A Baby Dies at Day Care, and a Mother Asks Why She Had to Leave Him So Soon

Man, that was hard to read.

 

My deepest sympathies, I can't imagine losing a child.

Since it's in D&D, I'll only say my wife sacrificed her career for almost 20 years to raise our kids. She just started working again with our youngest in high school. The entire time it hurt us financially but she/we didn't want it any other way. My wife is a bit old fashioned in that sense but no one makes any household be a two income household, it's a choice. Frankly I wish more people would sacrifice and move to single income homes. I think it would benefit society greatly. Regarding leave, I think it's a businesses right to offer what they want to offer as benefits to employees but it shouldn't be federal law. The best companies to work for would find the best talent and have the best loyalty. Making them compete in that manner might even improve the benefits beyond any government mandate. Just my .02.

I should add, some of my nieces and nephews go to day care and OMG some of these places are cesspools. Low wage "teachers" watching too many kids than they are able to. Some of these places are flat out terrible environments for kids. The best "day cares" aren't affordable so typically like everything else the lower incomes suffer more. At one point my sister was working and about 50% of her wages were going to day care. I told her, seriously would you work for half of the salary you are getting because effectively that's what you're doing. She never quit, citing her need to work but I never understood why her need to work was more important than my nephew. It's okay she's my sister, I can judge her.

 

Extend it all you want, but it won't prevent a freak accident like this and should probably go more so to single, lower income moms. I guess we could subsidize day cares to the point that we could then mandate on-site medical personnel.

 

it's a hard situation. i'm living it with my 5 year old son. i am trying my best to practice with him every day with academics, it's not easy being in school myself and having no family in the city I live in. but i would and will do anything for him.

 

what a heatbreaking story.

Quite apart from what caused her child's death, or whether it would have been avoidable had she been home, it seems med insurance was what forced her back to work earlier than she wanted.

That seems nuts to me.

 

More leave should be extended and enforced on employers.

European women get six months to a year in leave while men get at least three.

Here, we're so focused on work that men don't even take two weeks out of fear of not looking like a team player.

It's called a Race to the Bottom, and employers will use any means to get their employees to be the most productive or get the most hours out of them.

I discovered the work life balance in the U.S. ridiculous after working in Europe. We never knew it could be possible to that extent.

 

Why my wife doesn't work. There is no point in having children that are raised by someone that is doing it for financial interests.

 

My wife stays at home and our family is better because of it.

 

That's looking at it a bit too simplistically. If a woman is truly trying to build a career, taking a five or six year break in the middle of it probably makes that pretty tough. Depending on her profession, it could very easily affect her career for the rest of her life. Sad but true.

 

Putting infants to sleep on their back is pretty much shouted by every pediatrician on the planet. It's about the first thing you learn when you're having your first child. Unbelievable that a daycare would not have followed that.

 

Onion Article: New Extended Paternity Leave Offers Dads More Time To Lose Colleagues’ Respect

 

It puts a lot of strain on employers. Honestly, I would be very unlikely to hire of a woman of child birthing age if forced to offer her leave. Of course, I'd probably let my employee bring their child to work as I used to do with my oldest son, and will likely do with my daughter when she arrives.

Some companies would obviously be more affected than others. A large employer will have an easier time than small ones, probably with the exception of certain high end jobs.

I feel awful for this family, but they absolutely had choice. They made their choices. They were a married couple. They chose their career paths. They chose to start a family. They knew their financial struggle, which if really as bad as she made it out to be, probably qualified her child to receive Medicaid/CHIP. They would have been eligible for discounted coverage on the healthcare exchange.

What she did was make life choices that she regretted. Compounding that, the worst possible tragedy happened.

This wasn't a single mother that had no support system.

 

Actually, if it was extended, it would have almost certainly prevented this freak accident from happening.

Your point is that this is a freak accident, and freak accidents will still happen. And that is definitely true. The issue with this freak accident is as much about the stupidity of the day care as anything.

