Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Sunday, September 04, 2011

"There's No Parents"

It's true, infants are little mischief-makers. They know no better. They are, like all of nature's young, curious about what surrounds them. They love to explore. To investigate the curious, to determine for themselves to the best of their immature abilities what the forbidden consists of. For their own safety those who are responsible for their well-being must pay close attention to the movements of toddlers. For they know not what they do.

Nor can very young children, invested in satisfying their sense of incautious adventure, begin to imagine the harm to which they can come. It is up to the adults around them to do that for them. Parents seem to have a false sense of security if they imagine that other adults share that deep care for their children that they have. They may believe that if the temporary care of their children is placed in the hands of professionals, that deep care is guaranteed.

Particularly when an establishment with the comforting-sounding name of the Markham Village Childcare Centre which is provincially licensed and inspected, assures them through their commercial website that security is an outstanding priority; doors always locked, people gaining ingress only by a staff member, children not released to anyone but those who are authorized.

And if that childcare centre also boasts awards for 2009 and 2010 for "Best Day-Care Centre in Markham", a designation selected by the Markham Economist & Sun's Reader Choice Poll, then complete parental assurance of reliability and trust can be assured. That confidence in the trustworthiness of the daycare centre however, may now be in jeopardy.

It has, in fact, been temporarily shuttered. Until such time as its license has been restored by the provincial Ministry of Children and Youth Services - revoked because it was found the centre had insufficient food for the 28 children the facility had enrolled, and it was also absent a qualified supervisor.

Which might explain why when eleven toddlers in the playground did not return to the interior, only five did, and the remainder were not missed by staff, the question of capability arose.

"Five of the children returned and the three remaining children were found by employees of a neighbouring drugstore. Staff at the childcare centre were unaware that any children had left the playground." This, the explanation of the suspended license because of "an immediate threat to health, safety or welfare of the children who receive those services".

One little boy had his hand caught in the door of a Shoppers Drug Mart, another little girl was in the parking lot, and a third little girl was in the store, wandering about. The wailing of the child who could not free his hand alerted staff at the Drug Mart to the presence of unaccompanied children.

"We got all three of them in here, and I thought to myself, this makes no sense, there's no parents."

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