Daycare closing near me: Sioux Falls childcare needs at critical levels as two centers close

California child care centers closing is bad for everyone

In summary

The coronavirus pandemic has decimated child care centers in California, with many closing permanently. The consequences will adversely affect children, parents, center operators and the state economy.

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Across California 8,500 licensed child care sites have shut down since the pandemic began, taking with them tens of thousands of child care slots for kids who need care while their parents work or attend school.

The decimation of the child care industry has dire implications for the state going forward: 

• Children unable to get into licensed child care could suffer educationally and miss the stability of a safe, familiar provider.
• Unemployed or underemployed parents now have even fewer affordable options for child care, potentially delaying their re-entry into the workforce as California struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.  
• Thousands of women of color, who represent the majority of the child care workforce, are now out of work. 

Both the permanent and temporary closures hit an already precariously positioned child care industry suffering from chronic low pay, a lack of providers and high costs. 

“The pandemic shed this bright light on so many systems in our country that are clearly broken or poorly built before the pandemic — and child care is just one of them,” said Keisha Nzewi, director of public policy for the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network, a nonprofit that helps connect families with child care providers. “In child care the problem is that although it is a public good, it’s not treated as such.

“Child care providers are paid poorly and at the same time parents cannot afford to pay more.”

Experts and advocates hope a new and record-breaking infusion of federal money will buoy the industry for now. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan President Joe Biden signed into law last week includes $39 billion to bolster the child care industry. California is set to receive $3.8 billion of that money, half of which is for stabilizing the child care system and to provide more assistance to families, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy. Congress wants the states to receive the money by September but experts believe it will land sooner, possibly in the summer. States have until September of 2022 to commit the funds and an additional year to use it all. 

“The pandemic shed this bright light on so many systems in our country that are clearly broken or poorly built before the pandemic — and child care is just one of them.”

Keisha Nzewi, director of public policy for the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network

Money is expected to start flowing to providers and families before the end of this year, said Christine Johnson-Straub, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy.

The state’s portion of the money will go to the California Department of Education, which will work with the Department of Social Services, which oversees child care licenses, to distribute the funds, Johnson-Straub said.

California has two types of child care facilities: large centers and family care homes. Centers tend to be larger and more expensive while in-home care providers, who can serve up to 8 or 14 children depending on size, accept the majority of low-income children who receive state child care subsidies.

Among in-home family child care sites, 14% shuttered — a loss of some 3,635 sites — between January 2020 and January 2021, according to newly released data from the Child Care Resource and Referral Network. Among larger centers, 33% closed, accounting for 4,873 centers. These are both permanent and temporary closures.

“There is always a need to invest more in the child care system in California,” said Kristin Schumacher, senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center. “We know it’s critical for working parents and our economy. We cannot recover from this pandemic in a recession until we have a stable child care system that parents can rely on so they can return to work. ”

In March 2020, when the state’s shelter-in-place order began, some parents kept their kids at home if they could, while others lost jobs and surrendered their children’s slots in child care sites. Many sites closed. When they were allowed to reopen several months later, they did so under new restrictions that limited how many children they could care for while also requiring strict disinfecting regiments and social distancing. 

“I never imagined it was going to be a year and I would lose all my staff, clients, children.”

Cynthia Bassett, child care provider in San Bernardino

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In San Bernardino, child care provider Cynthia Bassett took Gov. Gavin Newsom’s advice at the outset of the pandemic and closed her in-home family child care for the first time in 21 years. Bassett is 68 and has asthma, two factors that put her in a high-risk group for COVID-19. When she hugged her little ones goodbye and shut down last March, she thought it would only be a couple of months before things returned to normal.

Now, one year later and after finally getting the vaccine, she is trying to reopen. It’s like starting out all over again, she said. None of her little charges are coming back, and only one of the four part-time staff members she had to lay off is able to return.

“I never imagined it was going to be a year and I would lose all my staff, clients, children,” said Bassett. “Now, with reopening, my concern is still finances and the disinfecting and the cleaning and the (protective gear) and even the staff. We are still dealing with the pandemic. It’s not over.”

Bad for children

Child care is part of the foundation for youth learning, according to Dorian Traube, associate professor at the University of Southern California School of Social Work.

Traube studies early childhood education and said if toddlers and preschoolers are missing out on learning opportunities, it could leave some unprepared for school in the future.

“This is fueled by the American idea that child care and early education are two separate topics when in fact, child care is early education,” said Traube. “We know it’s one of the most important developmental periods.”

If toddlers and preschoolers are missing out on learning opportunities, it could leave some unprepared for school in the future.

Nzewi disagrees with the notion that families that are keeping their kids at home or cobbling together care with trusted loved ones are causing their kids to miss out on learning. But she does argue that having routine and stability is important for kids. And having stable child care provides that, especially because circumstances with family, friends and neighbors may change if they get a job or have to move or rearrange their own schedules.

“So many of us were cared for by our nanas, our titis, our nonas, our mom’s best friend, the people that our parents or families trusted the most. There is no harm there — learning happens everywhere,” she said. “Children don’t necessarily lose anything in development, but kids of many ages like to know what to expect. Stability is only a good thing for children.”

Bad for the parents (and the state economy)

Unemployed or underemployed parents now have to scramble even more to secure child care slots for their kids. That makes it harder for families, especially women, to go to or get back to work, and could impact economic growth coming out of the pandemic.

“As more and more people become vaccinated and schools start to reopen and the economy starts to move forward, it’s going to be critically important that parents have safe space for their children while they are at work,” Schumacher said. “It’s already really difficult to find affordable care, sometimes impossible if you earn low wages.

“If part of our child care supply has evaporated it may be just impossible.”

Bad for child care providers, who were already in a tough spot

Child care in California has been in a perilous position for decades. Providers operate on razor-thin margins and get paid less than living wages, while parents can hardly afford the fees. Government subsidies have not kept up with inflation, and only help a fraction of kids who qualify because the lack of providers leaves low-income families in the lurch.

“Fundamentally this is an under-resourced system that has not been invested in for decades. And what we had going into the pandemic was something that was stitched together through the hard work of a female-dominated industry (of workers who were)sacrificing their own wages to provide enough care for number of kids they could,” said Rasheed Malik, senior policy analyst for early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Malik’s research has found that 6 in 10 Americans lived in a child care ‘desert’ — pre-pandemic. It wasn’t an issue only in low-income communities, but was also ubiquitous in middle-class, median-income neighborhoods. The pandemic only made that worse.

A Play set in Cynthia Bassett’s backyard in San Bernardino on March 16, 2021. Cynthia is waiting for people to enroll their children into her day care. Until then toys and play sets are unused. Photo by Shae Hammond for CalMatters

Nzewi points to child care’s slavery era roots when white children were cared for by enslaved Black women. After the Civil War, mostly Black domestic workers continued to care for children and often were paid in hand-me-downs or food instead of in dollars.  Eventually, the ranks of domestic workers grew to include Asian women and Latinas but the structure remained the same: little pay or recognition.

“Primary providers of care, whether it’s for children or elderly, (are)Latina, Black, Asian and immigrant women, and it is okay in our country to pay them far less for their work,” Nzewi said. “Their work is not monetarily valued in a significant way and what that means for us is, those are the women who are caring for our children and those are the women we woefully underpay and continue to do so quite easily. ”

The median hourly child care wage was $13.43 in 2019 in California, according to The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. The result:  17% of California child care workers live in poverty, the Center at UC Berkeley’s Early Childhood Workforce Index found. Now roughly one in four child-care jobs in California have been lost, said Schumacher, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

For Bassett, who is waiting for children to enroll in her program, help can’t come soon enough.

She eventually qualified for unemployment,  but it didn’t cover all of her expenses.

“I was very depressed at times because I was isolated,” she said. “I was used to having 14 little ones running around, and all of a sudden ‘Poof!’ it’s just me by myself.”

