhat from your blog's, though both are top notch. Wishing I had access to your old newspaper columns. Thanks again.
~Joe Van Cleave
ugh, children. I know how you feel. ickky!
We had to pull our rather quiet and introverted 2-year-old out of a certain day care center when it became clear that much larger boys were running around berserking with little supervision.
Ugh! Day care! Too many unregulated children in one place hovered over by those who care little.
I've been against day care since I was a child and had to go to a near by friends house when I was about 10 and my Grandmother became too ill to care for my sister and I. By the time my wife and I had children we were both forcefully against even the thought of sending children to day care. It was a financial struggle, but we raised our children with her doing the most important job in the world -- raising our children.
Oh, and Robert, I say you and Richard P are both kindly Uncles of the Typosphere.
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