School’s Out…

 I am having a total nightmare. I need childcare – and can’t get it.

I have tried everything – the council list of registered childminders, local nurseries, in the desperate hope that someone, somewhere, just might be persuaded.

Take last week. I phone a childminder. We have a slight ‘altercation’ on the phone because I am fifteen minutes late, and she is unimpressed. ‘Yeah but no but this is like totally unfair like,’ she says. Not good…

So when we arrive, me and the kids, in the blazing heat, Vicky Pollard lumbers up to the door. There is a distinct, lingering odeur de fags. The house is okay – ish; it’s tidy, with a garden with toys for the littl’uns. But, frankly, I have a job running around after my two as it is; I can’t imagine being the size of a sumo wrestler and trying to do it…

‘How flexible are you?’ I ask.

She folds her arms and gives me a withering ‘don’t mess wi’ me luv’ stare. I shiver; she is vaguely reminiscent of the well’ard girls at school in Wigan in 1988.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘You know yerself byt  time ye’ve dun a full day, ye’ve ‘ad enuff.’

‘Er yes.’ I swallow; I squeak. And I scarper.

I take the council’s list of registered childminders. One or two answer the phone –  but say apologetically, that they are full up.  Most of the numbers are out of date.

Those who are available sound, quite frankly, as if they are… not quite the full shilling. Like the woman whose answer phone message begins with a strange aboriginal sounding version of ‘ye bi one, ye get one free.’ Why..?

Undeterred, I work my way through the list. I ring local nurseries; to no avail. I rant, to other half, about how schools expect mums to hover around school gates at totally impractical times of the day instead of going to work. This whole thing is already proving a nightmare, I say …we will have to send the kids privately.

I mention this in passing to a colleague. We get on well – mainly because he is close to retirement, doesn’t give a fig for political correctness and makes dirty jokes all the time.

He looks at me, quizzically, and grunts. ‘Well, byt tyme you’ve ped fuh that lot, wot’s t’bloody point in guwin to wooork…?’

 Hmm. He’s right, I think. Some of the childminders may be nutty; clinically obese.  But they’re probably…alright. Or, as Phillip Larkin once put it…’Lots of folk live up lanes/with fires in a bucket…And yet/ no one actually starves…’

Back to the drawing board, then.  I wonder if Vicky Pollard can be persuaded to take bribes…?

25 thoughts on “School’s Out…”

  1. Mrs J and I offer a range of services from the five star ‘anytime, anywhere’ at €5 an hour to the ‘you must be joking’ special at €25 an hour. We inform you AFTER the session which you have to pay for, depending on the feral quotient of the children, and the quality of the accommodation we are offered, meals, entertainment and transport options. The more we suffer, the more you pay. Capeesh?

  3. Janus :

    Mrs J and I offer a range of services from the five star ‘anytime, anywhere’ at €5 an hour to the ‘you must be joking’ special at €25 an hour. We inform you AFTER the session which you have to pay for, depending on the feral quotient of the children, and the quality of the accommodation we are offered, meals, entertainment and transport options. The more we suffer, the more you pay. Capeesh?

    I hope you have been CRB checked!

  4. FEEG, VAT registered, guaranteed salmonellea free, members of the Viking Wrinklies Union.

  6. Claire – check out the Ghanaian community/network. Yeah I know its underground and no one wil be regsitered but you can be pretty sure of the standards of care. Almost certainly, no Ghanaian woman would smoke and there would usually be wee bairns of their own. Certainly happy households, tho I dont know where you’d start looking – black churches?

  7. Grandparents are out of action at the moment!
    I’m going to have to start sucking up to every single tom dick and harry at the school gate to sort the bizness of school run out.
    PG – not sure where I’d find that. I suppose they must be there where I live.
    Ferret! I had you down as a softie as well…

  8. Back in the 90s I lived in Atlanta. I remember having numerous discussions along similar lines with parents who were concerned about who looked after their kids and what they got up to when mum and dad were at work. My suggestion that mum should stay behind and look after the kids was treated with astonishment. How was it possible, ‘in this economy’ for a family to survive off the income of one parent. These were middle class people with no more than 2 children living in one of the most prosperous cities in the richest country, in the world, in a period of economic growth, living in big houses in the suburbs with at least two cars, traded in every 3 years, who ate out most meals and who indulged themselves in every useless material possession that was available. The truth of the matter I would tell them, is that we do not need half the material crap we aspire to; that applies to kids especially, who are generally speaking excessively over indulged. Children need parents to look after them and raise them properly and to instil decent values and not spoil them. Parenthood is not a responsibility to be delegated to a 3rd party. Being a parent is a full time vocation, not a part time job.

    Well, you can imagine, that did not go down very well amongst my American friends.

  9. Oh god, I totally agree Sipu. Problem is, I’ve sort of unwittingly had to become breadwinner because, well, just because…
    I do love my job, and I think it will probably stop brain turning to mush etc etc but you’re absolutely right that parenthood should come first.
    On plus side, my other half will be at home more and is much more creative with the kids than I am. House will be a permanent gypsy camp, but hey…

  10. Claire, since you hadn’t mentioned them, I guessed something like that – I’m sure you could find a recently retired active stand-in?

  11. Bravo,

    It ain’t allowed to get just anyone to provide childcare these days. They have to be registered childminders and possess a CRB certificate.

  16. If you are the main breadwinner, why isn’t he looking after the kids full time?
    Surely the most economic answer?
    Make sure you don’t have any more or the problem just gets exponential!
    Aren’t there any proper nursery schools in the area?

  18. Its worse than that Bravo,

    Because of the nanny state, anyone who works with children must have a CRB. This includes people who volunteer for youth club work, teachers assistants, after hours football coaching and the like. So the volunteers must meet the cost of the CRB themselves and subject themselves to the embarassment of police scrutiny. Also of course the reams of paperwork and red tape.

    Guess what, there don’t seem to be as many volunteers as there used to be for some strange reason.

  19. Nightmare indeed, Claire.

    This is the trouble with being a working mother; it is not easy, especially when your children are not school-age. I was fortunate, I didn’t have to make this choice, but good luck and hope you solve the problem.

  20. Hi Ara. Thanks; I was whinging to my mum about it today and she said, ‘oh you’ll have sorted it within a week.’ I just hope so!
    Re the CRB checks, I’m all in favour. It is good to have some system of checking the backgrounds of the people you entrust your children to…
    Christina; there are nursery schools, including the one I currently use, but none of them will do a school run. AS for other half, well he’s going to be working some of time as well, so, in the catch all phraseology of Facebook, ‘It’s complicated.’

  21. Aren’t you breaking up for the summer holidays soon, claire? Should give you time to get something sorted for September.

  22. Something odd with the comments tonight? Before I had finished the above, a message told me I had already displayed it and it was a duplicate. No it wasn’t.

    Anyway, claire, I found other mums were the best option for child-care and sharing school runs and such. I know it’s a worry, but hope you’ll get it sorted.

  23. THanks Sheona. I think I’m in panic mode about the whole working full time and being a mum thing. I just want everything sorted asap, but it’s not turning out that way! I think you’re right; I might have to beg some of the other mums on school run this week!

  24. How about an appeal on your staffroom noticeboard for information about childcare? Some colleagues might know people who could help.

  25. Thanks Sheona for the suggestion. I have already begun the lobbying process at the school gate. I’ll keep you posted.
    As for sports day; it’s approaching , like thunder on the horrizon… (:

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