JOB

Childcare Associate

I have had many jobs in my life. Since I started college, I marketed for an entertainment company in Shanghai, investigated financial crimes for a bank, and consulted for an accounting firm. However, my favorite job was working as a childcare associate for The Bay Club while I was in high school.

For those of you that don’t know, The Bay Club is an expensive gym on the west coast whose clients have included Kim Kardashian and North West. I took a job there for extra cash and a free gym membership. In the following paragraphs, I will answer these questions:

·      What were my responsibilities?

·      Why was this job my favorite?

·      What lessons have I learned from working in childcare?

What were my responsibilities?

Being my first job, I went in with no experience and my responsibilities were limited and required minimum skill. Nevertheless, they carried a heavy weight because I was entrusted with the lives of our clients’ children. My tasks consisted of:

·      Caring for children while their parents are working out.

·      Updating our schedule and internal records.

·      Facilitating childcare department events.

·      Cleaning the facilities

Generally, I worked with younger children (ages 0-6) in our daycare center. Most of the children were 3 to 6 years old, so I just had to give them food and make sure no one got hurt. We had many games, toys, and books to keep them entertained. Sometimes when it was busy I would play a movie, but I always limited the viewing time to 20 minutes. Consequently, I have the first 20 minutes of Frozen ingrained in my memory.

The infants required much more work to care for. For the infants, the parents would supply me with formula and instructions on when the child should be fed. At that time, I liked to heat up the formula and sit in the rocking chair to feed the babies. Whenever necessary, I also had to change their diapers, which was a humbling experience.

Occasionally when we were short-staffed, I would watch the older children (ages 7-16) in our game center. It was housed behind the daycare center and it comprised of an activity room and a video room. In the activity room, the kids could play dodgeball, build forts, practice floor hockey, and much more. But usually the kids liked to just play video games in the video room, so this was an especially easy part of my job.

Why was this job my favorite?

This was my favorite job because I got to see adorable kids every day. It was almost therapeutic and it didn’t feel like work. I could forget all my little high school problems and just do arts and crafts and play “the floor is lava”. Many of the children were regulars that became very attached to me. In particular, a little girl named Gina absolutely loved me and would get so excited when she saw that I was there. Her mother was also very sweet and would buy me coffee to thank me for taking care of Gina. Unlike my other jobs in marketing and accounting, at this job I could directly and immediately see the impact that my work made.

What lessons have I learned from working in childcare?

There are many lessons I have taken away from working in childcare that I will apply to the rest of my life. Here are some of my top lessons, and some anecdotes to illustrate.

1.     When in doubt, ask for help.

This is a story that I find hilarious, albeit a little graphic. When I first changed a diaper, I was terrified. However, soon I was changing diapers like a professional and felt confident in my abilities. That is why, when a nice young couple handed me their weeks-old newborn baby, I was not as nervous as I should have been. I figured I had taken care of many babies already, and this was just a smaller, softer baby. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to change his diaper, and he immediately started urinating on me. Panicking, I turned him around so that he was peeing on the wall instead and called frantically for backup. Thankfully, my coworker came to my rescue. It turns out that newborn babies haven't developed bladder control yet so you must place a diaper or washcloth over them. I learned this lesson the hard way.

2.     Getting frustrated won’t get you anywhere.

I once looked after a child named Antony who would always cry inconsolably as soon as his parents left. My first time looking after him, I was almost defeated. I tried giving him snacks, showing him all our toys, playing the TV, but nothing could get him to stop crying. Finally, I picked him up and walked around the club to “look for his parents”, which worked but only for a second. I was starting to get frustrated, but frustration can't console a crying baby. Then I remembered that in one of our cabinets we had a bubble wand. As my last hand, I tried blowing bubbles for him. He was immediately too distracted and curious to cry, and we spent the rest of the time popping bubbles. This became my new trick for managing crying babies and it works 90% of the time.

3.     Be prepared for the unexpected.

This is another story that gets a little messy. When you work in childcare, this is generally the case. One of my regulars was a little girl named Lola, who was around 2 years old. That day when I brought her to the bathroom to change her, I realized that her diaper had failed to prevent her from soiling her pants. I won’t get into the details but I got her cleaned up. I told her to wait in the bathroom while I looked for a change of clothes. But as I was looking through her bag, I see her run out of the bathroom completely naked. I spent the next two minutes chasing her around the daycare while she and her sister laughed at me. Thankfully, I was able to wrangle her into a fresh new outfit. Next time, I’m bringing the extra clothes into the bathroom with me.


Statistics
Flesch Reading Ease: 70.5
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 7
Passive Sentences: 0%