I feel great sympathy for parents working two jobs and unsociable hours in order to feed and clothe their children. I would not want the opinion below to be taken as a criticism of working parents. I believe that parents who work hard to give their children what they need are inspiring.
But as much as I sympathise with late working parents, the idea of late night childcare doesn’t respond to me. I can’t see such a concept working in favour of child or parent.
Happy Faces, in the Brentwood area of Northeast Washington, might be playground zero in a snapshot of a still-languishing economy and the changing realities of the American workplace. Two years ago, five children needed “day care” past 6 p.m. on weekdays. Now there are often 25. Last week, an anxious parent called about needing regular care for a child until 2 a.m.
At 4 p.m. one recent day, staffers escorted little feet to a dining area for dinner, while men in steel-toe boots clomped out of the strip-mall storefront carrying their kids, who had arrived before sunrise. The place sounds like an amusement park and smells like applesauce.
“Leaving your kids here is one of the hardest parts of being a single parent,” said Teresa Williams, 37. She cobbles together hotel clerk shifts and takes classes at Strayer University to provide for Jaylen, her 4-year-old son.
“But nowadays, you have to take the work when you can get it; you have to go to school,” Williams said. “This was the only place I could find that would take my son.”
Happy families give me a great sense of satisfaction. I like to observe happy families interact. My worry is that whilst childcare is necessary, it shouldn’t become a childs’ home. I am concerned that the birth of the 24 hour childcare service will coincide with the death of quality family time.
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