“I’m an ECE returning to work from an 18 month mat leave. My son will be in the Toddler Room at the same centre where I’ve been working for 5 years. I will be in my preschool room, and my son will be just upstairs. I don’t really feel ready to go back though, partly because it’s so different from before, but also because even though I’m right downstairs, I won’t be able to go up and say hi, or hug him if he sees me in the hallways. I know how important cross contamination protocols are, but to be so close but not able to see him is hard on my mumma-heart. I’ll have to drop my son off at the front porch and someone else has to take him up to his classroom for the first time.
Another worry for me is that with Covid rules, if my son develops a runny nose or a fever when he’s in child care he’ll have to be sent home. Even though I am in the building, I will have to wait until a supply can be found to relieve me before I can take him home. The idea of him waiting alone in isolation for an hour or even 2 hours while I wait for cover is really hard for me. To add to that, I only have 8 paid sick/personal days and some vacation, but I know how quickly those will be used up. When my sick days are gone, I won’t be getting paid for every day I have to take off because I have a stuffy nose or my son has a cough. And, I’ll still have to pay child care fees even on days that I don’t earn anything, even with my employee discount it’s a huge expense.
I’m pregnant now and I don’t know how I’m going to do all of this when I’m growing a tiny human and taking care of another one. I also need to have sick days for appointments, my midwife doesn’t do evening appointments. There are so many moving pieces. If I had 14 paid sick days, I would be just a little less worried. Having those sick days would mean being able to take enough time to actually recover if I’m ill, or be able to care for my son without worrying about finances.
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Every educator deserves the right to paid time off work when they are ill or caring for their family, without having to worry about financial insecurity. We know this impacts the families in our communities and programs as well. Access to paid sick and leave days is a fundamental component of our understanding of decent work, and why we are allies with other organizations like the Decent Work and Health Network. This is why we need a national child care plan with decent work at the core, and we need Ontario to work with the Federal government to ensure we get it.
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