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An Iowa Daycare’s Closure Highlights U.S. Childcare Crisis

Tipton Adaptive Daycare is still filled with colorful plastic chairs, butterfly-adorned cubbies and star mobiles dangling above cribs. But most classrooms were empty of children this week, as the owner of the rural Tipton, Iowa, childcare center prepared to close her business permanently after more than seven years. “I gave up,” says Deborah VanderGaast, the director and founder.

At the heart of VanderGaast’s struggle is a problem of basic economics. Even before the pandemic, Tipton Adaptive was only just breaking even. Before she closed, she was charging $175 per week for full-time infant and toddler care—a rate that was barely affordable for many families she serves. But it was also barely enough to pay her employees, for whom the starting wage was $9 to $11 per hour.

In an interview with TIME in October 2019, VanderGaast described high staff turnover and employees having to work second jobs. “It’s a broken system. And the more broken it got, the more it couldn’t be ignored,” says VanderGaast. The awareness of that broken system is a major part of why she is now running for an Iowa state senate seat as a Democrat—and why she has made improving childcare access one of her top issues.

Deborah VanderGaast, director of Tipton Adaptive Daycare, greets Wilkinson on Aug. 17, 2022, while preparing to close the daycare permanently.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

The daycare became a casualty of the broken economics of childcare. Care is too expensive for many parents to afford, while pay for childcare workers remains far too low.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

Deborah VanderGaast, who opened the daycare in 2014, decided to close the business because she couldn’t find enough workers.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

The closure illustrates the ways in which the country’s intractable childcare crisis has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by spiraling costs and worker shortages. The national median wage for childcare workers is just over $13 an hour, making it one of the lowest-paid professions in the country. Childcare employment remains 8.4% below pre-pandemic levels, down nearly 90,000 jobs compared to February 2020, according to federal labor data. In Iowa alone, 28% of childcare businesses closed from 2016 to 2021.

But unlike some other industries, childcare is one in which a declining supply doesn’t correspond to lagging demand—precisely because of the precarious economics by which it operates. In fact, America’s families are desperate for daycare, and the economic and social consequences of closures can be huge. In Iowa, for example, the state has an estimated 350,000 more kids under 12 than childcare spots, according to state data. On a national scale, approximately 3.4 million children in 35 states lack access to formal childcare, according to a 2021 report by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

VanderGaast, like many national experts, argues that more government subsidies are needed to make childcare accessible. The current system is unaffordable for more than 60% of working families, according to a U.S. Treasury Department analysis, prohibiting childcare providers from raising rates. But significant fixed costs and necessary safety regulations—for example, maximums on how many children each employee can care for at a time—also prevent childcare directors from cutting costs further. In fact, VanderGaast says she actually lost money on every child in her care under age 3, due to extra requirements that protect the youngest children.

“Fundamentally, there is not enough public money in the system,” says Elliot Haspel, a family policy expert and author of Crawling Behind: America’s Childcare Crisis and How to Fix It. “We cannot innovate our way out of this. We cannot entrepreneur our way out of this.”

This year, Washington, D.C., city-council members and Utah state leaders both gave childcare workers one-time bonuses in an effort to keep them in their jobs. But the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Aug. 16 without draft provisions that would have improved childcare access, expanded the child tax credit, and lowered the cost of childcare for low-income families.

Tipton Adaptive’s closure on Aug. 19 leaves just one state-licensed daycare center for children younger than preschool in Tipton, a city of about 3,200 people in eastern Iowa. “We needed both of our childcares in this town,” says Shanon Hillyer, director of Cedar County Coordinated Child Care, Inc., the remaining daycare. Hillyer’s nonprofit currently enrolls 29 children aged six weeks to 4 years old, and has a waitlist of 24 families for that age group. She would like to take on more kids, and she knows there’s overwhelming demand in the community—but she has also struggled to hire more workers who are both qualified and willing to take on the job. (Her starting wage is $11.)

The daycare is still filled with colorful toys and star mobiles dangling above cribs, but most classrooms are now empty of children.

Kathryn Gamble for tIME

The closure illustrates the ways in which the country’s intractable childcare crisis has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by spiraling costs and worker shortages.

Kathryn Gamble for tIME

Some lucky families from Tipton Adaptive have found a space in one of Hillyer’s programs. Others have sent their kids to in-home daycares, some of which are not licensed by the state. The families that relied on VanderGaast included nurses, construction workers, and farmers. She says many are still trying to cobble together a solution. At least one family moved out of the county to be closer to family members who can help look after their kids. Iowa estimates that the childcare shortage costs the state $935 million annually in lost tax revenue, absences, and employee turnover. And women are more likely than men to leave the workforce, and miss out on earning potential, due to lack of childcare.

Corrine VanderGaast, Deborah’s daughter and an assistant teacher at the daycare, helps Dircks Grau, age 9.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

Hunter Rutkowski, age 10, and Alice Nefzger, age 8, are among the school-aged children who attended the daycare during the summer.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

Deborah VanderGaast plays checkers with Brody Wendt, age 8.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

VanderGaast hopes to take the issue to the Iowa legislature in Des Moines. After handily winning her primary in June, she faces an uphill fight against Republican Kerry Gruenhagen, a farmer, in the race for the District 41 state Senate seat. If elected in November, she wants to expand childcare subsidies, fight for better pay for childcare workers, support a payroll tax on employers to fund childcare programs, and resolve safety-regulation discrepancies between in-home care and daycare centers. “I’ve been fighting so hard to fight the childcare crisis, screaming, I feel like, at the top of my lungs, and nobody can hear me,” she says.

Childcare employment remains 8.4% below pre-pandemic levels, down nearly 90,000 jobs compared to February 2020.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

Corrine VanderGaast is one of the few employees still working at the center, where 15 employees once looked after 76 children.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

Tipton Adaptive’s closure leaves just one state-licensed daycare center for children younger than preschool in Tipton. Across Iowa, 28% of childcare businesses closed from 2016 to 2021.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

In between campaigning, she’s planning to get a job with the local school district as a substitute nurse and bus driver.

As for Tipton Adaptive Daycare, VanderGaast is holding out hope that she can sell or lease its building to another childcare provider. That’s why she has held off on taking down decorations and moving out furniture. “Are all these classrooms going to be ripped up for a warehouse or a sales floor?” she says. “Is my beautiful playground going to be bulldozed for a parking lot?”

Hunter Rutkowski, age 10, and Alice Nefzger, age 8, play outside. While they will return to school soon, some parents with younger children are still trying to cobble together a new childcare arrangement.

Kathryn Gamble for TIME

Write to Katie Reilly at [email protected].

Delaware Child Development | Closing

Updated statement: The Foundation is updating our message to note that our agreements have been with the Delaware Tribe of Indians. The Delaware Tribe of Indians’ child care is funded through and reported by the Cherokee Nation’s Tribal Child Care and Development Fund program. It is also important to note that the services provided were from July 2020 through June 1, 2021 — the Foundation has been attempting get reimbursed for allowable CCDF expenditures for nearly two years. 

​

*  *  *  *  *

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It is with a very heavy heart that the Washington County Child Care Foundation operating Ivy Academies in Bartlesville (Downtown and West) and Owasso-Sperry will be closing our doors on March 31, 2022. Our leadership and our team have been honored to serve the Bartlesville area and many surrounding communities for 25 years. Providing nationally renowned child care and early learning services to your children and families has been the pinnacle of my 35-year career in education.

As many of you know, I have worked with the Delaware Tribe of Indians since 1997, growing their child care and early learning program from $600,000 to over $10 million dollars annually. The Washington County Child Care Foundation took over as the service provider for the program when the Delaware Tribe lost its Federal recognition in 2005. Since this happened, the Foundation hired me, the Delaware Tribe’s CCDF Program Director, as the Executive Director to continue running the child care services and the services were provided on behalf of the Delaware Tribe of Indians and funded through the Cherokee Nation’s Tribal Child Care Development program.

