Letters to the Editor: When a child-care center closes, kids lose a familiar caregiver
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To the editor: Emily Woodruff’s reporting on Los Angeles’ child-care crisis highlights a concern that goes beyond affordability and availability (“Hollywood slump, UCLA closures fuel L.A. child-care crisis; parents face $4,000 alternatives,” Oct. 29).
I related to the story of the mother’s concern that her daughter would struggle with rapid teacher transitions. It took my own daughter nearly six months to become comfortable and open up to her teacher. I cannot imagine the stress and uncertainty that losing a familiar caregiver and starting over would cause for so many children.
Children need time to build trust, develop relationships and feel safe in their learning environments. Child care offers stability for kids, but when the centers close, children’s lives become destabilized.
California leaders and institutions must find sustainable solutions to keep these centers open. Losing child care means more than losing an available spot; it means disrupting the relationships and stability children have worked so hard to build.
Marai Jimenez, Los Angeles
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To the editor: I no longer have children or grandchildren in pre-school anymore, but my heart breaks for parents who have to find child care at this young age. It’s bad enough that there are few good, reliable schools, but the better ones are so extremely costly.
I struggled when my children were that age, as I did not have the option to forgo working and stay home (which I would have loved to do) or to work from home (which may be more feasible in some cases today, especially for people who work at more lucrative jobs). But as with everything, wealthier families have many more options than people with lower income.
It’s not only a financial issue. We often do not think enough about the loss and transition that young children have to go through when they are attached to their caregivers and/or their classmates and then lose those child-care arrangements.
Maybe we as a society, as well as our universities and large employers, ought to think more about our priorities and how our taxes and government expenses are allocated. And that is not to mention the other outrageous differences today between the highest- and lowest-paid workers.
Anne Gani Sirota, Northridge
