so you have a child
yeah we have a
two years old in child care right now
two year old daughter in child care and we went through the process of searching for child care and uh finding what we consider to be real good child care at a uh
um-hum
pretty reasonable price we think
how about you do you have any children
uh
yes our first and he just turned three months
oh boy
so we're just starting into hunting for child care right now both of us are students
yeah
are you where are you student
uh uh University of Southern Mississippi
no kidding
um
i was a professor in a university here in California for a while
she's
yeah
yeah uh are you gonna uh put your son in child care in a a year or two
uh probably um
yeah
actually spring semester a year from now he's gonna have to be in child care for uh five days a week
more than likely uh depending on how my class schedule runs because my wife will be doing her internship that semester it'll be forty hour week not no eight to five type of thing
yeah
uh-huh
yeah
so depending on what my class schedule looks like he may spend four six anywhere from four to eight hours a day in child care by that point right now we're trying to avoid it but we just
a matter of fact just yesterday hired a a girl to uh watch him uh i get out of class at
certain time and my wife is already supposed to be on her way to her class
you know once a day this overlap happens where we can't one of us be home so for about twenty minutes twenty thirty minutes a day we got a babysitter comes in
yeah
yeah
well that's a good experience i think and uh there are a lot of things to think about and the articles that are written on the topic are pretty good and they kind of boil down to
uh any other important decision you really have to explore the alternatives and what we found
um-hum
um to be the best guide was our own instincts about people who were gonna be loving and uh that's more important than anything else we could have sent uh her to a fancier
um-hum
yeah
um facility um she goes to a home this is a um
um-hum
a couple uh emigrated from China early in in their lives they've been here probably thirty forty years they've got three daughters
um-hum
yeah
um and they have a loving home and uh they're both there and they have a kid that comes in and helps them in the afternoon
um-hum
and our daughter is healthy happy well adjusted and enjoys going to see her friends so it's a good experience i think if it's good i think it's very good for the child
yeah
uh that makes a big difference
yes
and if it's a loving environment i think it's very good and and that's really what we've learned about it she'll have to go on to something more stimulating in terms of a preschool in a year
yeah
but um we feel real fortunate and we were able to uh
just uh
choose in the marketplace i don't know what it's like around uh Hattiesburg
there's a lot of child care available but invariably there's waiting lists
uh-huh
yeah
and we were a little slow getting on the waiting list with the uh okay the university uh university's uh uh department of um uh well their Home Economics Department
yeah
i'll bet they're involved
yeah
um they uh they have a subbranch uh American Family Counseling and their people staff this this uh the child care center just off campus
but uh they have a pretty good size waiting list so uh
yeah well that's uh i know it's it's a real uh hard thing to do even for people in in uh university communities out here at Stanford they have a
um-hum
you know a a a real good facility and there uh is is quite a waiting list to get into that so it's uh
yeah
you know it's a it's a it's an important decision it's an industry that's still a cottage industry and i think that it it really is buyer beware
yeah
well it's best
yeah a cottage industry's the best way to do it really because if you over
well it is the best way to do it interestingly i think that um my own interest in in development human development leads me to believe that that's a good sign and that um
um-hum
private enterprise is the way to go and that it will lead to a fundamental change in the way we learn because i think what we're gonna go to is much more commercial entrepreneurial learning ventures in the market as a matter of fact my future is banked on that
yeah
yeah
uh professionally because i believe that that there are uh
pressing needs in the marketplace unmet by schools colleges universities for
um-hum
uh learning a lot of things that kids can learn watching Sesame Street and in child care primary skills which turn out to be the most important skills in life
yes
it's amazing how much good things like uh Sesame Street will do
it's it's phenomenal it's phenomenal the the programming
is uh
the human operating system is my area
