Tonight I have a brief (10-15 minutes) mid-year meeting with Raphaela's Kindergarten teacher, and I have spent the last two days desperately trying to find a sitter for Raphaela. Our regular favorite refused to come, because it involves total less than an hour, and it is not worth her time and effort. (I hear that.) Nor can she think of any of her friends who might be available, right...
The building in which we have lived for the last three plus years has a specific code of behavior among neighbors, IE Don't bother us and we won't bother you. I canvassed several of them, asking if my daughter could just sit in their living room for 40 minutes or so and color, and got a lot of "It's not a good time," "I have a meeting at that hour," "I'm washing my hair," etc.
One family downstairs has a boy aged 13, but I don't know if he is allowed to babysit girls, it's a Jerusalem thing; besides, Raphaela is afraid of the whole lot of them, because the mother constantly yells at her children, in the house, in the halls and on the street. One Shabbat, the shouting went on for such a long time, and could be heard clearly outside the building, that several of the neighbors contemplated calling the police and Social Services and reporting the family for possible abuse.
I even posted in a Jerusalem parents group on Facebook, and got no helpful responses. No sympathy or assistance for the single mother with no emergency grandma or grandpa or cousins to pitch in.
So here I stand, with the knowledge that I must find some solution before seven pm, otherwise I will have to cancel the meeting; this time I actually need to hear what her teacher has to say about her intellectual and emotional progress, because I have yet to decide if Raphaela will be staying back a year in Kindergarten next year or advancing to First Grade.
6 comments:
This one time, can't you pay for the whole hour and hire the sitter you know? Yes, it's "wasting" money, but it's not a regular thing.
Pay her for the hour and after the meeting do something for yourself like get coffee, window shop etc. You have that as an option rather than feeling unhappy everyone has an excuse why they cannot help you.
She can come with u and sit outside the classroom with crayons or a tablet.
In gan I made an appointment to see the teacher earlier so that DD could come with me and play while we talked. When they get to kitta aleph the children come to the meeting with you anyway. I also agree that you could pay for the hour or even two hours and go for a coffee with a friend. In the end it comes to an hour anyway as these things never run on schedule.
I don't know what you did in the end- but I would have taken her with me and let het wait in the hall for this short time- with a book or so.
I always have problems like this- parents meetings in the middle of the day (who cares that all the partents work at this time)- "parties" and celebrations (too many during the school year, if you ask me) that are strictly without siblings (Well, I can't always find a babysitter and sometimes we take the siblings with us anyway or one parent needs to stay at home with them, which is a pitty.).
I ended up finding a sitter and paying for the hour, I was never against spending the money but I couldn't find anyone who would come for that "short amount of time."
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