Why I Work Childcare

I figured what better topic for my first blog then going in depth as to why I / we personally decided to work childcare. Here's a short bit about our journey.

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Originally, we had decided we wanted to study and work in psychology, likely as a therapist. Our littles protectors had said they wanted to work childcare at the time. We'd worked with young kids before in a volunteer capacity when we were a teen and knew we could handle it, but we were still worried about it.

Let me explain. Our childhood was rough (obviously, considering we're a system). We are disabled as well and would struggle constantly in a school environment. Between those two things, if it weren't for specific teachers/guidance counselors/childcare workers, we might not have even gotten through 6th grade, never mind graduating high school. We wanted to be that for these kids. As a system, the single most important value we share is to make sure any child near us is safe (whether they're in our care or not). We are honestly sort of neurotic about that, and that's a direct result of our childhood. We also know a lot about the unique challenges disabled kids deal with, and knew we could provide a unique level of empathy for children that others label "difficult."

We were inspired knowing that we could help create a safe childhood for these kids. But we knew that there was no realistic way we could 100% protect the kids we worked with from things like a bad home life, etc. That made us extremely afraid to even consider going into the field, as it felt like a huge burden knowing that we could do everything possible and still might fail. We couldn't make sure these kids were 100% safe even when outside our care.

Because of our fear, we decided to avoid childcare. We pursued a psychology degree but dropped out for personal reasons. We worked some shitty retail jobs for a while during this period, and that's where we left it. Until-

Eventually, in mid-2024, we had to uproot and move to another state. We moved and knew we would have to find a new job. We were browsing through Indeed. We noticed it was recommending childcare-related jobs. One of them particularly stood out to us. It was a job as an afterschool counselor. We deliberated for a couple of days and did a lot of self-reflection. Eventually, we threw our hat in the ring, deciding that maybe it still made a difference to give them a few hours of complete safety and (hopefully) happiness. We'd also decided that, after years of working on our healing together, we had built enough emotional resilience to handle the unique challenges of childcare.

We got the role pretty quickly. We've been working there since late Spring, and have genuinely enjoyed it. Going headfirst into this role showed me beyond a doubt that this is a path I want to take. I have a passion for it, which I believe is required to last in this field. Every terrible day is matched by a million little moments where I know I made a difference for the kid. That makes it so worth it. I literally have a list of those moments to reflect on when I do have those bad days (because I do have bad days like anyone else).

It's so fulfilling knowing I make a difference for those few hours of each day, and knowing that I get to help show these kids new ways to deal with and cope with the difficulties of their lives and existing in the world as a child. I also realized that I especially love working with kindergarteners, watching them learn how to interact with the world and watching them learn things like spelling and counting. They grow so much, emotionally and intellectually, and it's so incredible to watch.

This job has reaffirmed that this is what I'm doing for the rest of my life. I never thought I'd try college again, but I am going to go back to school as soon as possible to get an early childhood education degree. And I'm excited to go back, which is even more unexpected.