Both prior to the establishment of the Foundation and through 2018, I wrote, was awarded, and managed the construction of all the infrastructure that makes up the Lenape Addition in Bartlesville. I do not share this by way of bragging, but to show how I invested in the Tribe’s growth and success, and not only in child care.

But, in 2019, the Tribe began taking massive action to dismantle the program that we had so successfully grown. This began by being locked out of and forcibly removed from our administrative offices, not even able to retrieve our personal belongings for many months. After two years of negotiations and ongoing conversations with Federal agencies, the Cherokee Nation, and the Delaware Tribe, in June 2021, the Delaware Tribe formally severed relations with the Foundation. However, between July 2020 and June 1, 2021, we were not paid for child care services provided for the Federal Tribal child care program – approximately $4.3 million. 

For the past three years, our Foundation, and I, personally, have been beleaguered by unfounded accusations, denial of payments for services provided (including the salaries of our teachers), and public shaming. I assure you that in our 25-year history we have never improperly used any funding – Federal, state, or otherwise. Our core mission continues to be and has always been to serve at the highest level, or not at all.

It is in this spirit that we are closing our doors. We have worked diligently for more than two years to overcome this loss, but we are not willing to provide subpar services to accommodate the loss. And, this loss has been too great to overcome.

Time and time again, the Delaware Tribe has denied reimbursement and has told us they are not responsible for paying for our services despite having requested and committed to paying for them. We had hoped some resolution would arrive from communications this past week, but we were met again with delay tactics and refusal of information. We have diligently reached out to Federal leadership at the White House, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Child Care, the Office of Early Childhood Development, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and numerous legislative offices. Those communications, too, have been met mostly with silence.

I and my leadership team have worked tirelessly over the past two and a half years to mitigate this issue. Our staff, every single one of them, have served each of our communities with integrity and dignity, especially under these circumstances with the Tribe and during a global pandemic.

Together, with each of you, we have proudly cared for thousands of children in our community, serving not only Delaware Tribal families, but also families from each of the 13 Tribes in our service area, new Americans, and all other families in our community from all creeds, backgrounds, and histories.

I am honored to have created this program and am deeply saddened that it has been dismantled in this way. While I am saddened to be closing our doors, I am walking away from this part of my life’s work with gratitude for the opportunity to serve you and our community and appreciation for the strides we made in the field of child care and early learning.

I know that this short notice leaves many of you with limited options, and, for that, I am incredibly apologetic. I have always held hope that our work and partnership with the Tribes would be held in higher regard and respect. I know many of you may have questions about what happened, we have linked additional information and context below.

While we work through the requirements for closing out, we will have limited ability to respond to each of you who may have questions. We have opened up an email address for you to send your questions and comments to in the link below.

If you would like to express your sentiments with the Delaware Tribe, we recommend reaching out to its Tribal Council here. We encourage you to reach out to our Congressional leaders to share what has happened to your family because of this situation. You can find their information by putting in your address here.

We have provided links below for you to contact us and download the History of Our Work and How We Came To Closing. 

© 2022 by Washington County Child Care Foundation

Ivy Learning and Ivy Academies | Formerly Delaware Child Development

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Here’s how many Philadelphia child care providers closed in the pandemic

A little boy reads to a baby at a Kinder Academy site in Philadelphia. The baby was the first to return to child care during the pandemic and teachers encouraged the older children to be especially gentle.

Courtesy of Kinder Academy

Fewer Philadelphia child care providers closed permanently during the pandemic than some early childhood groups predicted last year. But when considered alongside the unusually small number of new openings, the city’s net loss in providers is much larger than in previous years. 

The numbers paint a preliminary picture of what’s happened to Philadelphia’s child care ecosystem since the pandemic hit, illustrating bright spots and pain points within a fragile sector. Advocates say an influx of federal stimulus money likely staved off more catastrophic closure rates among Philadelphia child care providers, but that it will be important to track the trend long term.

In total, 183 licensed child care providers — about 11% of the city’s pre-COVID total — closed permanently between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. There were about 200 permanent closures during the same 12-month period each of the previous two years.  

But the coronavirus crisis also meant fewer new providers opened, with Philadelphia going from a net loss of 17 providers in both years prior to the pandemic to a net loss of 57 during the pandemic year. In short, that jump means dozens more defunct businesses and hundreds of lost child care slots. 

Things could have been far worse. 

Last summer, national early childhood groups sounded the alarm about the potential for widespread permanent child care closures all over the country as providers grappled with sudden enrollment declines and increased payroll and cleaning costs. In many states, stay-at-home orders meant child care businesses closed too, unless they were serving essential workers. But even when providers began to open back up in the summer, many families stayed away, fearful about their kids catching COVID-19 or unable to cover tuition costs because of lost jobs.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children reported that up to 40% of providers responding to the organization’s nationwide survey in June said they would close permanently without further government assistance. Child Care Aware of America pegged the number at 46%.

Closure estimates were somewhat lower in a Penn State University study released in August. It said about 4% of providers statewide would close permanently without immediate financial help, with another 14% at risk of closing. 

But more government help did arrive — with the first two federal stimulus packages sending a half billion dollars to Pennsylvania’s early childhood sector. In addition, some providers received forgivable federal loans that allowed them to continue paying their staff and state officials temporarily relaxed reimbursement policies for providers participating in the child care subsidy program. 

“I think this is a really good example of how government can really try to help programs during a time of great need,” said Mai Miksic, early childhood policy director for the advocacy group Public Citizens for Children and Youth.  

“There were a lot of resources that were poured into the child care sector in the past year and without those resources it would have been much worse,” Miksic said. Still, she said, “I don’t want this news to undersell how difficult this past year has been on child care providers.” 

The Penn State University study found that during the first few months of the pandemic, 83% of providers statewide reported losing more than a quarter of their revenue, with one-third reporting losing half. For many providers, tuition makes up much of their revenue, and when the kids don’t come, the money doesn’t either. 

Around the time that study was conducted, the state began sending grants to child care providers from the first federal stimulus package, called the CARES Act. 

Tyrone Scott II, director of governmental and external affairs at First Up, an early childhood advocacy group in Philadelphia, said, “There are definitely providers who are living on that CARES money and said, ‘If I didn’t get this check, I would have shut down’” 

Even if Philadelphia avoided the worst-case scenario, Scott said there are still reasons for concern. Those include the loss of highly rated providers, which are hard to replace because it takes time for new providers to move up the state ratings ladder. He also worries about the loss of nearly 90 home-based providers — a group that often provides hard-to-find care for babies and toddlers, and sometimes accommodates non-traditional work hours. 

Such providers “tend to be the most flexible and responsive to family needs,” he said. Plus, amid COVID, many parents likely feel safer sending their kids to a setting with only a handful of other children. 

Scott said as child care slots disappear, “We’re going to see kids going into less safe environments.” 

He also worries the pandemic has chased veteran early childhood teachers out of the field, exacerbating the pre-pandemic staffing crisis.  

“We probably lost a good amount of experienced teachers to Costco, Walmart, and Chick-fil-A,” all of which offer similar or better pay than child care, he said.

Of course, some providers would have closed their doors in 2020 with or without the pandemic.  

Cynthia MB Robinson, a highly rated home-based provider, closed permanently in March 2020 after 24 years in the business. She’d planned to retire in late summer anyway, but decided to shutter early so the six children in her care wouldn’t face the disruption of returning after a temporary pandemic closure only to leave again soon after. 

Plus, she worried about how the daily comings and goings of the children would affect her husband, a cancer survivor.

“I didn’t want to put him in jeopardy,” she said.  

Leslie Spina, the executive director of five Kinder Academy child care centers in Philadelphia, opened one center and closed another over the past year. Just before the pandemic hit, she signed loan paperwork for a new location on Rising Sun Road. It was February and she’d heard about the coronavirus outbreak in China but it felt like a far-away problem, not something she needed to worry about.