That said, not having more leave is crazy. A mom can't even breastfeed their newborn until at least 6 months in this country, much less a year. That's crazy. We're dependent on a system of breast pumps, or formula, to even feed our newborns. Not to mention all the other benefits of, you know, having a newborn be with their parents and family throughout a day...

The leave goes for the dads, too.

We're going to have our 4th early next year. We are fortunate that my wife is a stay at home mom. Even with that, we do some day care (part time)... but wait until they are 18 months old, when the day care is beneficial for both mom (get some work done, time without a child harassing her) and for our kids (socialization, learning about new things, etc.).

Don't get me wrong... I don't know what the answer is, as I respect the fact that we can't expect every business to be able to pay for employees who aren't working, or to hold spots for employees who are gone 6 months. But I do think it is a societal issue that needs correcting.

 

Yeah, the whole "had no choice" seems a little dramatic. Still doesn't change the fact that the the options suck compared to most of the developed world.

 

It's hard to say what the right answer is. One one side...obviously it would be better for the child to be able to stay home with their mom or dad for longer than what is typically currently offered. For our first child, I believe we had only 6 weeks...much of which was only covered by short term disability. She left that job not long after and we got very lucky that her next job had an in-house daycare center that was fantastic. She was able to go downstairs at will. She was still working there when we had our 2nd child and things went very well. We were lucky (if the futants is still around, he can attest to how great this school was). Accidents happen and it has nothing to do with the school itself or the amount of leave offered.

That said, it's completely ridiculous that we're the only major country in the world that doesn't have guaranteed paid maternity and/or paternity leave. Lesotho, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea are the only other countries in the world that do not offer guaranteed paid maternity leave.



This is a national embarrassment. But, the right will argue something how it's not really a problem. Protect the fetus...until it's born. AMIRITE!

 

Having children is terrible for shareholder value. If you have a problem with that, you're probably too poor to hire a nanny, so your opinion doesn't matter anyway.

Now get back to work you ungrateful bums or I'll call the Pinkertons!

 

Terrible story in OP. Very sad.

We have our first baby arriving very soon. My wife will only get 6 weeks off (unpaid), and I'll take at least a week off after her 6 weeks is up. We'll likely be putting a 7 week old in day care.

We have toured a ton of day cares and found one that stood head and shoulders above the rest, so we're going with that one. It's on the campus I work at and within walking distance for me, and it's a 5-10 minute drive for my wife. We toured a couple that were just really bad. It seems so obvious, but when people try to shame me for planning to use a day care, I have to remind them that not all day cares are created equal. You can find a really good one if you look hard enough (and of course are willing to pay $1200ish/month). It'd be like saying you will never let anyone educate your kids because they're only doing it for a paycheck Obviously, we know that's not necessarily true. Similarly, some day care directors / workers might be like that, but not all of them. There is a difference between the good ones and not-so-good ones if you put enough time into looking into them all.

So that's our plan. But of course we're also playing it by ear. If we feel like we just absolutely can't send a 7-8 week old to the great day care we picked out, then we'll try to work something out with our employers (both of whom are pretty good as far as employers go). If that doesn't work, then we'll see if family can come watch her. And if we feel that one of us absolutely has to stay home to be there with her, then we'll do what we have to do. However, I'm thinking we'll be OK using the day care.

 

Build a career OR build a family maybe? If you try both at the same time you spread yourself too thin and both parental and career experience suffer. It will be a constant juggling act. Very difficult to experience the maximum fulfillment of both at the same time. Oh and less we forget, there is another tiny person involved in the juggling act who doesn't have a say.

Like I said earlier, different strokes for different folks. I was primarily raised by my grandmother and myself. My mom, bless her, was working two jobs to help us survive. My wife had a similar experience growing up. When we got married and decided to have kids we both decided we didn't want that for our kids. So yea maybe we're "old fashion" but it was what we decided to do. And I have to give props to my wife because she literally put her life/career/goals/everything for herself on the back burner. Now she's trying to get back in the game and it hasn't been easy for her.