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Why I quit my daycare job...

Story #1: Why I quit my daycare:

Hi guys, what’s up? I’m sorry it’s been so long since I got in contact again. I remember mentioning in my very first entry that I wanted to talk to you guys about the reasons why I wound up quitting a job that I really loved. I don’t know if anyone will ever look at these, but just remember that everything I say is super honest and every time I write these stories it’s more of a relaxing therapeutic exercise than anything else.

So before I get started, a little background on me and where I used to work: I live in Phoenix, Arizona, I was born in Michigan and raised in Kentucky. Although I never lived in the city before, I actually enjoy it a lot. I love being surrounded by people that don’t talk to me just because of the fact that I have social anxiety and I consider a slight wave to be human interaction… which is sad. There are things about me that are like inner demons that I battle, this relates to this story in particular because there are some of them that include being too sensitive, or judgmental, but the biggest that trumps them all is when someone gets in my face and tries to be mean to me and I don’t stand up for myself.

This guy is the biggest of them all because I was bullied in school like crazy. From about 6-9th grade I was this annoying little girl who was weak, over sensitive, dramatic, and awkward. I remember the years before that I was always the first one to volunteer myself to do things, I sang in front of anyone at any time, I would dance and laugh and play sports but that was robbed from me in my teenage years. One day I might go into that aspect of my life, but just know that when someone is mean to me and I don’t stand up for myself, it bothers me for years because it’s like a trigger of some sort. I go from being this beautiful and wonderful woman back to that little dork who everyone thought was ugly with glasses.

So now a little bit about my job that I just quit. I was an assistant teacher for children ages 12-35 months. Within my first week of working there I bonded with all of the kids. I remember being incapable of being sad when they were around me because I just loved them so much. There was this one little boy though, and his name was Mani (this is a nickname, I don’t want to say what his name really is but if you can guess it based on what I gave you, good for you.) Mani was so young but he was crazy. He was only about a year and a half old but one of those kids, where he needed a fully functioning staffed daycare just for himself. Because of his recklessness (that his mother was fully aware of) his shoes and socks were constantly pulled off, he was the one to climb tables, and chairs and open doors and escape, and he would scream in my students faces and hit, punch, bite, and kick (he was mostly known for stealing food and making kids cry in general.) I remember once in particular, his mother picked him up from school and she literally got sucker punched in the face for telling him not to bite students anymore. So with all this being said, excuse me for not liking him in particular.

Now, within my last weeks of working at the daycare, I was put on a new schedule where I would work only three days a week but 12 hours each day. So, the whole mess with Mani started when we got a new “experienced” employee for the one year old class, (I put quotations because she fucking sucks, which I’ll talk about why later) This employee in particular, we’ll name her Carry (nickname), was very mean to the kids. In fact, if they didn’t listen to her, they wouldn’t get snack. She was also known for pushing and pulling and being too rough. I worked Wednesday-Friday and on Wednesday instead of working at 06:00, they had me come in at 14:30, apparently earlier that morning Mani had an accident report which I knew nothing about. After repeated asking, I found out that Carry was outside WITH OUR DIRECTOR and Mani threw a fit over not receiving a bike, he apparently abruptly threw himself onto the concrete and tripped over his jacket and busted his lip. (Likely story, right?) so, Carry of course leaves early and I’m faced with his angry mother a few hours later. What really got to me and his mother both is that although APPARENTLY he bled very little, Carry changed his shirt AND pants. So, of course this mother comes at me agitated:

“Oh my God, what the Hell is going on here? He is changed in different clothes and his lip is busted? How did that happen?” she said with frustration and a hint of sarcasm that I was incredibly sympathetic and understanding about.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened exactly but from what I understand he was playing and he fell onto the concrete. I know how frustrated you must be but I promise it won’t happen anymore.” Was close to my response to her statement.

She rolled her eyes at me, said whatever, and scooped up her child who was actually fighting her and screaming because I guess he didn’t want to leave.

So, it was one of those situations where I wiped the sweat off of my brow and said “phew” aloud. My boss is this woman who speaks little English and is from India, so she has trouble understanding what people are trying to say to her, so when she approached me after Mani left, she was quite overwhelmed and panicked. I assured her that day that I, personally, would spent an extra amount of effort to ensure that he was safe under my care. Now that I think about it, it was quite stressful because at the time I was dealing with bad grades in school as well.

