go ahead
oh okay yeah the uh subject is child care and how to determine child care and
that's uh an interesting one for me to talk about since i have no children but i did run a child care facility for a while
hm
and uh have some
well you should've you should have some opinions on that then
i do have some thoughts on that yeah and it's uh an interesting experience to be a surrogate parent for or a parent for a lot of people there
and um it's also very interesting in terms of how people choose the child care facilities
well i guess if i were going to choose i mean my first consideration would be safety
right
my second consideration would be uh
um
health
right
and uh i guess my third consideration would be uh
warm
environment warm personal environment
well right um in Texas we have to meet certain state standards in order to operate on a at an institutional level and at a like a small home level so
you meet the standards but then after that there's there's a lot more i think it's important as the safety and health and that kind of stuff is qualification of people who work there
and in hiring people who would work at the uh day care the child care facility was very difficult to find qualified people
um in terms of not just just because somebody has a child or uh likes children doesn't really mean that they're qualified to give the child the kind of supervision and training that
oh absolutely as a matter of fact i believe that the safety and and health uh issues uh depend in a very direct way on the people who are working with the children
that uh
exactly and that was the most difficult thing of all to find the the right people the qualified people
and it's the most difficult thing of all for a parent
judge uh because a person can be very nice and warm and loving but if he's a space cadet and doesn't watch the children and be aware of what the safety hazards are
oh
oh exactly and the other thing that's difficult in uh an institutional setting like a day care center is to find the right program of enrichment
for the child because you don't wanna just warehouse the child and i didn't want to run an institution where that was the case where all we were doing were warehousing because the first four or five years are so important
and you have to have the right kind of enrichment and that that includes uh an atmosphere in which the child is safe and
and he's watched and his physical needs are cared for but also his uh developmental needs are cared for too
maybe the right thing to do is to um
when a couple has a child
then they should both take you say the first four or five years are the most important and i think i would agree with that they both take four or five years off and devote to parenting
that would be lovely
get rid of all these child care centers
at least for young kids below the age of six
um-hum
and then
um and then of course to make up for that um the uh parents would have to work in their later years longer in in other words they probably would not work
may not end may end up not working at all in the twenties
oh
well that's an interesting thought because
but they may have to work from age thirty or or forty to age seventy or eighty or ninety
that would be okay that would that would help on the other end too
in in terms of not warehousing people and letting people be productive for as long as they can be
right well you know the uh uh the world is changing from uh uh uh uh
from institutional from uh industrial uh base to uh information base and so what that means is you don't have to be physically powerful to work
um-hum
that's exactly right
all you have to do is have a sharp mind and i believe that uh mental acuity is
easy to sustain maintain if you just simply continue to exercise your mind
oh
so i think a person could work uh into the seventies eighties even nineties for that matter if they didn't have to do a lot of physical uh labor they could maintain maintain uh a
