Primary Cultural Education

I realized yesterday that the scripts for victim blaming are written for us early in life.

Yesterday, I picked up my daughter and she was nearly in tears afraid she would be in trouble for losing her scooter.

The daycare is remodeling, I assume in response to the growing population of children in care there. Most organizations know that change on a grand scale requires grand degrees of communication. This has apparently escaped the owner of the daycare.

To get an idea of the breakdown, we shall start at the beginning of summer. I let the daycare know that I would be on a work trip for two weeks and that Xyla would be out of care for those two weeks. I didn’t want to use my “vacation” week so I understood they would still be charging me. I came back to find three things. Last year, they let the before and after school kids know that they would be able to participate in the field trips offered by the daycare. The office staff (Tricia is my favorite person in the whole world – I would clone her if I could) stopped each parent and let them know she would need them to sign the permission slip and everything else would be taken care of. It was my understanding that the kids in Xyla’s age group were automatically enrolled since the day care pays their fee for this.

No one mentioned it so she wasn’t enrolled, therefore had to watch all of her friends go on field trips for two weeks while she stayed at the daycare all day. She wasn’t auto enrolled because apparently when I told them she would be out of care for two weeks because I was going on a work trip, they assumed I was taking her out of care altogether. When I dropped her off two weeks later, they had rearranged all of the cubbies and made new name tags for everyone but her. Then a few weeks later they had her listed as needing transport to a different school than the one she attended.

I asked Tricia about the field trips and she promised that she would let me know as soon as an opening came up. And she did. I requested they give her space for her things and a name tag. That took  more than two weeks. Telling them she didn’t go to the other school took longer to get through. I had told more than one person that she was not going to the other school. They made a note and said they would pass the information on. Then the next event like school drop off practice, they still had her on the list for the wrong school. Then there is a note to stop at the desk and make sure your kid is on the right list for the right school if they need transportation. So I tell the staffer there (not Tricia) the information requested and she looked at me like I had just spoken Russian.

The week before school (which is a horrible time to change anything at a daycare) they decide they need to move things around again. Kids who were going on the field trips would bring their scooters one day a week and the scooters were stacked in the hall (fire hazard). With the remodel the space they usually occupied was filled up with more cubbies. Without telling the parents, they moved all of the scooters into the furnace room (?). The owner swears she told the kids they were in there but apparently not all of the kids got the message because Xyla swears she didn’t know and couldn’t find hers. (Thus the panic over thinking she might be in trouble because someone else stole her stuff.)

On the day they take scooters, some parents also give their kids money to buy snacks at the center they go to. I gave Xyla some money which she keeps in her purse, in her cubby under other stuff. I want to pause and say, the first year we were there, someone stole her coat . . . on a winter day . . . and the staff looked at me like “well what do you want me to do about it?” So their reaction to this news was less than surprising.

Did I mention there are surveillance cameras all over this joint? Realistically they could review the tape for the hallway and find out who took it but that is too much trouble or might reveal that they don’t actually record with those cameras.

So when Xyla told me her scooter was missing I was upset. When she told me someone had also taken her money out of her purse I was livid. This is the third time this summer.

The owner was in the lobby handing out popsicles to the kids on their way out the door. So I approached her and said, “I have a problem.” And let her know why I was frustrated. She flat out looked at Xyla and said, “Well then maybe you shouldn’t bring your money to school and just go there on the weekends and your mom can buy you stuff there on the weekends.” Then looked at me and said, “you know her pass is good on the weekends, too?” First, I am the one who told you there is a problem – don’t tell my kid what to do, talk to me. Second, no! No one mentioned their passes were for them and could be used at other times. It isn’t on your website, it wasn’t in an email and it is safe to assume your staff didn’t make a point of telling anyone.

Third, I resent that because her stuff is being stolen you want her to not participate in a way her friends are in the activity. Fourth, I don’t like that you just told my kid her money being stolen was her fault for bringing it in the first place.

That is when it hit me. This! This is where the culture of victim shaming begins. What bothers me is that this is a place that touts that kids in Arts programs achieve higher than other kids, studies say! But what are you teaching them, exactly? You are teaching them that lousy behavior will not be punished. You are teaching them that you don’t care enough to attend to the issue. You are teaching them their lives don’t matter. At the same time you are remodeling to accommodate growth which teaches them that what matters most to you is maximizing your profit.

Their company values page says “Give customers of all ages (yes, children ARE customers) a WOW experience every time through . . . giving accurate information and creating a safe and caring environment.” I walk out of there many days with a “Wow” experience alright but it is usually not a positive one.

They could look at the tape and find out who is stealing stuff and confront their parents. They could assemble all the kids and have a conversation about not taking things that don’t belong to them and returning those things with an apology if a mistake has been made. Because they are kids, it could be a puppet show to open for the magician when he comes each year. These are all opportunities to teach morals to kids but they want to teach my kid that if someone takes her things, doesn’t communicate changes properly or hurts her that it is really her fault for just being her and maybe she shouldn’t expect to have the privileges everyone else has. When will this country ever learn?