Brave new world
Burnaby Now
January 17, 2009
By: Christina Myers

It occurred to me for the first time this week that coming back to my job as a reporter at the NOW would mean several things: first, an opportunity to put pen to paper again for the first time in quite a while; second, a paycheque; and finally, that I would no longer be the sole changer of diapers and wiper of dirty hands in my child's life.

The first revelation was pleasing - despite all those intentions of writing the Great Canadian Novel during my extended maternity leave, it never quite came together ….The second revelation, oddly, was neutral - extra money is always nice, but we've been lucky enough to get by just fine on one income since my maternity benefits ran out in the summer, though it often means going without the "extras."

The third revelation was the kicker, though. Not that I'm a huge fan of dirty diapers, by any stretch, but relinquishing many of those daily tasks - not to mention the hours of simply being together - to a third party is a big adjustment.

NOW readers may recall that way back when I was still pregnant, we did a series of stories looking at the state of child care in B.C. - the high wait lists, the costs, the lack of spaces and so on. The prognosis was not good.

As a result, we were on more than a dozen waitlists by the time I was six months pregnant. And through my son's first year, I'd check in with those daycares to see if we'd moved up the list - and I added us to several new lists. By the time his first birthday rolled around, we were no closer to finding a spot - and I requested an extended, unpaid leave of six months.

We were eventually offered a spot at a top-notch location, but the price was beyond our budget. We showed up at the open house for a new facility in North Burnaby in August, only to find it swamped with dozens of hopeful parents within the first few minutes.

Having met dozens of moms this year, I can say that I'm not alone in this trouble - some ended up not returning to work at all, even though they very much wanted to, while others had to make do with extended family stepping in on a temporary basis.

One mom's experience with finding daycare, including being scammed by an unreputable nanny placement agency, was even covered by the CBC last summer. (Put two new moms in a room together, and within five minutes they'll have talked about three things: how much sleep they're getting, what their labour was like and what they're doing about daycare.)

But then my path fortunately crossed with that of a Burnaby mom whose own son is just a few months older than mine - and who herself was not returning to work due to the lack of child care. One thing led to another, and long story short, she's now our "daycare lady" - we truly feel that we lucked out in finding someone that both I, and my 18-month-old son, clicked with right away….

It's a bittersweet and humbling moment to realize that, though he is the centre of my universe, I will not always be the centre of his - that, in fact, I wouldn't want to be, because otherwise he'd never grow up, never learn new things and meet new people.