I've been a teleworking mum for nearly three years now.  As my eldest child, Charlie, is turning 3 later this year I thought it would be an ideal time for me to take on a bit of extra work during the hours that he attended kinder next year. Unfortunately we were unable to find a vacancy in our area for 3 year old kinder, so a couple of months ago I started looking at long day care centres offering a kindergarten program instead. 

As it turned out all the local child care centres were booked to full capacity - all bar one, which happened to be an ABC Learning Centre.  I made an appointment to see the centre and meet the staff.

The ABC centres had long been in the media about their financial troubles and it had clearly affected their reputation in the market.  When I attended the centre in my area for an inspection I found that what was normally two separate rooms was now one room consisting of 3 year olds, 4 year olds and 5 year olds, plus their numbers were that low they still had vacancies.

As much as I had faith in the centre and trusted that they would care for my child to their best ability I was not comfortable placing my child there simply for the fact that I didn't want him in an environment surrounded by stress.  No doubt the staff were under a lot of pressure and feeling insecure about the future of their jobs and their workplace, which no doubt would be sensed by the children in their care.  I couldn't place my child in such circumstances.

We are now on three waiting lists for other centres in our area with no indication on when we will be accepted.  For us that's not a great problem because teleworking provides such great flexibility.  As I only work part-time hours, and mostly flexibly around my childrens' routines, I can generally manage my work and family schedule in synch.  Taking on additional work, however, would be unrealistic at this stage until we are able to get Charlie into kinder or child care.

As I ponder on the demise of the 1000 plus ABC Learning Centres around the country I feel for the families of the 10,000 children in their care.  Most of these child care placements are due to work comittments, which will now put the pressure on families to either leave their work, possibly resulting in financial distress, or hope to find child care placements elsewhere.

For many families experiencing this dilema, teleworking or other flexible work options could be the best solution.  Teleworking offers such extensive benefits to families including the opportunity to reduce the need for formal child care services.  If you're a working parent there's no better time to start teleworking than now!