Nonetheless, I held up my share of safety, but I can’t say that for anyone else, really.

So, the next day was Friday and Mani was already in school. I was at work by seven in the morning and thankful that I didn’t have to deal with his mother again. Before I continue with the story, I would like to list some of my coworkers who are important: Anna and Sonta.

Anna is this girl who is a year older than me, she has a son named Josiah and I admire her for being the way she is. She’s an amazing mother and she’s always down for whatever shift she gets at our daycare. She’s reliable, sweet and really fun to work with. I have this really big crush on her and this is a little embarrassing to say, but to me she was like this Latin princess kind of girl with really pretty black hair. For some reason my boss and director hated her and because of that she felt like she wanted to quit, I would always try to steer her away from that train of thought because I loved both her and her son and if she wasn’t there, who would I stare at all day?

Sonta, on the other hand, is like one of my very first black friends, haha. She was my partner in crime and my teaching buddy for the one year olds. I respected and loved her because she was a year younger than me, but she is focused and about as wise as they come. She was the first nineteen year old girl that I knew who sincerely had her life together while also being really fun and easy going. She was also a crucial friend in my life who constantly supported me, told me she loved me, and hugged me when I cried.

Although I hated the majority of my coworkers… that wasn’t the case for these two.

So, back to the story… I had Mani in my one year old class. The ratio is 6:1 but I began to realize that at about 8:30, we were at 7:1 and then 8:1 and then 12:1 and then 14:1. I was on the verge of tears in my room trying to control all of these kids at once. Sonta wasn’t expected to show up until 14:00 and all of the teachers called out besides me and another insignificant employee named Jess. As it was, she had two year olds but she had like 18. My boss walked into my chaos and I begged her to call Anna to come in but she refused. So, in frustration I texted my director to send Anna in. She did immediately, and Jess came into my class and we handled like 25 kids together (ratio 12:2) at this point (around 13:00), I was quite impressed because Mr. Mani Monster was still unharmed and quite frankly just chilling out. So, fast forward a couple hours, Jess went home and Sonta was with me and we were losing more and more kids because it was about two hours from closing time. I was having a really good day, despite the chaos and Mani was still doing really well, (although I had to save him quite a few times)

They go outside for an hour every day to play while their parents pick the majority of them up to go home. At this point in time, Sonta and I had the one year olds and Anna had Mani with the two year olds (which isn’t okay, but our daycare was known for doing that because Mani was too rough with most of the kids his age) Sonta and I are playing with the kids, having races and really enjoying the nice day when all of a sudden Anna let’s all of her kids into our playground and I see Mani actually covered in blood trying to escape. So apparently what happened in the 15 minutes this kid was away from me was Anna was up on the playground doing “slide control” when Mani slid on his belly while Anna wasn’t looking and kind of got air off the slide before he landed on his stomach and ultimately recut his lip.

Sonta didn’t understand why I was immediately panicked but I got this real life sinking feeling in my stomach that today wouldn’t be so nice anymore. Anna was reluctant to write an accident report because she was scared she would get fired but I talked her into it because it needed to be done. I remember Anna passing it to our director who instantly blamed everyone but herself (even though it was her wishes to send Mani on the more dangerous playground) and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Anna. Once the director called Mani’s mother she said nothing and hung up the phone. Our director began to show restlessness as she raised her voice at us for sitting at the playground (although no one was sitting) As a half hour passed by, my frustration and nervousness grew because I knew that I went above and beyond to keep him safe that day. I even went as far as putting a child I was changing on the ground to quickly scoop him up from trying to jump off of a table. I began to blame my management because 25 kids were in one room all together whose intended occupancy was about 15.

And even when we brought him back inside to wait for his mother, he had to stay on my lap because he was still being reckless and trying to bite and kick. I couldn’t help but think that she had to understand what happened; she had to understand that her son was kicked out of three daycares before this one and that he’s a wild child. I mean, how couldn’t she? On the bright side, I didn’t expect her to come until later and I was about five minutes away from leaving. I didn’t want to leave Sonta with this big mess, but my anxiety was already raging and I knew a panic attack would come soon if my heart didn’t stop beating so heavily.

