Mom In Daycareland

Letter to the Reader Mom in Daycareland is about children, but it is addressed both to parents and to providers of child care in the hope that these pages will help them understand each others needs and the stresses they experience in their respective childrearing and caregiving activities. For the childrens sake, they must see each other not as antagonists but as partners in this most important of all careers: molding the future of the human race. Today the need for child care is more widely accepted by the general public than it was years ago. We used to think that children should be reared at home and that a mothers job was to take care of them. Now all this has changed. Early every morning millions of mothers and fathers drive their children to child care providers and leave them there, most often without feeling uneasy or guilty. What has happened to cause this shift in our attitudes? Why have we given up ideas that once seemed sacred and replaced them with a pragmatic way of doing things that would have made our grandmothers frown? The authors remember a time when it was expected that Dad would go off to work every morning, leaving Mom and the kids at home. He had a job outside the home and brought back the paycheck; she did the housework and cooking, took care of the children. Only occasionally were the children entrusted to someone else, as when the parents went to a dinner party or a movie and had a local high school student over to sit or drove the kids to Grandmas for the night. There were exceptions, of course, but this was the accepted pattern. Today that pattern, while still prevalent in some families, is rare. The social and economic realities of our country have changed radically, and the structure of family life has had to adapt. There are several reasons for the shift, and others will undoubtedly surface at a later date, but what seems to be the most important among them are the following. Firstly, to make ends meet, todays parents are obliged more and more to share the burden of earning the wages. Both Mom and Dad need full time work if the family is to survive financially or if it is to satisfy the standard of living they are used to. In the meantime, who takes care of the children while both are at work? Secondly, another reason that helps explain why Mom works, even when there is no pressing financial need for her to do so, is the realization that women have an equal right to achieve their potentialities in the world of the professions and of labor. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, an ever increasing number of households are managed by single parents. When Mom or Dad is the only provider in the family, no one is going to suggest that she or he stay home and watch the children. That single job is essential to the survival of a family in an already precarious financial bind. Even when the children are sick, the single parent has to report to work in order to keep that precious job. For these and other reasons, the need for child care is a simple reality in our present society, and the trend is likely to continue. In most communities throughout the country groups of interested people argue that the availability of child care services is insufficient to meet current needs let alone the demands of a growing population. We would like to talk about ourselves, briefly, as authors. Both of us have had life careers in higher education. In 1980 we devoted ourselves to child care and started a proprietary child care center in the Northwest. It began small and then in time grew to a size of 35 preschoolers. From the beginning, Carlota operated the center from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. as director, teacher, public relations person, cook, and janitor; only recently has she begun coming home in the late afternoon. Marshall was frequently teacher, maintenance person, and accountant. It was difficult yet rewarding work, and it taught us many things. The purp

Frank wasn't satisfied doing ordinary frog things. He wanted to fly, but he was a frog and frogs can't fly. Follow along as Frank jumps and runs and leaps and dives until he finally finds his place in the pond. The companion book on CD will transport listeners into Frank's world with sound effects and wonderful performances by children and adults. Full color.

Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award! “A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds.”—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative—based on the author’s childhood in the 1960s—a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie’s plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro’s Cuba to New York City. Just when she’s finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English—and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood’s hopscotch queen—a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie’s world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

One of the characteristics of modern life seems to be a breakdown of family life, the foundation of which is a happy and healthy marriage. This has vast implications on individuals and society in terms of hardship, lack of social concern and responsibility and a culture that promotes selfishness and self-satisfaction at all costs. This vicious circle propagates more destruction of marriages and the sad story grows. This short booklet is an attempt to share my learning and understanding of the main issues in a marriage and a look at what it takes to make a marriage a source of great joy and fulfillment in this life. I hope that those who read it will benefit from it and will live happy, productive and satisfactory lives. The book is focused at Muslims but others can also benefit.

Moving between the speech and silence of a woman struggling to speak freely, Ruth Behar embarks on a poetic voyage into her own vulnerability and the sacrifices of her exiled ancestors as she tries to understand love, loss, regret, and the things we keep and carry with us. Behar's vivid renderings of wilted gardens, crashing waves, and firefly-lit nights recall the imagery of her inspiration, Dulce María Loynaz, who is often known as the Cuban Emily Dickinson. Presented in a beautiful bilingual English-Spanish edition--Behar serves as her own translator--Everything I Kept/Todo lo que guardé will haunt readers with the cries and whispers which illuminate the human spirit and the spectrum of emotions that make for a life and lives well-remembered.

From the acclaimed author of How to Be Lost and Close Your Eyes comes a beautiful and heartrending novel about motherhood, resilience, and faith—a ripped-from-the-headlines story of two families on both sides of the American border. Alice and her husband, Jake, own a barbecue restaurant in Austin, Texas. Hardworking and popular in their community, they have a loving marriage and thriving business, but Alice still feels that something is missing, lying just beyond reach. Carla is a strong-willed young girl who’s had to grow up fast, acting as caretaker to her six-year-old brother Junior. Years ago, her mother left the family behind in Honduras to make the arduous, illegal journey to Texas. But when Carla’s grandmother dies and violence in the city escalates, Carla takes fate into her own hands—and with Junior, she joins the thousands of children making their way across Mexico to America, facing great peril for the chance at a better life. In this elegant novel, the lives of Alice and Carla will intersect in a profound and surprising way. Poignant and arresting, The Same Sky is about finding courage through struggle, hope amid heartache, and summoning the strength—no matter what dangers await—to find the place where you belong. Praise for The Same Sky “The Same Sky is the timeliest book you will read this year—a wrenching, honest, painstakingly researched novel that puts a human face to the story of undocumented youth desperately seeking their dreams in America. This one’s going to haunt me for a long time—and it’s going to define the brilliant Amanda Eyre Ward as a leading author of socially conscious fiction.”—Jodi Picoult, author of Leaving Time “Riveting, heartrending, and beautifully written, The Same Sky pulled me in on the first page and held my attention all the way to its perfect conclusion. I devoured this book.”—Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train “Ward is deeply sympathetic to her characters, and this affecting novel is sure to provoke conversations about immigration and adoption.”—The New York Times Book Review “A deeply affecting look at the contrast between middle-class U.S. life and the brutal reality of Central American children so desperate they’ll risk everything.”—People “Amanda Eyre Ward’s novel of the migrant journey, The Same Sky, is the most important book to come out of Austin this year.”—The Austin Chronicle