Why do we need daycares? What are the benefits of daycares? You must have asked this question yourself or must have come across parents who have. The truth is, in today’s world where women have been able to finally spread their wings, daycares have become indispensable to the working woman, a pillar on which many of us depend on entirely to keep our dreams alive while being moms. But not everyone understands that and that’s when mothers like me need to write such posts to say that daycares are support systems without which we cannot do and also that not all daycares are bad.

You know in my 4 years as a mom, I have heard a lot of notions about daycares, about working moms, about stay-at-home moms, about parenting and whatnot. In fact, very recently as well there was something about not putting kids in daycares because apparently, all daycares are bad. So, this post is to throw some light on daycares, the good daycares which surprise, surprise do exist. This post is to talk about why daycares are indispensable for working women like me. It is to talk about the daycares which have supported me ever since I transitioned into a woman who is not only a mom but works out of an office where she obviously can’t keep her child.

Let’s get to the point then shall we?

Why Do We Need Daycares? #WorkingMoms #Daycares Share on X

Now, since I’m a working mom and I don’t have my parents or in-laws in the same city and also since I don’t want them to uproot their lives for me, my husband and I are completely relied on daycares to take care of our child when we are out working. And let me tell you, though those videos of caretakers beating kids are atrocious and those daycares which don’t care for kids worthy of the death penalty, I have been fortunate enough up until now (touch wood!) to find 2 very good daycares with wonderful women and so have many others I know. So, if you are in Bangalore at least, trying to mock someone’s decision of putting their kids in daycares without having yourself experienced it, by saying that kids get beaten up in daycares, is just pure ignorance and even vile.

Whether you want to put your child in a daycare or not, is a personal decision. But when you go around justifying your decision of staying at home by ridiculing this support system which helps so many women hold on to their individualities is truly cruel in my mind.

All my regular readers will know that M has been going to daycare ever since she was 7 months old. She has been in 2 daycares till now and both the centres that I selected for her turned out to be run by women who care for kids. So, if there are videos of kids being beaten up by caretakers, let me tell you there are women who tirelessly take care of kids too.

Also, taking care of kids is not an easy job at all. It needs training, patience and love. Lots and lots of love. And any daycare you choose needs to be founded on that first.

But is a good daycare expensive? Yes, any good service in today’s world is and especially childcare when you need to ensure all facilities are available. I wish they weren’t but that’s something beyond my control. But again, not all expensive daycares are good. So, you need to carefully pick one, from the good ones which actually do exist.

In the past 3 plus years, never once did I feel that M has been neglected or not cared for at the daycare centres. You can always tell by the way a child gets attached to her caretakers or how happy she is once she comes home regaling you with stories from the daycare. Like I said, not all daycares are bad. And since it takes a village to raise a child, I have found mine in the women of the daycare centres I picked for M.

Now, is it risky? Well, if you ask me, bringing a child into this world that we have created is in itself infinitely risky but we still need to navigate through that.

Sure, whether you want to put your child in a daycare or not, is a personal decision. But when you go around justifying your decision of staying at home by ridiculing this support system which helps so many women hold on to their individualities is truly cruel in my mind. Or, maybe just very insecure.

You may have your reasons, financial or simply that you have a support system right there at home. But making blanket statements with no idea about all the difficulties working parents face and all the ease good daycares provide is not right.

I cannot stress this enough that parenting and especially being a mother is tough. You get asked questions when you leave a child to go to work, unlike fathers. You always have to explain your choices. Again, unlike fathers. So, when you go out there and pick at a system, a sound system which has been put in place so that women can still be what they want to be apart from being mothers, it harms the entire womankind.

I have always said and believed that being a mother doesn’t have to be the culmination of a women’s existence. It is a part of who we are, not who we are in our entirety. And believe it or not, daycares, good daycares run by trained women help with that. If we don’t still break out of the ‘myth’ of our existence being all about becoming and being mothers then what has our education been worth? And this doesn’t have to be restricted to moms who work from an office. Working or stay-at-home, we can be so much more while being mothers too if we have such systems at our disposal. So, why attack the support systems that are in place to aid that? When you do that you put doubts in the minds of 10 others who want to maybe go back to work one day. Making a decision to stay at home or go back to work is hard. Either choices need strength and while you are perfectly entitled to your choice, putting down someone else’s as a justified to that is wrong. An educated mind must be able to make a decision without having to attack the alternative purposely.

Having said that, should we not worry or double-check where we are sending our children? Of course, we should. As I say, our antennas as parents should always be up. But should we mock parents who have chosen a path different from ours? I think not.

So, the next time when you get up to say that you won’t put your child in a daycare, stop there. Don’t go on to say that it’s because children get beaten up in daycares especially to a mother who has put her child in daycare. Trust me, she won’t take kindly to it and might even write a post about it.