“Had I known, we wouldn’t have been signing on that day,” she said.   

She went forward with building renovations, albeit more slowly than she’d planned, and the new center opened this March. It wasn’t her sixth center as she’d planned though. Instead, it replaced one in the Mayfair neighborhood, which closed in November because the Presbyterian church that housed it shuttered after a long financial struggle. 

Spina said several factors, including having multiple sites, receiving federal stimulus money, and drawing on the organization’s rainy day fund, helped Kinder Academy survive the pandemic mostly intact. 

“But we know we’re one banana peel away from bad things happening,” she said. “Life is still precarious.” 

Like many providers that managed to stay afloat during the pandemic, enrollment is lower than usual at Kinder Academy’s highly rated centers. One of the five is still temporarily closed because too few families opted to come back. 

“People were afraid and because they could make other arrangements, they did,” Spina said.   

She expects enrollment to rebound enough at that site that she can reopen in the fall. 

Advocates hope the third federal stimulus package — the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan the president signed into law in March — will help providers continue to recover and strengthen the industry as a whole. 

Pennsylvania is set to get $1.2 billion for early childhood efforts — about double what it received from the first two federal stimulus packages combined. State officials are still deciding how to allocate the new funds. 

“Now is a really prime time to not only account for the effects of the pandemic, but also build the sector back better,” said Miksic, of Public Citizens for Children and Youth.

Wisconsin child care providers, already battered by the pandemic, see more closures, cases in current surge

COVID-19 is spreading around the state while many children in day care are too young for vaccines

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought hit after hit to the Growing Tree, a child care provider in New Glarus.

They’ve had to operate at about 50 percent capacity because of staffing shortages and COVID-19 concerns, meaning the day care, which was already operating on a thin margin, can’t cover all of its expenses.

Brooke Skidmore, who runs the day care, said the Growing Tree lost $110,000 over the first year of the pandemic, but was able to cover those losses with a combination of federal relief funds the state distributed to providers and federal Paycheck Protection Program funds. She said they’re on track to lose a similar amount this year, but because the Growing Tree was denied a recent round of provider funding, she isn’t sure they can make up the difference.

“If we don’t get the funding like we were able to procure last year, we won’t be able to sustain financially,” she said. “If we can’t do that, then we really can’t stay open.”

Some providers, like Corrine Hendrickson’s Little Explorers Family Childcare, have had to shut down temporarily because teachers caught COVID-19.

Hendrickson, who’s the sole teacher for nine kids in her home-based care, also in New Glarus, has been participating in a regular testing program. She has been able to catch several cases early enough that it hasn’t spread to other children, but just before Christmas, she got a breakthrough case of COVID-19 herself.

“It’s always been this cloud over me that like, ‘It’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,'” she said. “Well, it finally happened.”

She is planning to reopen Monday and is able to cover the gap in income from her closure using funds from a state “We’re All In” small business grant, but once those funds are gone, she said she’s concerned about how to cover future closures and more cases are likely, especially with many of the children in day cares too young to get vaccinated. People age 5 and up are eligible for the vaccine, with a possible vaccine for children under age 5 available the first half of this year.

“I’m probably going to reopen, but I’m scared we’re going to close back up in a week,” she said. “My families are all really good and really careful, but it’s everywhere.”

Other providers have closed permanently. Wisconsin lost about 20,000 licensed child care slots from 2011 to 2020, and COVID-19 prompted even more closures.

Family child care programs like Hendrickson’s, which typically consist of one provider taking care of children in a home, have been particularly vulnerable to closing permanently, said Kelly Borchardt, executive director of the central Wisconsin child care referral agency, Childcaring.

“Maybe the provider is a little bit older, or was on the fence about retirement already,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot of early retirements, or people just saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore.'”

Borchardt said she has been hearing from family after family that they can’t find a place to send their children.

“They’re even having trouble with the child care providers not being able to call them back, or not answering their phones or emails,” Borchardt said. “That’s really telling us that directors, teachers are completely overwhelmed just keeping their doors open and serving current children and families that they have, let alone thinking about enrolling any new children.”

Borchardt said she has been hearing about more classroom closures than full-facility closures at this point as children or staff are testing positive or quarantining.

Skidmore, in New Glarus, said she has been able to keep closures limited to classrooms so far during this surge, but that she is worried she’ll have to close the Growing Tree if COVID reaches too many staff members or children.

“There’s a lot of things working against us right now,” she said.

Child care shortages have rippled out into other industries, as parents have had to take time off, or quit jobs entirely, to care for their kids. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. awarded three of its Workforce Innovation Grants, funded through federal relief dollars, for child care specifically. Local communities identified child care as a key barrier keeping people out of the workforce.

“We know that child care was a struggle in many communities and for many companies, but when the pandemic hit … it really brought to light the challenges that we have when we don’t have access to safe, quality, affordable child care,” Missy Hughes, WEDC’s CEO, said.

Hughes said she has seen some companies start offering onsite child care, both as a solution to shortages and as a way to attract workers in a tight labor market — and one that has fallen particularly heavily on women.

“Getting the businesses involved is really critical, because that makes sure that we keep women in the workplace, and it assures that the child care providers have a more sustainable income if they can count on the businesses to purchase slots and have those available, then they have a sustainable, predictable income,” she said.

Rules for Parents

RULES FOR OUR PARENTS

Dear parents!

In our kindergarten, we care about your children, their safety and development.

Therefore, we ask you to follow some rules that will help make attending kindergarten a pleasant experience for your child.

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

*** Do not forget that in the pre-school there is a monthly payment for the maintenance of a child in kindergarten. We ask you to pay the receipt on time, , by the 20th day of of each month, according to the contract.

Read about payment here

*** In our preschool institution, it is customary to treat each other politely , therefore, regardless of their age, it is necessary to address the teachers of the group with you, by name and patronymic, and teach this to your children.

Their “aunts” do not work in our kindergarten!

*** Reception of children is carried out from 7. 30 to 8.45 daily, except weekends and holidays.

Timely arrival in kindergarten is a necessary condition for the correct organization of the educational process.

*** If you bring your child after the start of any regimen or activity, please undress him and wait with him in the locker room until the next break.

*** In the morning, parents must hand over the child personally to the teacher , and in the evening, be sure to go to the teacher and say that you are picking up the child from the kindergarten.

*** If you need to bring or pick up a child outside school hours , please notify the teacher in advance. If your child is taken from the kindergarten by relatives or acquaintances, then you must write an application and sign it with the head.

*** If the child is unable to come to the kindergarten due to illness or other good reason, please inform the teacher by 9 am by contact phone, and in case of coming to the kindergarten after illness or vacation – the day before by 12 pm .

*** A child not attending kindergarten for more than 3 days must have a doctor’s note.

Parents, remember! You must bring a healthy child!

An untreated child will not only get sick himself, but will also infect healthy children!

And if “snot” and coughing do not frighten you as a mother, then another mother may have her own opinion, different from yours.

*** Before you take your child to kindergarten, check whether he is dressed correctly , whether his suit corresponds to the season and air temperature. In properly selected clothes, the child moves freely, gets tired less. Make sure that the child’s clothing is not too large and at the same time does not hinder the child’s movements. Pay special attention to shoes . It should be light, warm and fit exactly to the size of the foot. Check buckles and laces. They must be such that the child can use them independently. In the group room it is not allowed to wear shoes without backs (flip-flops).

Dear parents! Slippers leave for the house. Children, of course, feel at home here, but let shoes be “not slippers” .

Requirements for the appearance of children

• Neat appearance, fully buttoned clothing and shoes;
• Washed face;
• Clean nose, hands, trimmed nails;
• Hair trimmed and carefully combed; for girls, the hairstyle is fixed with elastic bands, bows, etc.
• Clean underwear;
• Availability of sufficient handkerchiefs. The handkerchief is necessary for the child both indoors and on a walk. Make convenient pockets on your clothes for storing it.

