Part-time day care hard to find: Three different area families admit frustration, saying they're looking at changing their jobs or hiring nannies
Langley Advance News
05 Sep 2006
By: Angela Wiebe

EXCERPT

With part-time day care openings hard to come by in Langley, many young, working families are turning to more expensive options, such as nannies.

"Day care is not really an option," said Cloverdale mom Meg Young.

Young, who used both the Surrey and Langley Child Care Resource and Referral Centres, has been looking for part-time care for her 18-month-old son Jeffrey for the past three weeks.

"I knew it was going to be challenging," she said, "but finding availability for part-time care is very difficult."

The mother works with the Vancouver Airport Authority and is required to work a varied shift schedule, making it difficult to leave Jeffrey with a day care.

Although Young has thought about scaling back to part time, she is hesitant to do so.

"I love my job," she said. "I don't want to change."

Now, nannies have become their only option.

"Most of them are willing to have odd schedules," she said.

The only problem is they're often twice the price of a day care.

While Young said she has been looking at $400-$800 a month for day care, she's expecting to pay up to $1,000 a month for just two days a week of nanny care.

Langley Child Care Resource and Referral Centre program manager Janet Shaw said the need for part-time care in Langley is urgent.

"There's a huge need for people who work shifts or part-time only," she said.

Having to regularly turn families away, many shift-working parents are having to move to more expensive nanny services, she noted.

"We're finding it next to impossible," Melanie Malone said of finding child care for her 11-month-old daughter Mae.

The Cloverdale mom, a corrections officer in Maple Ridge, has recently separated from her husband, who also works on a rotating shift basis as a customs officer.

"We're absolutely stuck. My job pays decently, but [nanny care] is not an option for me," she said.

Like Young, Malone loves her work and doesn't feel she should have to choose between her career and her daughter.

"It's silly - this is 2006," Malone said in frustration. "Child care needs to reflect the changing reality that more and more parents are working shift work."

Having called more than 200 day cares or child care providers in Langley, and placing ads in the newspaper and online, Malone still hasn't found anyone to accommodate her schedule, which can have start times as early as 5:30 a.m. and end times as late as midnight.

"We're not the only law enforcement officers in the province," Malone said of her and her husband. "We can't choose our shifts. These are 24-hour operations and they need people around the clock."

A third mother, Langley Envision Credit Union employee Kristina LaPierre, searched for eight months before finding care for her one-year-old son Noah last week.

"We looked in Langley and Surrey... and went through every single day care," LaPierre said of the lists given to her by the child care referral centres.

LaPierre, whose husband works evenings, said Noah only needed care two days a week, which proved difficult to find.

"We were about ready to pay full-time day care [for just two days of care]," LaPierre said, before finding a centre in White Rock that accommodated their schedule.

LaPierre, who began looking for day care when Noah was only a few months old, said the dilemma of working moms would be solved if companies had day cares at the office.

"I work with a lot of women who have kids," she said. "It would be a lot easier, a lot more convenient. Less stress for the parents as well." ...