Daycare Center for your Child - and what is left for you?

As a parent, you obviously think about what is best for your child. In fact, that is your main aim: creating a surrounding for your child that will guarantee the best future and make him or her happy. Over this however, I sometimes believe many people forget that these children also need their parents physically. They need them to be with them as well!

It was today in Gurgaon when Ramona and I talked about this once more. We were at the hospital for a checkup of my father’s knees. He has had his knee replacement in March and some issues which he wanted to talk to the doctor about. It is a big private hospital that we always go to and where Apra was also born. You walk in and you see happy nurses and coordinators, you talk to the doctors and you feel good about consulting them.

We were waiting for our turn to go into the consultation room when Ramona said to me: isn’t it nice here in the city? People have their job, like here in the hospital, they work their hours and are happy, then go home and have their family time. It just felt like they are having a good life.

When we were sitting in the cafeteria – after having talked to the doctor who had recommended some exercises to my father – we looked out of the window. Next to the hospital, there is a playschool which we have seen grow over the course of the years that we have been visiting this hospital. Now we could see a big new banner next to their name on the top of the building: ‘Open till 7:30pm!’

Seeing this, Ramona and I both felt the same: what a pity if you have to give your child into a playschool or daycare center like this. You wake up your child in the morning and do the morning routine with brushing teeth and breakfast but there is not much time until they have to be in the school and you at work. And then you are busy until the evening at 7:30 pm! Pick up your child, now an evening routine of dinner and bedtime story – and off to bed.

What does your child have from you? What do you have from your child? Do you get to spend time together at all? The need for such a daycare center shows me that there is something going wrong! And this is part of the corporate world: the pressure, the time that you have to spend there and the loss that your children face because you are not there for them or with them.

Isn’t it horrible that it is like this? And that’s what I prefer about the life in a small town like Vrindavan: people here may earn some less money. We may also have less options when it comes to shopping and the like. What we have however is time for our children. That is a generalization of course. The trend is going towards the style of big cities however. It is a pity that this is happening…

Wherever you are and whatever you do for a living: I am still very strongly of the opinion that it is better to earn a bit less money, to live a bit more simply – but be happy!