To create comfortable conditions for a child to stay in kindergarten, you need:

• In closet there should be T-shirts, panties, spare tights, socks, a change of clothes in case of an “accident” while eating. Children … are an independent people. Be sure to check the neatness of things, do not forget to take your pajamas and sportswear to the laundry, well, we don’t even mention the daily change of clothes. Clothing for staying in a group. It is not allowed to wear the same pair of jeans, trousers both for a walk and in the premises of the kindergarten.
• Two bags for storing clean and used linen.
• Comb (regardless of hair length).
• Sportswear and shoes with rubber soles for physical education.
• Linen, clothes and other things can be marked.

• It is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to bring sharp, piercing, cutting objects to the preschool (scissors, knives, knitting needles, pins, nails, wire, mirror, glass bottles, bubbles, metal toys, swords, sabers, lighters, etc. ) .

The presence of such items is dangerous not only for your child, but also for other children attending the group. Therefore, be sure to check your child’s pockets before leaving for kindergarten.

It is strongly recommended not to put on a child gold and silver jewelry.

We also ask not to give chewing gum, sweets, cookies and any food, vitamins, pills and other medicines, cosmetics and computer games and any valuable toy that you feel sorry for.

If you consider it necessary to give your child some treats with you, then please limit yourself to a few caramels in candy wrappers and warn the teacher about this.

• In a group, children are not allowed to beat and offend each other; take things from the teacher’s table without permission, even your own, take personal things without permission, including toys of other children brought from home; spoil and break the results of the work of other children. Children are not allowed to “strike back”, as well as to attack each other. This requirement is dictated by the safety of the child.
• Do not forget to pay attention to the child’s man-made work (drawings, crafts), praise the child.

Parents can attend classes at any time , informing the teacher conducting it a day in advance. Replacement shoes are not required, but remember about shoe covers!

General issues are discussed at parent meetings, not because there is nothing to say about everyone, but only because of ethical considerations.

• Disputes and conflict situations must be resolved in the absence of children. If you could not resolve any issue with the teacher of the group, contact the head.

In the presence of a child one should not discuss preschool teachers with relatives or acquaintances.

Dear parents!

The administration is responsible for the life of the child from 7.30 to 17.30, and after…

If you came at 17.20, and you want to take a walk and talk with the teacher, that way until 18.00, try to restrain your desires, since the educators have a working day until 17.30 .

REMEMBER : as soon as you come for the child, the caregiver relieves himself of responsibility for him!

Journalist Yevgeny Spirin spoke about the exhumation of bodies in Bucha and the atrocities of the invaders

The “Russian world” is war, death, destruction, pain, blood, torture, broken destinies, “victory-madness”, “spiritual bonds”, sheer propaganda lies, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, almost every day we receive shocking evidence that Russia is a terrorist state that committed the genocide of Ukrainians, and that the Kremlin Fuhrer and his henchmen are international criminals.

But it’s one thing to read the news about these horrors, it’s another thing to see with your own eyes what the “asvabadists” have done on our land. The editor-in-chief of the Babel website Evgeny Spirin saw it. As a volunteer, he participated in the exhumation and identification of the remains of the inhabitants of Bucha. It is impossible to even imagine this hard and unpleasant, to put it mildly, but very important work.

– Evgeny, you recently wrote on Facebook that, among other things, you are engaged in a large project – the basis for the memorial of those killed and tortured in Bucha: “Bucha has become a matter of life for me.” Whose idea is this project, who develops and finances it, who will implement it?

– We decided that we would make a big website about these terrible events. We will complete this work in the near future.

“Thousands of tortured, tortured in basements, graves in the middle of the forest, killed on the streets, raped, injured, deported to Siberia, children without parents, destroyed houses, fields, mined forests,” commented this photo on his Facebook page Evgeny Spirin

– Who are we?

– This is Babel and the Buchansk City Council. We work together. I understand that journalists should not cooperate with the city authorities. But here we can’t do without them, and they can’t do without us, because they have all the bases and lists of the dead, and we can help investigate something.

The Timothy Snyder Foundation donated money for this. We took a grant from them.

– To be honest, I thought that we were talking about the development of a monument from granite and marble.

– Everyone thinks so. No, our memorial is not a monument, it is three media projects.

The first is a large map of the mass grave near the Church of St. Andrew the First-Called, where 119 people are buried. On this map, you can see the entire chronology: how the bodies lay, how the first trench was dug, how they were buried, who did it and when, how many bodies were in another trench, who were buried separately. We installed everything right drop by drop and we’ll show you everything.

The second is the names of people, their photos, information about who they are, where they were killed, etc. Now, if I’m not mistaken, there are 19 unidentified people, about whom we could not understand who they were.

Third – information on the streets.

As for monuments made of granite, this will be decided by the Buchansk City Council.

“Bucha has become a matter of life for me,” says Evgeny Spirin

See also: “A car with a mined body of a woman is standing at the entrance to Bucha”

— How was the exhumation process in general? They liberated the city, everyone learned about this horror. What happened next?

– Let’s start first. You must understand that when the occupation began, the police and other organizations fled. There were no experts in the morgue until April 11. That is, no one registered anything, there was complete chaos.

The second problem is that the invaders did not allow the bodies to be removed. They said that it was March, so “let them lie, because it’s cold, nothing will happen to them.” Even if someone close to you died, there was nothing you could do, because the streets were under fire.

But there were four people who, risking their lives, tried to somehow collect and bury the bodies. This is an employee of the local ritual service Sergey Matyuk and its head Sergey Kaplichny, artist Vlad Minchenko, he painted pictures and tattooed before the invasion, and Artem (I don’t remember his last name). If not for them…

At first, Vlad collected corpses on his own and transported them in wheelchairs of the Novus supermarket. On March 7, when there were a lot of bodies on the streets, he and Sergey Kaplichny put on gowns, as if they were doctors, and went to the Russians (they occupied two houses on one of the streets and set up a hospital there): “We are doctors, you are doctors, let’s – let’s agree. It is necessary to bury the bodies in a human way. Because dogs are already eating them.” Some people abandoned animals when they ran away.

On that day they were refused, and two days later, it seems, they were allowed. There was some sane Russian officer there (I don’t know how sane they can be, but nonetheless), he said: “Okay, but you only collect in my square and bury near the church. I can’t vouch for you if you take the corpses out of this square. Because it’s not my responsibility. They will shoot you there.” There was no connection between the Russian units, therefore they acted only on the corresponding area.

They went to the temple to Father Andrei and asked him to allocate land to bury people. He agreed. But then he told me that he did not participate in negotiations with the Russians and in the funeral. I don’t know how it was, because they are now confused. This is understandable, because they were then in such a fog.

The first trench was dug by a tractor on March 10 and 46 people were buried there. They tried to put their hands on their chests as it should be, laid them next to each other. But when we returned to the morgue, it turned out that there were 17 more bodies in the refrigerator. People weren’t just killed. Someone died from covid, someone from a heart attack. They were simply forgotten about, because everyone was dumped.

They buried them too. On March 12, two of the four boarded an ambulance and left with the convoy when there was the only evacuation from Bucha. Vlad Minchenko and Sergey Matyuk remained. They decided that their mission was to collect corpses and bury them. They dug the second trench themselves. It is clear that no one registered anything, no one had any documents.

Read also: “I was sitting in the basement and stupidly waiting for death. I understood that we would not get out of there, ”Nadezhda Sukhorukova spoke about hell in the blocked Mariupol

Later, when the Ukrainian army liberated Bucha, when the experts and the police returned, it turned out that there were a lot of unburied people. Since there was no room in the Buchansk morgue (a morgue, for example, can accommodate 20 dead, and there are hundreds of them), the bodies were taken throughout the region – to the morgues of Belaya Tserkov, Vorzel, Gostomel. There they were received and written: “Unknown person, about so many years.” And it’s still messed up. Therefore, we have been fighting over this for four months.

