False Start

I've been trying to content myself with dead-end jobs until all of my kids are in school but I guess I'm stubborn or something and my wife and I have been trying to devise a plan where I can get job training during "normal" daytime hours.

We don't make much money so we are worried about paying for ONE kid in daycare. We were hoping our daughter might be able to get into a state-run half-day daycare program that is held in the room nextdoor to where my wife currently works. You are supposed to be poor for your kids to qualify but they make exceptions and give preference to people who work in the building. My wife says the vice principal of the school has her daughter enrolled there, so why not us?

Getting our daughter into the program is our first choice so my wife has been going nuts trying to make the arrangements and today she had an interview with the people.

They were not impressed with our situation. They kind of have a sarcastic "You call yourself the bottom rung...?" attitude. They ran through some quick tests with our daughter and told us that she "aced" them all, but they said it as if it was a bad thing.

They prodded my wife, "Do you have ANY concerns about her?" Is she retarded or violent? Does she set things on fire? They asked her, "Has she (at least) been abused?"

And my wife had to give them the bad news, "No. Our daughter is a happy, intelligent little girl who just needs a place to go for half a day for one year.

Are you sure? You've never pulled her arm too hard? You've never "accidentally" nudged her into a doorknob or anything? Please... give us something to work with here.

I suppose I could lay into my daughter with the ugly stick if it means getting free daycare out of the deal. I suppose I could stand to be more irresponsible and less reliable at work. When you are good at your job the bosses just give you the crap-work anyway while the good-for-nothing people stand around scratching their butts. That seems to be true everywhere.

Even though the daycare program expects that you make a maximum of $24K they also expect your children to have health insurance. I assume in the form of Medicade. Those people laughed in our faces, too. We did find out that our kids easily qualify for state-run health insurance, so that's a plus.

We don't have a final verdict on whether our daughter will get in or not. The only reason she would get in is because my wife works in the next room. They said they would send us a letter in a month or so to let us know.

I didn't type this to play on your sympathies. It's just bizarre to me that these programs only benefit people who are in a deep rut and plan to stay there while people who work hard, take care of their kids and try to better themselves get laughed at.

There's always next year.