It’s 6.00 p.m. in the evening and you stare at the clocks in
panic. All the 3 large clocks on the orange wall in front of you with its large
colourful posters of ‘Values in Action’ and ‘Quality is our Focus’ tell you the
same thing. In US time, UK time and India time, respectively, they all tell you
that your time is up. You just have about an hour left to pick up your kid
before the crèche (daycare) doors close shut and to reach there you have to brave the
never ending Bangalore traffic and the never failing stares of a few colleagues who seem
to be whispering ‘Look, she’s leaving at 6.00 again’.
If this is a familiar predicament in which a lot of us find
ourselves, let me add to the scenario.
When you finally reach the crèche, the waiting maid glances
at you reproachfully for spoiling an hour of her evening serial time, you have
reached in the extended hours (beyond 7 p.m., you see; when the crèche normally
closes) and she had to wait back specifically for you. To top it all you find
your daughter, fuming, angry and in mutiny.
“Mummy, there’s no one my age here anymore”
“All my friends have left”
“They don’t have any activities for us to do. We are just
asked to sit and play.”
“Why do I still have to come to the crèche?”
So, that is my question too.
Where do the children who go to daycare centers go once they
turn 6?
Most daycare centers proudly show their statistics – a bunch
of 2-6 year old kids that decorate their walls in their childish sprawls and
add to their hefty bank balance.
But the same centers have very few children above the age of
6 and even the ones who are there are rarely treated separately with
educational/sporting/cultural activities that are suitable for their age.
So what happens after a kid joins primary school? When
he/she returns from school at 4 p.m. but still needs an hour or two at the
daycare before parents can return from office and pick up?
And what do parents of such kids do?
They can’t start returning home at 4 p.m. suddenly. As if 6
p.m. wasn’t bad enough for the office gossips to constantly comment upon.
Do they give up their jobs? That is increasingly not an option
in today’s world.
Shift to a 24 hour housemaid? Many people do it but unless
extremely lucky, this might turn into a 24 hour disturbance with someone who is
never a part of the family but always hovering around the periphery.
Grandparents? That might have been the solution earlier but
nowadays many grandparents choose to have their own lives without taking the
responsibility of being surrogate parents for their grandchildren.
As one stylish 55 year old grandmother put it very aptly
“Been there, done that. Why should I manage my grandchildren; haven’t I raised
3 of my own?”
This brings me to 2 possible solutions, if anybody cares to listen.
- Kids between 6-10 should not be treated like
small babies. Daycare centers should have educational and creative activities
for them that mentally stimulate the children and add to the knowledge they are
gaining from school. That would reduce the daycare dropout rates and make sure
these older children also enjoy the hours they spend there.
- Why can’t we have teenage girls/boys babysitting
or rather ‘child sitting’ for these kids? For a couple of hours, these
teenagers could just play some sports with them or read their own books while
helping these kids read their books (most of them can read by this age). They
don’t need too much of handholding, they just need companionship and learning.
Not only would this give the teenagers some much needed money for their
personal use, it would help instil in them a sense of responsibility and
caring.
But as I said, is anybody listening? Till then, our daily
fight with the clocks will continue.