Another batch of bodies arrived for exhumation

– Why did you join this work?

– I don’t know. I have experience, so I decided that I could go and help.

– If you take the big picture, how many were killed and tortured?

– Somewhere around 80-85 percent. Even if the body is rotten, the body is damaged, you can still see the inlet to the head and the outlet from the chin. This means that he was shot. There were a lot of people with their hands tied. This is real genocide.

There were several torture centers in Bucha. That is, they did not set up a concentration camp, as in Yelenovka, where hundreds of prisoners are now being held. One of the torture chambers was on Steklozavodskaya Street (this is the area of ​​the glass container factory). Atoshnikov and volunteers, who were handed over by neighbors, were taken to the Promenistius camp. It has been confirmed that five people were tortured and shot dead in the basement. In one garage, seven people, including one child, were doused with gasoline and set on fire. In general, it has already been established that 12 small Buchans were killed.

The Russians acted in some sort of brigades. For example, on Steklozavodskaya they went from house to house and took all the men out. And then they tortured me. There is a video where a man in a tracksuit is burned.

Conditionally, the victims can be divided into three categories. The first is the men who were suspected of being able to resist, or have weapons, or are involved in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or adjust the fire. They were preemptively rounded up and killed.

The second category is those who, for example, went out for water (because there was no water). They went out, and the whole street was shot through. They were killed in the back or something. That is, the person just ended up in the wrong place.

The third category is those who died during shelling. There were artillery battles. Fragments and shells flew. Someone got into the house and killed. This category is the smallest. And the first one is the biggest one.

Read also: “During the occupation, I received several SMS from Russia: “Irpen is on fire? Advice?” — Deputy of the Irpin City Council

— It must have happened that an entire family was killed?

– Yes. A resident of Bucha, 33-year-old Margarita Chikmareva, and her sons Matvey and Klim got into a car and tried to drive away. They fired at them from an infantry fighting vehicle or from a tank, I don’t know. They burned alive in the cabin.

The church had two trenches with bodies. Separate grave – three soldiers. For Matyuk said that he cannot bury soldiers in a common grave, that they deserve respect. And a separate grave near the willow is Margarita and her two children. This family is my personal pain. I wake up every day at four in the morning because of her.

Vlad buried them. He said that for two weeks he was afraid to approach the burned-out car with the remains, because the street was also under fire there. But one day he felt so ashamed that they were lying there, and he went, took them and buried them. Only coals remained of them.

“Rest in peace, innocently killed and tortured. The first 15 unidentified buchans,” Evgeny Spirin captioned this photo on his Facebook page

— Were there bodies of Russians in those trenches?

– Now we know about one thing. This is an accurately confirmed certain combat Buryat.

A curious story happened to him. On February 25, the Russians entered the outskirts of the city and dispersed. And two days later, when our troops smashed a large convoy of Russian equipment, the Ukrainian flag was raised over the Buchansk City Council. There is a video about it. This is an absolute p … c. Because at the moment when this was happening and the crowd was shouting: “Hurrah, Bucha was released,” Russian tanks were coming in from the side of the glass container factory. Some people, having seen this video (there was still a connection then), took to the streets. And they began to kill them. That is, this video played a very bad role.

On that day, some responsible Buchan citizens caught this Russian and conducted “explanatory work” with him. Then one of the locals dragged him to the hospital on a sheet or something else and put him on the steps. He died in intensive care. His body ended up right in the refrigerator where the covid and others lay. He was buried in the first trench along with everyone else.

When we dismantled and identified the bodies, we saw that he had a Russian military ID. They also found a note where it was written that his wife, when she received a phone call, answered: “I don’t fucking need him.” This is a direct quote. The package with him is worth it. Nobody is looking for him. And the Motherland, which sent him to fight for us, does not care at all.

There is a G9 team in the Kharkiv region, they identify the bodies of the Russian military. And then corpses go there in railway cars…

See also: “Corpses on trees and on the ground, pieces of human flesh, mass graves,” an intern doctor about hell in Mariupol

— Did you read that the French experts were very helpful in identifying the bodies?

– It turned out that there is no mobile DNA laboratory in Ukraine. You cannot come, open the trunk of the car and take tests. People need to go, for example, to Kyiv. How? It was April, there was no gasoline, people had money. Who will do all this?

The French agreed to help. They brought this mobile laboratory, it’s two trucks. They didn’t have that experience either. Who could have known that in 2022 there could be so many tortured, for example?

First, we numbered the packages with the bodies, took tests. Made first base. Then they called people looking for their relatives. They gave them numbers. The sampling procedure is very simple. A biomaterial is taken from a person with a stick (such as for cleaning the ears) from the oral cavity. We had psychologists, doctors, volunteer girls with us, who treated people to coffee, cookies, so that they somehow feel normal, several volunteers took people to that truck.

Then we compared these two bases. We did everything for the first time. Nobody could do anything, nobody knew. Why do we want to go to Izyum now, where there is also a terrible number of dead civilians? To say, “Please listen to us. We spent four months. They did something wrong. But we already know how to do it. Let’s tell and show everything.” Our methodology for dismantling mass graves will help you deal with this faster. But there is such a bureaucracy. I’m not an official. Who will listen to me?

People who took on the holy mission of identifying bodies

– You said that the worst thing is not the dismantling of bodies, but communication with those who were looking for their relatives.

– I understand that this sounds harsh, but the people in the packages will not tell you anything. And the living ones… Here comes a woman: “I can’t find my daughter. She is my one and only, there is no one else. The parents have passed away. And so my daughter was killed.” And you stand like that and think: what can I say? Nothing. Just hug her.

One woman lost her second cousin, who had no children, her parents died. No one at all, except for that woman. But tests are done for relatives of the first stage of kinship, father – son, mother – daughter. If, for example, an uncle is a nephew, it is not a fact that there will be a DNA match. I explained to her: “You understand that it makes no sense that you will pass the test, because you are very distant relatives.” And she fell to her knees: “I’m not going anywhere. Take it, I’ll stay here lying. Let 0.5 percent match, all the same, I will have hope that I will bury her. Well, they did. Of course, nothing matched.

The toughest story was with one boy who was brought by his mother. He is about six years old. His father was killed. My friend Vova and I took him for tests. The boy says: “Here, my father will return from the war and buy me a bicycle.” But I understand that my father’s body is somewhere nearby in a bag. Then he told the psychologist: “Talk to the mother of the child. She needs to tell her son that his father is dead, that he is no more. Otherwise, he will wait until the age of seventeen for this bike.”

Relatives who have not yet found their own have a delusion that a person can be alive. That he was suddenly taken to Belarus, then to Russia, where they are being held. A person then lives with this all his life. These 19 unidentified are someone’s relatives. Maybe they are still thought to be alive. And they are dead. Psychologically, this is, of course, fierce trash.

There are a lot of such stories. You seem to work with it calmly, but then you come home – and that’s it, it catches up at night, when you realize that all these severed limbs and heads were men, women and children who are no more. Then people ask: “Why do you look so bad, why do you have red eyes?” And what should I look like?

See also: “Rashist fired an automatic burst at Karina and then shot him in the head”: a terrible story of a family that lost their daughter

– You wrote: “And then you dream about them. In dreams, corpses and packages with remains. You wake up and don’t sleep anymore. And they are with you all the time: a guy killed in the eye, a tortured woman, a child smeared with a shell, a grandfather who was shot. Every minute”. It is known that you were also tortured in 2014 in Lugansk.

– Yes, it was a kindergarten compared to what is happening now. I was only hit twice in the face and on the fingers.

You see, then the people who found themselves “in the basements” of Donetsk and Luhansk had the hope that after torture and bullying they would be exchanged. And what we saw… They put a man in the basement, tied his hands, tortured him and shot him in the head. I mean, it’s on a completely different level. This does not fit into the head. I understand that this cannot fit at all. What normal person would torture another?

