Prejudice

As many of you know, a few weeks ago Shannon received a wonderful job offer and took it. Among the many consequences of this opportunity is that we have to put our son into full-time childcare. It's not easy; we'd like him to be with one, or both, of us at all times. But we found a lovely local woman running a home daycare and knew, pretty much from my phone call with her, that this was what we wanted for Nico. It's a big house. There aren't too many kids. She has a playground (climbing, swinging) in her backyard. She has a finished basement lined in rubber playmats for kids to crawl around on, and about 8 million toys. She has a big stroller and a backpack. She has a zoo pass, a museum pass, and is close to lots of parks. She has a Masters in Ed., was a jr. high social studies teacher in a hard-nosed school in Chicago, but has since left that. She has a boy in 8th grade (born when she was 18 or so) and 2 lovely girls, ages 3 and 6 or so. She's divorced and working full-time as a mom and childcare provider. She's great.

She had three other kids, two toddlers who came part-time and one infant, a little over seven months old. Now she just has the two toddlers.

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Prejudice - Followup

A couple thoughts. First, a few people have pointed out that the big positive is that we know our childcare provider will go to bat for Nico. It's great to know that. Second, one of the things is that Shannon and I, and more importantly, Nico, are likely to encounter this again and again in our lives. We need to find ways to prepare for that.