There comes a point in every parent's life when their child will be left in the care of a stranger. Even the most committed earth mother will not be in loco parentis for ever. In some ways it's like removing a plaster; there is a school of thought that believes fast and soon entails less pain for everyone rather than slow and sore. As with so much of parenting it's probably not something you give much thought to until the crashing realisation comes that you are responsible 24/7 for keeping a reckless, incapable human being alive and, as far as is possible, happy.
Every family is different and every child takes differently to the change from exclusively parental caring to being looked after by some random your dad met in the park (just kidding). I say just kidding because there are few more fraught discussions between new parents as to who your priceless cargo will be entrusted with. Unless you are the Rees-Mogg family, in which case your children's nanny was your nanny and your father's nanny too, the process of identifying a person or institution is anxious making and uncertain.
My wife is German. Our child is German. Germans speak German. Our child speaks German (insofar as toddlers speak anything that is not inexplicable howling and scarcely intelligible demands to watch bus videos). The reason our child speaks German is that my wife completely reasonably demanded we employ a German nanny.
It is only by a miracle that this happened because, it transpires, German child carers are about as easy to come by as flying nannies with tradesmen admirers. But we found one and she poured all her gemütlich goodness into Hardy Junior Nummer Eins. And then she left. At just the point in time that the child was still too young for us to explain that nursery represented a first thrilling rung on the ladder that leads away from parents to independent living, thinking and, most importantly, spending. But also at just the point in time that the child was old enough to make plain to any passer by en route that this strange man was intent on abandoning it in the charge of Beelzebub and his minions and I will scream until you call the police, thank you.
Suffice to say the first days of nursery have not been greeted with wholesale enthusisasm. Indeed as soon as the child awakes an imploring mantra of 'No Kita' starts up. My wife, with an unerring sense of self-preservation, has delegated the drop-off to me. On a recent journey the mantra accompanied us the whole way until I missed the turning whereupon it tailed off in shocked relief. Having turned the car around a hopeful 'Zu Hause?' started up only to be replaced instantly by a terrible keening noise when in fact I turned into the open prison.
This is a grossly unfair designation for a jolly, professionally run outfit with all the safeguarding staff even the most neurotic parent could hope for. But still it's not home: you know that, they know that and the child sure as hell knows it. Nurseries always put me in mind of that dreadful greetings card: Jesus is coming look busy. I imagine that a buzzer sounds when a parent is spotted approaching on the CCTV and suddenly it's a hive of story telling, messy play and sing songs. As soon as the door is closed every child is chained to a cot with a jam smeared dummy. Obviously I know it's not like that but that's what comes of giving a child Matilda and The Witches to read.
Anyway this post is in solidarity with any other parents who are 'transitioning'; with an encouraging reminder that they'll be instititutionalised before you know it.
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