My childcare nightmare in my own home
Monday 10 June 2013
EVERYONE was appalled at the treatment of young children in certain creches, which was exposed recently on Prime Time
Listening on the car radio a few days later, I could empathise with heartbroken mothers on Liveline – for it brought back to me the minefield that was the child minding scene 25 years ago.
I am sorry to say that what has been going on lately is but a reflection of what has happened, and will probably always happen, when vulnerable people – children or old folks – are in the hands of unsuitable irresponsible uncaring carers who hold a terrifying power over them.
However, one also has to say, that this is not the case in every creche or old folks home, but it has to be a case of the buck stops here. It is down to the person in charge to have an eagle eye on what is going on in their particular creche or home, to set an example of good practice, and ruthlessly weed out any offenders about whom they have even the slightest doubt.
Every working mother suffers from guilt at leaving their children in the care of anyone outside their family – but for most it is not a choice.
I'd never held a child in my arms until my first son was born. Having been an only child whose parents died when I was young, I had no exposure whatsoever to young cousins, nieces, nephews or other children. I was absolutely terrified, as are many new mothers. I was working full time, as was my husband. With neither of us having any family support who could step into the breach occasionally, it was a matter of looking at childcare options.
Having also waited 12 years for our first child, I couldn't face the thought of leaving my precious baby in a creche so I went down the route of even more expensive childcare in my own home as I felt he would be safest there.
What could go wrong under our own roof?
We started off well with a specialist trained nursery nurse who only took care of infants for the first three months of their lives. She had travelled the world with famous people taking care of their infants, and she just involved herself totally in sitting with the baby.
We then moved on to a young nanny who was fresh out of Temple Hill, a former training college for nannies in Blackrock, Co Dublin, run by the nuns. Her ambition was to get her first year of practice and head for the big, bright world of America. We had a wonderful year with her before she set off. She later went on to do general nursing, keeping in touch with us intermittently. We were heartbroken to hear, in fact, that eventually having returned to live in Ireland, she died of cancer about three years ago.
After she departed for the US, everything went downhill and unfortunately we encountered an extraordinary number of bizarre childminders and au pairs.
While awaiting the new nanny, we got a childminder who was all dreamy and talking mystically about "skies and being out there". On the first day, my husband came home and moved a bed from the bottom of the house to top without any sound from her to then discover she was in our bed and the baby was lying on the floor!
One thing I did discover too over the next couple of years was that nobody leaves their country to come to Ireland to mind your children. They leave their own country to get away from the problems they have there.
The new nanny arrived, also fresh out of nanny training college, and she did the job well on the surface, if impersonally. Then I had our second child and on my younger son's first birthday, my husband had a heart attack followed by a bypass operation. I now had a business, two children under the age of three, and a husband who was unwell. So we took on a second child minder to help for a few extra days a week. But that didn't really work out and soon afterwards, child minder No 1 left to go abroad and No 2, who was only ever meant to be back-up, became the sole person in charge. It wasn't satisfactory and it too ended.
I then decided to try the au pair route and found a 'wonderful' 32-year-old Montessori teacher from overseas who had a permanent wide smile and constantly chimed the phrase "Don't worry, be happy". Again, I should have spotted the fact that she left her previous place very quickly, telling me that they were awful people who treated her badly.
She wouldn't tell me who they were but she was so personable and I was so desperate I took her. A couple of months later, I came home one day at lunchtime to find my two precious boys alone in the basement of our three-storey house with the fire lighting and the door to upstairs locked! It was almost unbelievable that someone could be so irresponsible and put them in such danger. I had to go out of my house and upstairs through the hall door to find this au pair lying in bed. "I have the depression," she bleated.
Next up came another European girl who was charming and bright. But after a week, she told me that she would not, in fact, be staying a year, as we had understood, but was returning to a kibbutz in Israel.
Another young European girl arrived. She stayed for exactly one day. The next morning a car came and collected her and whisked her away. Her grandmother phoned and when I told her she had only stayed overnight, she said, "I thought so."
And so, we tried the au pair route again. This woman was delightful and gentle, but I got a bit uneasy on the first evening when I was at the cooker and she came up beside me as we were chatting and said, "we must not forget to pray". When I was going to bed later that night I knocked on her door and when she opened it, I could see that she had a full altar set up with candles lighting everywhere.
One day she came to us and said she had to go to London. She arrived back engaged to a gorgeous looking chap who was a cross between Seve Ballesteros and King Juan Carlos in their prime. Before she left, she said to my husband, mysteriously: "One day I will tell you everything."
Our next au pair told us her main reason for coming to Ireland was that she had a crush on a guy from her own country who had come here.
She also had a fascination with the members of U2, and Adam Clayton in particular, which meant she spent an inordinate amount of time hanging around outside the nearby home of U2 manager Paul McGuinness. She also gave our youngest son a punk hairdo, which we hadn't asked for!
Expressing my disappointment and frustration to an older and very wise friend, now deceased, she said to me: "Lucinda, if they could do anything better, they wouldn't be minding your children."
No one will ever love your children as you do, and, for me, the childcare scene is a total minefield, particularly if the children are too young to tell you what is going on.
As the boys progressed to montessori and junior school, I came to the conclusion that my children would have been better off in an individual creche or nursery school where there might be comfort in numbers.
Sharpen your claws and trust your instincts. I learned the hard way.