[An interview]

I am a licensed daycare operator. I am permitted, by law, to keep a child overnight if the parents give their approval. But…I am not set up for overnight care. I can’t have this child sleeping in the nap area on the ground floor while I’m in bed with my husband. My children are on the same floor as I am. All of the day care, play area, bathroom, meals it is all done on the ground floor. We have family space in the basement and the second floor.

I have one child who is troubled. Her parents are always late dropping her off and picking her up. They pay late. One night, the father calls up and says he can’t pick his child up. I kept her, sat up all night downstairs while my husband and children were upstairs. When she picked her daughter up I told her that there was no charge but that I can’t do this anymore, no more overnights.

Just the week before last the parents, neither of them—they had two cars—do not pick up their little girl. Instead…[wipes tears] they call up and tell me they are down Ocean City and won’t be back until Monday afternoon. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to that? This child is only three years old!

[tears, shakes head and sniffles]

Then, on Monday afternoon, my husband had had enough! He came home early from work—the girl was a gem, she did really good with our kids, but it’s too much on the weekend—and when the father came to get his child, my husband met him outside and told him that he was canceling the contract and that they could not bring their girl to my daycare anymore. Then we have a fist-fight situation between my husband and this “father” in the driveway. Fortunately the police got there before there was any bloodshed.

[wipes cheek]

I am taking out a peace order, since the father had made threats and was talking about dropping off his little girl at the bottom of our driveway—Good God, how can people not care about their own children?

-Betty