[speaker001:] [Clicking] Well I haven't had an awful lot of, uh, incidents regarding child care. When my two year old was in New Orleans, she got bit on the cheek and, uh, but, uh, that's about the, the, uh, the extent of it.
[speaker002:] [Hum] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] But, but, but when, I really am, a-, am concerned about is that, uh, so many of these child care places are, are coming under, uh, uh, you know, investigation for, for, uh, you know, child molestation.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And I, and I, and I'm saying to myself, well, you know, y-, you dump your, your, your little turnip off to, uh, you know, this child care place and they don't pay very much and w-, why, why would they be interested in, in your little turnip unless, you know, one of the motivations in the hidden agenda is well that's somebody to molest, you know.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And, uh, that's a terrible kind of thing and I don't think my children have ever been subject to that but my wife didn't work and so we really didn't have that much exposure to it.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. Well I am a working mother [LAUGHTER]. I have three children and my children, since I, uh, since they were very young, I've had various, um, different alternatives, child care arrangements and like most working mothers [LAUGHTER] I'm really not defensive about it. I personally feel, uh, in our particular situation, I'm a much better mother when I work out of the home and my kids, I think, are very, very secure, well raised children. My comment on this is that we paid an absolute fortune [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] Huh.
[speaker002:] over the years for a variety of opportunities. So I, I, I, e-, you know, it is a problem. And, but as you pointed out, I, I think the real problem is the low pay child facilities and that is sometimes what some women who have to work, that is all they can afford. When our children were very young, we had a pay, a live in paid baby-sitter that
[speaker001:] Huh.
[speaker002:] was wonderful. And then as they got older, they went to, uh, I preferred to call them schools and they were really all day preschools and they were wonderful. And I think they got exposed to a lot of neat things.
[speaker001:] Oh, well that's interesting.
[speaker002:] But we did, we really truly did pay a fortune. I mean we were paying [swallowing] at one point, well about, about a, close, about five hundred dollars a week for two children.
[speaker001:] Oh, my God.
[speaker002:] So.
[speaker001:] Well you must have a, just one hero ace professional job to support something like that.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Well, I mus-, I'm a physician. Uh
[speaker001:] Oh, well, yeah [snorting].
[speaker002:] and, as is my husband. And, and I felt, uh, very good about working. I'm a pediatrician actually.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] So, uh, but I think there are some wonderful child care opportunities out there for children but, and we all know the kind of things that you're supposed to look for. I think,
[speaker001:] Well, not, not all of us. You know what the kind of things you're supposed to look for.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] I'm an engineer.
[speaker002:] Oh. Well
[speaker001:] And,
[speaker002:] I think it's real important that you have a place that, first of all parents have a lot of input into and that they're always welcome and that they have a lot of activities where parents come in during the day and that at any time you can drop in. And we had a really wonderful arrangement, uh, I'm with the university actually
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] and they had a wonderful, uh, program that started at age three and it was about a block away from the hospital where I work. And so, many times, at lunchtime, I would go over and visit the children and eat with them and see what they were doing. And they had wonderful, they had things like gardens and lots of pets and just, they had a four to one
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] uh, teacher student ratio. So that, that sort of an, most of the teachers had degrees. Uh,
[speaker001:] Five hundred dollars a week.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
[speaker001:] For two kids. That's incredible.
[speaker002:] It was incredible actually [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Oh, [LAUGHTER] oh.
[speaker002:] But it was good. I mean it was, it, at that time there were two children and they were in special programs and each one was a little over two hundred a week and then, in addition, I paid a little bit extra. But
[speaker001:] Well.
[speaker002:] the kids were, I mean they really had some great opportunities. But, tha-,
[speaker001:] W-,
[speaker002:] what you were alluding to earlier is, you know, women who work for minimal wage
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] an-, and, and really have t-, feel they have to put their children, sometimes they do put them in, uh, fairly low
[speaker001:] You know,
[speaker002:] paying sit-, situations.
[speaker001:] they could, somebody will have a job at three hundred a week to get off welfare and
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] you know, that's a good starting wage but
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] boy three hundred dollars a week doesn't go very far on child care.
[speaker002:] No, even that, that really, I think, I don't, it's been awhile since I've looked at, my youngest child is eight. So it's been a little while since I've looked into, actually daycare centers. But they are
[speaker001:] Huh.
[speaker002:] you know, the good ones do cost maybe sixty dollars a week since.
[speaker001:] I mean we used [mispronounced] to pay, pay fifty cents an hour to baby-sit. But mi-, mine are twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-seven so
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] you know, that, I guess baby-sitters now are up at, what, five dollars an hour?
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Something like that.
[speaker001:] Oh my.
[speaker002:] Well, you know, but you made the comment earlier, why would someone be interested in children. I mean it has been a real, uh, th-, there have been some good entrepreneurial [LAUGHTER] type experiences. And I think, I think they have captured a certain market. Again the, but then there are baby-sitting groups. As a pediatrician, one of the things we've been real concerned about is the infections.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] As you start putting lots of little kids together, the infection rates that go around [hum].
[speaker001:] Oh, yeah.