My thoughts were interrupted with the baby room teacher opening our door and yelling, “Oh man, you guys, Mani’s mom is here.” Just my luck. With that being said, it was go time and I felt as though I was preparing for some kind of war. I had him in my arms and I got his daily log and art together. I started to calm down a little when I saw Sonta in the corner with the kids, I knew that I had to be brave and I knew she had my back. (I know all of this sounds so dramatic but it really was, I was so angry at myself for not being as brave as I wanted, but I later realized there was nothing I could do to help the situation.)

This woman literally busted through our door seconds after I calmed myself down. Every one of my little crazy one year olds were too afraid to move. Mani didn’t even want his mother so that he could go home at this point.

She shouted, “What the fuck happened here, his goddamn clothes are changed again. What’s up with you stupid bitches not watching him?”

My heart jumped in my throat as I tried to walk towards this furious woman and hand her, her child who protested and tried to stay with me. I replied, “Here, I promise we did try to watch him all day.” As I was walking back to get his paper, it was like something in her brain caught fire and she was more furious than I ever saw anyone.

“Here? HERE? You have attitude with me, you little bitch. Why are you not apologizing to me? What the fuck is up with all of you stupid bitches, are you incapable of watching children? Are you all stupid? What do you do all day? Don’t you have a kid, you irresponsible little fuck?”

When I gave her his paper and she ripped it out of my hand and crumpled it, throwing it to the ground it is like all the bravery was swept from my mind. I thought that this woman, who was waiting for me to reply, was going to punch me in the face. I looked at Mani who was trying to get away from his mother and saw a fear in him that made me so sad. The children behind me began to whimper and one of the parents were hiding in the doorway, waiting to pick up his child but too horrified to move.

A new circuit went off in my brain, and it was one where I continuously said I was sorry and tried to convince her that we weren’t watching him because he was in a different playground when this occurred… I wanted to tell her how hard I tried to keep her shitty little kid safe, I wanted to tell her how much I prayed she never came back, I wanted to tell her that she was scaring our kids, I wanted to tell her to stop being so trashy, I wanted to tell her that she was only embarrassing herself, but all that came out was “I’m sorry, but I’m sorry but I’m sorry but I’m sorry but we weren’t there for the incident.”

I finally walked back to the changing table on the verge of tears when Sonta said “you’re yelling at the wrong teachers. He doesn’t get hurt with Kylie and I” (oh my god, I admired her for her bravery at this point. My sweet Sonta who was younger than me, telling her how it is. Saving my butt.)

But the mother didn’t want to know who did what. Even when Anna was brave enough to face the mother and tell her it was her fault that Mani got hurt, I was still her target. I was still the stupid little bitch. Eventually, my director came out from her hiding place and decided to diffuse the situation. She told her that she wasn’t being productive and she was basically dragged out of the daycare, still trying to yell at me for something I didn’t do.

I went home and cried about this situation for three days. This woman set off a trigger in me and it was like it couldn’t be turned off. I didn’t want to work there anymore, and I dreaded being around the children even though I loved them before, I felt like I was weak and stupid and the more I thought about it, the more outraged I became at my director for not having our backs. She allowed this woman to come in and almost fight me for something I tried all day to avoid.

I know that Mani’s mom had the right to be angry in general but I wish the director would have at least helped us to some degree. Would have had my back like Sonta had mine. The director proved how weak she was that day to me. And I could never have respect for her ever again. (I found out that she only came out because she heard the mother call us bitches repeatedly from the other side of the daycare)

Apparently the mother walked out of the daycare crying. I feel sorry for her for exploding the way she did and I don’t care if mothers come on here and try to justify what she did because it wasn’t right. There is no justifying cursing around children and calling the teachers who worked extra hard to keep your child safe, stupid bitches…

I can finally go to sleep knowing that this situation wasn’t my fault and that I will handle people being explosively angry with me with more grace.

Mani never came back and I’ll never know if it was because of him getting bad childcare (which he wasn’t) or her being embarrassed or a mix of them all. I just hope she understands that this will happen at any daycare she tries to go to until she decides to parent him differently.

A one year old should never exhibit abusive behavior like punching his own mother in the face for trying to discipline.

There are a lot of daycare things that I can deal with, but that was not one of them.

The end.

#diary blogs #anxiety #depression #childcare #friends #disappointment

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