Motherhood has already changed the way I used to react to certain personalities. Where once before I might have let it slide when someone was rude or abrupt with me, now I have to take these people into the context of how they might impact my son. I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately because my maternity leave ends in a week (gasp!!) and I've just begun the process of finding childcare for Hank.
I got a list of names and numbers from a local agency that is sort of a clearinghouse for daycare providers in our area. I spent about an hour calling them on friday afternoon and leaving messages. One woman did not have a working answering machine, which kind of put me off, so I crossed her off my list. (I mean, I am calling about childcare -- I want to assume that if you are watching my kid, and I need to reach you during the day, that I will at the very least be able to leave a message...right?).
The next day we get a phone call. Henry answers and I can tell by watching him that there is something funny-weird about this call. Finally he says to the caller, 'can I put my wife on?'. So I take the call, and it turns out it is this day care provider with no working voice mail -- I guess she had caller ID? She asks if I had called looking for childcare (but still hasn't told me who she is). When I finally get out of her who she is I tell her, politely but firmly, that I had called her regarding childcare, but that I was dismayed that she didn't have voicemail and that I would be talking to other people about caring for my son. Rather than accept that and hang up the phone she got really angry with me, challenging me -- 'Hasn't your answering machine ever been full?? How do you expect me to answer the phone, I work with babies!!', and started insisting that I should let her watch Hank while I'm working!
Somehow I got off the phone, with no intentions of ever speaking to her again. But a couple of hours later she calls again, sounding much nicer this time, to appologize. This is where the pre-mother Sara might have said, 'ok, you were having a moment, let's put it behind us and talk now and see if we can work something out.' Instead I just said, 'I appreciate your appology, however the fact that I couldn't leave you a message really bothered me, and then the way you handled your phone call to me earlier made me extremely uncomfortable with the idea of you watching my son. So thank you for your appology, and good luck to you, and we will be looking elsewhere for childcare.'
It was just so weird. I need to call the agency that refered me to her and let them know what happened. For all I know she's really a truly kind woman and terrific with babies, but all I could see in my mind was the kind of person who starts yelling and shaking babies when they cry for too long or won't sleep. How can someone with so short a fuse be providing daycare services? I'm just grateful that I have spoken to a handful of people who really do sound terrific, and I have hope that one of them will pan out. I mean, it would be so much better if I could just pop Hank in my totebag and take him to work with me, but I guess it will be good for him to play with other babies, instead?
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