An Alternate Resume: Kids Kourt

1998-1999 Childcare Provider Kids Kourt Grapevine, TX

In the summer before my senior year of high school, I became a baby whisperer.

It started with a trip to town wearing my gray pinstriped suit. I normally wore the suit for debate meets, and when I put it on, I felt grown up. Perhaps that’s why I drove right past the movie theater and the retail shops where most of my classmates were already working.

Senior pic, wearing the same gray suit

I don’t remember much from that day, but I do remember the feeling of urgency. With an October birthday, I had always been the youngest in my class, and many of my peers had found jobs the previous summer. I was anxious to gain the autonomy I thought would come with a paycheck. I didn’t want to ask my mom and dad to pay when I went to a movie or grabbed Taco Bell after school. And yet, I didn’t have a plan.

I pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall with a Bealls department store, a gym, a few restaurants, and a drop-in daycare. I’d shopped at the Bealls several times with my mom and had fond memories of ordering the “Taco Party” and Shirley Temples at the Mexican restaurant. I also remembered my mom dropping my brother and I off at the same daycare once or twice when she was taking evening classes to get her teaching certificate.

I’m not sure whether it was this sense of familiarity or merely a “Help Wanted” sign in the window that motivated me to drop off an application at Kids Kourt. Regardless, by that evening, I had my first paying job.

My first day at the daycare, a coworker handed me a toddler and asked, “Can you change him?” It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d never changed a diaper. My face turned red. Why hadn’t I thought of this before applying for this job? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do the task, but I didn’t know where to start and I hated asking for help. I had to decide whether to wing it or admit I had no idea what I was doing.

That summer taught me to set aside my pride and ask for help. I not only learned to change diapers, but also to make bottles, mix up a disinfectant solution, use an adding machine, and take payments with a credit card imprinter. Although none of the tasks were complicated on their own, each required a small hurdle to jump through, evidence that my autonomy wasn’t so easily earned.

One thing came easily to me, though. I could get any baby to fall asleep by stroking their nose and rocking them gently in my arms. I’m not sure where I learned this technique. By the time I graduated from high school, my sister already had 3 of her 6 children. But she lived in another city, and we didn’t spend a lot of time with her. I remember feeling like I just had an innate ability. When my friends started having children after college, I used the same technique to soothe their infants, and several remarked that I was “a natural.” However, I never had the same luck with my own son, who fought sleep with every ounce of his being. He shook his head away as I stroked his nose and arched his back as I rocked and bounced him for hours after he woke up for a 2AM feeding. Perhaps my luck ran out. Perhaps my son was an exception. Perhaps I changed. That summer, however, I remember scooping up one baby after another and smiling as their eyes shut tight and they relaxed in my arms.

Holding my newborn niece in 1993

By the end of the summer, I had adjusted to the role. I received a key to the building. That and a small raise provided solid proof that I was indeed gaining that autonomy I had sought at the beginning of the summer. I happily collected my paychecks, translating the dollar amounts into movie tickets or fast-food meals.

*****

But when all is said and done, the job at the drop-in daycare wasn’t designed for me. Yes, 94.7% of childcare workers are women. However, the median age for childcare workers in the U.S. is 35.3, suggesting that the average daycare employee has more financial responsibilities than paying for a few movie tickets each month.

At Kids Kourt, I was the only employee without children. My coworkers brought their young kids to work each day. I remember thinking how lucky they were to have a job with free childcare. One of the mothers had two toddlers and another baby on the way. She would eat Cheerios each morning just before she left for work. Ten minutes into her drive, she would stop at a gas station with relatively clean bathrooms to throw up. She chose her breakfast because it was easy to regurgitate. I made a mental note: maybe that will be useful someday.

At the time, I didn’t think much more deeply about my coworkers’ circumstances. A few were married. At least one was a single mother.

When I started the job, I got paid minimum wage: $5.15 an hour. By the time I left, my pay had increased to $5.40. Perhaps the other women got paid slightly more, but I don’t think their wages exceeded $6, my targeted pay when I looked for a new job the following summer. The daycare certainly didn’t offer any insurance benefits, and the only perk was free childcare during one’s breaks.

In case you’re interested, $1.00 in 1998 is worth about $1.64 today, which means that $5.15 an hour would be equivalent to $8.45 today. (Note: Texas minimum wage is still $7.25, which means that many workers are making far less than this today in terms of buying power.)

Until I started writing this blog series, I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how my first job played into larger trends. Last spring, I taught a class on depictions and realities of women’s work from the 16th century to today. This spring, I taught a class focused on the topic of essential work. I’m currently writing an article on depictions of women’s work in Shakespeare’s plays. These experiences have all offered a new lens to look back on this first job.

For me, the job at Kids Kourt represented an entry into the workplace, and thus into independence. Caring for children had seemed to me a grown-up job, and I was proud of my ability to sooth the infants. I even appreciated hearing my coworkers talk about their struggles with motherhood. But my experience couldn’t have been the experience of my coworkers.

I didn’t keep in touch with the other women at my first job. It was before social media, and we just didn’t have enough in common to warrant a phone call. But now, as I look back, I think about how witnessing their struggles, even when I did not fully comprehend them, influenced me. And now, looking back, I try to hold these two conflicting experiences – of my growth and of their struggle – simultaneously. I was a baby whisperer, but I wonder how my coworkers defined themselves in this same role.