AS PRINTED FRIDAY 30TH MAY IRISH DAILY MAIL

DAILY MAIL CRECHE SCANDAL

Watching primetime made me feel sick to my stomach and I have often looked at James since he was born wondering how anyone could hurt kids, as they are so innocent and defenseless. Parenting is a cycle of guilt and as a single mother I always worry if I’m doing my best. But in reality we have to stand back and realize that as parents we are all doing our best. Each one of us has a different type of situation to cope with on a daily basis and as a single mother I rely on crèche five days a week.

I am deeply passionate about the formative years and early childhood learning and development, which is why I began my 0 To Toddler show. My crèche ‘The Toddler Inn’ came with good recommendation from someone I trust. I was completely clueless in the beginning and didn’t even know what questions to ask. I am lucky that I work closely with my crèche and the manager even toured the country with me last year on my show. James is happy and runs into crèche every day and some days doesn’t even want to come home. When I dropped him off this morning my heart went out to the girls who care for them as I know how much they care about the kids and we need to be careful that we don’t tar everyone with the same brush. We have good and bad teachers, good and bad doctors, good and bad restaurants. Staff will behave the way management allow and from what I saw on primetime last night I find it incomprehensible that no one from management witnessed this kind of behavior as it seemed to be ongoing.

We need to be careful about crèches popping up all over the country because we’re in the middle of a baby boom and people see it as a quick way of making money. Joanna Fortune from Solamh made a great point when she tweeted  “There should be aptitude testing for suitability to work in the Childcare industry, if you cannot show love & care to a child, wages irrelevant” I couldn’t agree more. Just because you want the job doesn’t mean you’re suitable. These girls last night were heartless, disinterested and dangerous to have around kids. There are lessons here for all of us. As parents we need to ask more questions, have access to government inspections and be able to drop in whenever we like to check on our kids. If your crèche does not allow drop in or does not answer your questions and concerns with urgency and priority it is a warning sign. The crèches in question have failed numerous inspections yet were still receiving state funding so in my opinion its rotten from the top down. We need to stand up for our kids and ourselves but be careful as parents we don’t point the finger at each other. I like many others have to work and put my child in a crèche and as a mum I do the best job I can do every day. A similar programme was aired about the abuse and neglect in old peoples homes last year. Maybe we need to look closer to home as how we treat our children and an old person says an awful lot about the society we live in.