Daycares reopening after shutdown
Parents facing impossible decisions to keep kids safe
“It was a shock to hear daycares (were opening). Not a week, not two weeks, not July 1. There’s no time to mentally prepare for that and you just have to make a decision.” Erica Williscroft Ottawa
It’s been three months of toddlers stumbling into video meetings, infants mashing the delete key on important documents, and pre-schoolers sitting with glazed eyes in front of episode after episode of Paw Patrol.
Parents are drained and the kids are either bursting with manic energy or collapsing in emotional heaps, or both simultaneously.
And now, with daycares reopening in many provinces, parents are asking themselves a question that seems almost absurd: Is all this adversity worse than shipping the kids off to daycare while the COVID-19 pandemic stalks the globe?
“My mind is all over the map. One minute I’m like, yes, I absolutely need this. I need the time to work and focus. I’m just way too drained. And then the next minute, all these emotions start flooding in and I think, oh my gosh, we haven’t even opened our bubble up to grandparents,” said Erica Williscroft, who works in human resources for a bank in Ottawa and has been doing her job from home with two boys under five-years-old under her feet.
Williscroft and her husband have been working split shifts, with one parent working from 7:30 a.m. until noon and the other working in the afternoon. Then, after the kids go to bed, they both work from 7:30 p.m. until “whenever the work gets done.”
It’s a familiar story for many parents and, although she’s exhausted after three months of long days, Williscroft pointed out that her family has it better than many others. For one, both of their employers have been flexible and understanding about the situation. They also have two parents to share the load and a suburban backyard for the kids to run around in. But they know their situation is unsustainable and will likely be sending the kids back to daycare before long.
In Ontario, the announcement about childcare centres reopening hit like a bolt of lightning last week, leaving many parents and daycare workers with questions.
How safe will daycares be? How will they handle outbreaks? How will kids who already struggled with drop-offs react when a childcare worker in personal protective equipment is meeting them at the door rather than the friendly face they normally see?
And how nervous should parents be about sending their children into a bustling hive of toddlers who are used to climbing all over each other?
“There’s so many questions.
I think that’s the biggest thing about daycares reopening so suddenly. It was a shock to hear daycares (were opening). Not a week, not two weeks, not July 1. There’s no time to mentally prepare for that and you just have to make a decision,” said Williscroft.
Some daycare providers were feeling similarly surprised.
“After they declared the last emergency last week, we figured it would be weeks, not days. I think they were absolutely blindsided,” said Martha Friendly, who is the executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit.
Friendly said a survey conducted by the CRRU and other childcare organizations found that almost all daycare centres and childcare homes had concerns about reopening, with 88 per cent worried about health and safety issues during the pandemic and 85 per cent worried about lower enrolment.
With just days before childcare providers were allowed to reopen, the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario had a series of alarmingly basic questions for the government, including “what needs to go into the pandemic plan the Ministry of Education says is required, who approves it and when?”
In Ontario, the new rules require a maximum of 10 people to a room, which is about a 30 per cent reduction in the ratios that childcare centres base their business plans on. Alberta just expanded its limit to 30 people in a room and other provinces have promised incremental increases as the economy reopens.
With fewer kids in a room and fewer fees being paid, the daycare centres will be facing an immediate cash crunch.