Now we are dealing with a violation of all conventions. These killings of civilian prisoners should be the basis for international courts. I really hope so. Each case should be investigated as a Russian crime against Ukraine.

“I have experience, so I decided that I could go and help those involved in the identification of the bodies of the inhabitants of Bucha,” Evgeny Spirin explained his introduction to the

team
— Why is a person capable of such atrocity? Russians are so proud of their religiosity, great culture, mysterious Russian soul, their special way. And then it turns out that they are monsters.

– And why were the Germans capable of this? Why did they poison Jews in gas chambers? The Germans are good people.

Because there is dehumanization. Here is a man working in a slaughterhouse and killing cows. Will you kill a cow? Me not. Because I look at her – she is soft, fluffy, warm and kind. Why kill her?

Russians do not perceive us as people. If you are not human, you can kill. Why not? For them, this is normal. On the other hand, let’s be honest. After all, now we also do not perceive them as people.

– I – no.

– There you go. Almost everything is like that.

It is clear that in 2014 there were completely different events. Here we were then walking through a minefield with a photographer to make a report. Now no one will poke his head into a minefield, because an air projectile or a rocket from Iskander will fly on your head.

– You have a very interesting biography. You have done a lot in your 34 years. Tell us about yourself.

– In 2004 he graduated from high school in Lugansk. My father decided that I should be a policeman to be engaged in operational-search activities. He entered the Lugansk Academy of Internal Affairs named after Didorenko. For two years he lived in the barracks with 120 of the same 17-year-old fools. Then I decided that I didn’t want to be an opera. Entered the budget at the Faculty of Philosophy of the East Ukrainian University named after Dahl.

Dad was very offended that I did not want to become a cop, and told me to leave home. And the scholarship is small, there is no work. I went to work in the morgue as a nurse. I had a bunch of leftists, I didn’t even take my salary from the card. You come to a call and tell people: “We need a towel, soap, two hundred hryvnias for gasoline.” This is a normal story for those times.

I worked and studied. With a friend, Sergei Pivovarov, they rented an apartment in the center of Lugansk. We had a lot of fun. Usually somewhere around fifty people hung out there. Sometimes Sergey spent the night in my morgue when I was on duty. I had an office there – a sofa, a mace and a flag of Ukraine.

In 2012 he received a diploma, entered graduate school and began teaching. Passed the candidate’s minimum, wrote three chapters of the dissertation.

– What is the topic?

– Very funny – “Temporal Aesthetics of Postmodernism”. Nothing is clear, but great.

I had a class supervisor Aleksey Eremenko. He was the only one from our entire faculty who left Lugansk in the summer of 2014. We had a very awesome faculty. It was founded by Professor Victoria Sukhantseva. She gathered such a team of teachers that applicants for scientific degrees from the capital came to us to defend themselves.

When the Lugansk SBU and other administrative buildings were seized in April, he left the city. They told me: “You have 24 hours.” Why stay? To sit in the basement? I don’t like being hurt.

And colleagues remained to develop the “philosophy of Novorossiya”. One of our teachers Andrey Lustenko is now the “Minister of Education of the LNR”. It’s a pity, because he is a gifted person, he knew the whole “Hellas” by heart.

– What about the dissertation?

– Alexey Yuryevich called in 2015: “So, will we defend ourselves?” And I think: temporal aesthetics? postmodernism? defend? I have journalism, news, editorial and everything else. What for?

– You write wonderful poems.

– This is so as not to go crazy. Here you are sitting at four in the morning, clap – and a rhyme appeared. As a person with a philosophical education, who has taken a bunch of all sorts of courses in world literature, I don’t think that these are poems. But I like. I don’t control this process, that’s all.

— What can be the punishment for fanatics?

– We discussed this for a long time even before the events in Bucha, and even more so now. I think it’s very humane to kill them. Life imprisonment is much worse. You have been sitting alone in a cell all your life. Waking up at six in the morning, hanging up at ten in the evening. During the day, you can’t even lower your bunk.

Recently, Sergei made a strong text about the fate of Nazi criminals. Some were found and punished, but not all. It will probably be the same with these. So far, there are some bastards who have been convicted and put in Ukrainian prisons. And we need to involve those who gave orders, who lead this “special operation”. Perhaps this will happen when the war is over. But no one knows when that will be.

See also: “The invaders entered the house where 90-year-old grandmother, and they shot her in the head”: undertaker Igor Sereda about Russian atrocities in Bucha

– Now a little about the people who took on this holy mission of identifying bodies. Who is on your team?

– Yes, ordinary people.

This is the deputy mayor of Buchansk, Mikhailina Skorik-Shkarevskaya. Here journalists come to her: “Hello, I’m from such and such a publication, I need a comment.” She says: “On your base, sit and sort it out.” So, a journalist from Lvov Sofia Kochmar-Tymoshenko came to us and stayed with us. She is very cool. He has been working with us for two and a half months. He says about himself: “Everyone took the children out of here, and I myself moved from Lviv and sent another child to the Irpin school. ”

This is local deputy Taras Vyazovchenko. This is his district, he knew many people. Very cool dude. I feel sorry for him, because I see how hard it is for him, I see his eyes when he communicates with people. I understand how he feels.

This is Washington Post journalist Kamila Grabchuk. I dragged her there. I joke about it: “The guy takes the woman to the restaurant and the man to the morgue.” She started helping with the bases. Because one person cannot figure it out there. It’s very hard.

Evgeny Spirin with The Washington Post journalist Kamila Grabchuk

This is Google expert Galina Mashchenko, she works there. She helps us remotely with bringing everything together in Excel, because there are many databases, but we need one. We can’t, but she can. We throw everything at her, and she brings it down.

When DNA was taken, my friend Vova Miroshnichenko volunteered, he helped to communicate with people and explain some things to them.

In the first weeks, the doctor Nadezhda Davidenko was with us. This is also my friend. I just brought her: “Let’s help.” She said, “Come on.”

A bunch of people write in a personal message: “How can I help? We also want to go and do something.” But the problem is that now we are working with data. That is, we no longer dig or bury anyone. We need everyone to be identified. And this is very hard work.

The main team is Mikhailina, Taras, Sofia, me and Kamila. We coordinate the process. Once every two weeks we gather for some meetings. It’s a little difficult for me, because while I get there from Kyiv, while I’m back, there is still an editorial office, some other things.

We sit for four or five hours. We have a large table with printouts, photographs, tables, lists on it. Everything is littered and we are fumbling around in it. And then we coordinate in the chat who does what. The problem is that we are not investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office or the CIA. Everything has to be invented. None of us knew how to do this, so it’s very difficult.

For example, in one database there is an entry: a man about 50 years old, blue shorts. That’s it, no more data. They dug him out of a mass grave and described something. Then this corpse went to Belaya Tserkov, because there was no room in the local morgue. It was also described there. A similar entry appeared in another database. And then he returned to Bucha. And we understand that, most likely, this is the same corpse. There are many such cases.

Probably many do not understand what we are doing. They think that we are sitting and digging through some papers and there is no use from us. But we know that we are useful and that everything will be ok.

“We have a big desk with printouts, photographs, spreadsheets, lists. Everything is littered with it and we are fussing about it. The only problem is that we are not investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office, not the CIA. We have to invent everything. None of us could do this to do, therefore it is very difficult,” said Evgeny Spirin

See also: “I lost my mother during the evacuation from Bucha”: a doctor who left Lugansk in 2014 is now saving wounded Ukrainians for free

– When did you first come to Bucha?

– April 2, a day after the release.

Our editorial team has been working in the Pink Freud restaurant since the beginning of the war. The employees of the institution and I organized a volunteer point there – we prepared food for the military.

We had a lot of cereals, something else. And when Bucha was released, people say: “Why are we sitting? Let’s load the beads and take them.” The bartender and Sasha Tangelov and I brought water, stew, push-button phones, because people’s mobile phones were taken away and their relatives did not know if they were alive, and SIM cards.

