I'll never forget this one time where a friend of mine asked me to come along with her to pick up her daughter at a preschool. My friend had been having some concerning intuitions about the program, but she wanted an unbiased opinion.
When we arrived, we had to walk through the middle of three classrooms to get to her daughter who was assigned to the 4th room. I will never forget the 2nd room. We were held up for two minutes while workers were vacuuming. Nothing so bad about that, were it not for the fact that this was the infant room, with infants present, with nearly all of the infants strapped into little bouncy seats (on the floor). One worker vacuumed under cribs (one crib held a fairly newborn baby who seemed to have been startled awake & was wide-eyed)while the other vacuumed the main floor area where the babies were seated. That worker went so far as to bump the tip of the vacuum into the sides of the little chairs.
Never have I been someone to stand by and watch something like that, so I stepped forward to make my point by saying, "Would you like me to slide these chairs over so you can vacuum?" The worker stopped vacuuming and she pushed the handle upright, though, she left the vacuum running. She said to us, "May I help you?" and I repeated to her my offer to help *her*. She then said something like she didn't need the help, and then asked us again if we were there for one of the infants. My friend spoke up and said no, that we were just passing through to pick up her child in the last room. The worker then motioned for us to pass over the cord and around the babies, but I stood where I was and asked the worker if she always vacuumed with the babies present. She replied yes...they liked to keep a tidy room, and that in the afternoon, the babies are laid out on blankets for some floor time.
I wasn't born yesterday, and I then asked if she always stopped to speak to parents with her vacuum running, (about 2 feet away from one babies head)to which she replied, "Oh, yes, the babies *love* the white noise."
When we were strapping ourselves into her car a few minutes later, she asked me, "Well, what did you think?" to which I replied, "Are you kidding?"
Good grief.
THANK GOD I WAS NOT A MOTHER THEN.
I'm sick reading your comment. I can't imagine leaving an infant like that - or any child who doesn't talk and wouldn't be able to report their experiences.
The first day I brought my daughter to pre-school I thought she would grab onto me and not let go. Instead she took one look at the place, said to me "Oh wow - children" and went running into the playroom. An hour later when I came back she tried to push me out the door and said "go away". I was crushed.