Submission #2477

As a single mother with a 2.5-year-old daughter, quality child care is what allows our family to thrive. I rely on it so I can work and support her, and if the care she received were anything less than what it is, I could not bring myself to leave her each morning.
My daughter has been in child care since she was nine months old, and I have been deeply grateful from day one. Young children require enormous patience. Educators must stay calm, positive, and genuinely happy to create the environment little ones need — and they must do this while attuned to every child’s individual mood and needs. When I watch teachers get snowsuits, hats, mittens, and boots onto thirty children while staying cheerful, I am confounded; I struggle to do it with just my one. That kind of presence is hard work, and it cannot be done alone.
I have witnessed firsthand the difference Pedagogical Support Staff make.
One little girl in my daughter’s daycare had just welcomed a new baby brother. He was colicky, her home was stressful, and she wasn’t sleeping. That day she held on to one of the support staff’s legs for the whole morning. She needed someone who could see her and stay with her. Without that role, she might have been told to sit down with the others or to push through it on her own. Instead, she got the extra care she needed.
In the infant room, my daughter shared a classroom with a baby who was not adjusting to daycare. She cried inconsolably for hours and would often make herself vomit from the distress. It is not possible for one teacher to care for that baby and two other infants at the same time, nor is it reasonable to expect any one person to stay patient and loving all day under those conditions. An extra set of hands changes everything — for that baby, for the other children, and for the educator.
The teachers caring for our youngest, most vulnerable children need all the support we can give them. These children are the next generation, and they deserve calm, attentive, loving environments. Their parents deserve to go to work knowing their children are safe and seen.
I sincerely hope this funding cut will be reconsidered. I cannot imagine the damage it would do to the fabric of our Island.