I’ve decided. I’m going to do it.  Ayla will be in part-time daycare after she turns one.  It was a big decision for me.  I had planned to stay at home for a couple of years.  But since I’m a work-at-home mom (WAHM), I find it too difficult to squeeze in writing a new book, editing articles and my blog, running a nonprofit and leading childbirth workshops while she’s napping.  Even when she’s super sleepy, it’s still too much for one mortal mommy to pull off. 
 
Daycare.  Big deal, right? Everyone does it. Kids make new friends.  They learn to play collaboratively. They adapt to new caregivers.  For working moms, we don’t have a choice, do we?  But there is one issue that we should be mindful of: Distance. 
 
Dr. Sears writes eloquently about the problem of distancing ourselves from our children.  He says that we often make micro-decisions that can desensitize us as parents. It’s not that we stop loving them or taking care of them, it’s just that we become less sensitive to their little voices the busier we allow ourselves to be.  And starting Ayla in daycare feels like the slippery slope to a more distanced relationship between mother and child.
 
Right now, Ayla is my primary focus.  Her needs come first.  Work comes second.  But what happens when I’ve got five whole hours a day to work? Well, knowing me, I’ll take on more.  Then a little more.  And then I’ll get really engrossed in a new project and maybe my work will cut into a little chunk of our non-daycare playtime.  It could happen.
 
So you see, I’m not afraid of daycare per se.  I’m afraid of myself.  I’m afraid that daycare provides a little bit of rope that I’ll figure out how to extend and extend.  And then twenty years from now, Ayla will be grown up and completely independent, and all I’ll have is a successful book or blog.  And I’ll look in the rearview mirror, and remember the day I decided to put her into daycare, and regret that I ever took the very first step away from her....