[speaker001:] Go ahead [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] Oh, okay [LAUGHTER]. Yeah, the, uh, subject is child care and how to determine child care, and that's, uh, an interesting one for me to talk about since I have no children, but I did run a child care facility for a while.
[speaker001:] Um.
[speaker002:] And, uh, have some,
[speaker001:] Well, you should, you should have some opinions on that, then.
[speaker002:] I do have some thoughts on that, yeah. Uh, it's, uh, an interesting experience to be a surrogate parent for, or parent for a lot of people there, and, uh, it's also very interesting in terms of how people choose the child care facilities [screeching].
[speaker001:] Well, I guess if I were going to choose, I mean, my first consideration would be safety.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] [Lipsmack] My second consideration would be, uh, [lipsmack] uh, health.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] And, uh, I guess my third consideration would be, uh,
[speaker002:] [Thumping].
[speaker001:] warm,
[speaker002:] [Screeching].
[speaker001:] environment, warm personal environment.
[speaker002:] Well, right. Uh, in Texas, we have to meet certain state standards in order to operate on a, at an institutional level and at a, like a small home level so [inhaling] [breathing] you meet the standards, but then after that there's, there's a lot more. I think it's important as the safety and health and that kind of stuff, is qualification of people who work there, and in hiring people who would work at the, uh, day care, the child care facility was very difficult to find qualified people, uh, in terms of, not just, just because somebody has a child or, uh, likes children doesn't really mean that they're qualified to give the child the kind of supervision and training that
[speaker001:] Oh, absolutely [throat clearing].
[speaker002:] that, uh,
[speaker001:] As a matter of fact, I believe that the safety and, and health, uh, issues, uh, depend in a very direct way on the people who are working with the children.
[speaker002:] Exactly. And that was the most difficult thing of all, to find the, the right people, the qualified people.
[speaker001:] And it's the most difficult of all for a parent, judge, uh
[speaker002:] Oh,
[speaker001:] because a person can be very nice and warm and loving, but if he's a space cadet and doesn't watch the children, and be aware of what the safety hazards are,
[speaker002:] Oh, exactly. And the other thing that's difficult in, uh, it's a too small setting, like a day care center is to find the right program of enrichment for the child, because you don't want to just warehouse the child, and I didn't want to run an institution where that was the case, where all we were doing were warehousing because the first four, five years or so important and you have to have the right kind of enrichment and that, that includes, uh, an atmosphere in which the child is safe and, and he's watched and his physical needs are cared for, but also his, uh, developmental needs are cared for, too.
[speaker001:] Maybe the right thing to do is to, uh, [lipsmack] when a couple has a child, [lipsmack] then they should both take, you say the first four or five years are the most important, and I think I would agree with that, they both take four or five years off and devote to parenting.
[speaker002:] That would be lovely.
[speaker001:] Get rid of all these child care centers, at least for young kids below the age of six.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And then [throat clearing], uh, and then, of course, to make up for that, uh, the, uh, parents would have to work in their later years longer, you know, in other words, they probably would not work, may not, en-, may end up not working at all d-, in the twenties. Uh,
[speaker002:] Well, that's an interesting thought because,
[speaker001:] But then they have to work from age thirty or, or forty to age seventy or eighty or ninety.
[speaker002:] That would be okay [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] That would, that would help on the other end, too, in, in terms of not warehousing people and letting people be productive for as long as they can be.
[speaker001:] Right, well, you know, the, uh, uh, the world is changing f-, uh, from instit-, from, uh, industrial, uh, base to, uh, information base and so
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] what that means is you don't have to be physically powerful to work.
[speaker002:] That's exactly right.
[speaker001:] All you have to do is have a sharp mind, and I believe that, uh, mental acuity is easy to sustain, maintain, if you just simply continue to exercise your mind.
[speaker002:] Oh.
[speaker001:] [Breathing] So I think a person could work, [breathing] uh, into the seventies, eighties, even nineties for that matter, if they didn't have to do a lot of physical, uh, labor, they could main-, maintain, uh,