We are driving, there are a lot of burnt equipment everywhere, a head is lying there, a hand is there, something else is there. The civilians had already been taken away then, and the Russians were lying around for some time, for a week no one touched them. Everything was mined there.

At five in the evening we returned to Kyiv. I remember how I could not type text on the phone – my hands were shaking so much. I had to record a voice message for the first time in my life.

– On August 9, you wrote: “Today we buried people in Bucha. I tell it like it is – I sit, drink and cry. I didn’t sleep for several days, I didn’t eat for the same number of days. How can this be sustained?

– Yes, it’s fine. People can’t stand that. Especially those who live there.

When we arrived in Bucha, from the basement of which house a couple came out. Both are so black. We heard that someone was handing something out. They needed somewhere to go for water. They turned to us: “Can you give me a ride?” I say: “Yes, we have no seats, only the body, it will shake there.” And she told me: “We were already shocked here.”

But it is not in vain that they say that Ukrainians are different from everyone else. The first thing we saw in Bucha was how some kind of communal worker on a small tractor was cleaning the road from dust. He rode among the debris, shells, corpses. You think: damn, the houses are on fire, only the rashists were kicked out, and the dude is cleaning the asphalt.

See also: “A shell hit the wall of our bedroom”: Vadim Karpyak is restoring his house in Bucha

Now everything seems to be working there. Novus, pharmacies, ATB have been opened, people are standing in line at the TsNAP, they are filling out something. The only scary thing is that winter is coming, and many have no windows, roofs are damaged in houses. Taras is now butting heads with residents of one emergency high-rise building. People stupidly do not want to leave there. He tells them: “Everything must be demolished. Let’s move you, there is where, then we’ll figure it out.” And they: “No, this is our house.” And there are simply no two spans, it can fall apart at any moment.

Only four months ago everything here was on fire and in smoke. And now you go and look – the children are playing in the park, the school has opened, people are walking. Life goes on…

See also: “It seems that they shot people for fun”: a video with the faces of infidels who committed terrible crimes was found in Bucha

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how to talk to a teenager correctly, rules for communicating with difficult children

It seems that quite recently a child was ready to spend hours discussing his favorite programs and toys with you. Now he comes home from school, mumbles a few words and closes himself in his room. You want to know what is happening in his life, but how to approach? Let’s discuss how to communicate with a teenager so that you can hear each other and even agree on something.

Behavioral changes in a child during adolescence

Adolescence is officially defined as between the ages of 12 and 17, at which point your child’s behavior changes dramatically. You can notice the first bells already in pre-adolescence, from 9 to 11 years old. The child goes through very strong physiological changes, and this, of course, affects the mental state and behavior. A teenager can start being rude to parents and take any of their words with hostility, without any measure “stick” in gadgets, study poorly, become secretive and start lying, become very untidy. In other words, for parents, the child sometimes becomes simply unbearable.

Communication with a teenager when he has entered a transitional age is not an occupation for the weak in spirit. The mood of the child is changing at a fantastic speed, your authority is crumbling before our eyes. But right now he is entering a big life, communicating more and more with other people outside the home. So I want to share with him knowledge about “adult” difficulties, to warn, to save him from trouble. The old ways of parenting and communication don’t work. Powerlessness and rage in response to the antics of a teenager are so great that parents break into a cry, try to increase control, and consider punishments. The teenager in response closes and snaps even more.

How to break this vicious circle? Remember that changes in behavior in a teenager are the norm. One of the main tasks of adolescence is to move away from their parents and start searching for their own “I”. On the part of parents, the main task is to learn how to communicate with their growing child in a new way. Then you can, on the one hand, give the child the necessary amount of personal space and respect, on the other hand, maintain a connection between you that will help protect the teenager from truly dangerous acts.

What should parents talk about with their teenager?

Our babies are always ready to talk to us about all the events and experiences in their lives. But then the day comes when all communication with a grown child comes down to monosyllabic answers on his part. You want to know what fills his days, what is in his soul. But it is not so easy to talk about a teenage girl and a teenage boy.

The main rule: try to talk about what is interesting to discuss for the teenager himself. Often parents try to impose a topic for conversation, they want to broadcast to a teenager what, in their opinion, it is useful for him to know and should be interesting. And they are very offended when the child is not included in the conversation. Know that de-idealizing and even devaluing parents, criticizing them and what they love, what they are interested in is a necessary step on the path to adulthood. If the child continues to be guided in everything by the interests of the parents, then he will not separate psychologically from them. It is necessary to correctly regard this behavior: not as a lack of respect, but as a necessary stage in your relationship. A teenager needs this to make up his own system of values ​​and interests.

If you start pestering a teenager with a bunch of questions at once, he will just shut up. How to talk to him? One way is to tell something about yourself, about your past or present. In the right situation, you can even ask for advice. It is also very important to catch the moment when he wants to communicate and use the technique of active listening. If a teenager began to tell you something himself, do not rush to conclusions, interpretations, advice, comments. Turn off the “tutor and teacher” mode and just listen. Active listening is when we echo what we have been told. At the same time, when appropriate, we name the feelings of the other person: “I can imagine how happy you were…”, “it was nice for you”, “you were surprised”, “you were offended” . We do not add anything from ourselves, we only reflect what the interlocutor said. This approach helps the teenager share more.

Teenagers are most often in their room at home. And parents try to use the moment when the son or daughter came out to bring down their instructions and comments on them. As a result, the child regrets that he showed up, and begins to go out even less frequently, moving around the house in short dashes to the toilet and the kitchen. Therefore, it is very important when a teenager crawls out of his lair to make him feel good. I see it clearly in my family. When I’m just glad that my teenage son sat down next to me, calmly talking to him, joking, he can spend quite a lot of time with me. As soon as I start some moralizing, he says: “I’m going back to my room now if you don’t stop. Why did I just leave!” .

How to communicate with a difficult teenager?

When dealing with adolescents who are called difficult, it is important to remember that in front of you is not who he claims to be. This group includes those who commit various antisocial actions: they show excessive aggression, steal, be rude, run away from home, do not consider other people. My work experience shows that most often the reason lies in the fact that a teenager has a deep inner trouble, some kind of suffering, trauma. And the teenager covers this pain with whole layers of defiant, antisocial behavior. Sometimes “difficult behavior” is also due to organic causes (physiological diseases or developmental delays), but this is a very small percentage of cases.

It is very important to look deeper and understand that any “difficult” teenager is a person who feels unhappy. He has problems and needs help and support. Perhaps the child suffers from a huge sense of self-doubt, does not accept himself, he is overcome by complexes, he has a huge resentment for the world around him. Often the reason is difficult relationships with parents when they do not give enough acceptance, support, respect and understanding. It happens that the matter is in conflicts between parents, which the child has been witnessing for quite a long time. The teenager himself cannot find an explanation for adult difficulties, and this becomes an internal trauma for him.

When you decide to have a conversation with such a difficult teenager, try to address the person who is hidden under layers of barbed protection. Appeal to his strengths, to his skills and abilities, to what he can draw strength from, a resource. The approach when you see in such a child an intruder who needs to be punished will not work. This is a person who, deep down, is severely traumatized or suffering, but he himself does not realize this and has put on a mask of indifference or cynicism. You need to communicate with respect for his personality, try to understand and accept him, show him empathy. In addition, you need to specifically inform him about the consequences of certain actions. Without intimidation, from a position of good intentions, warn him so that he does not have more serious problems.

How to talk to a teenager…

A common case: you try to communicate peacefully with your growing child, but the conversation develops into endless bickering, moralizing, quarrels and scandals. How to avoid this and make contact?

… that he listens

It is important to communicate with a teenager using “I-messages”. Instead of “you must…”, “you are to blame…”, “you again…” use wordings like “it is important for me that…”, “I would like…”, “I worry when…”. If we start to “poke” a person, he has a desire to protect himself. As a result, our child either turns on “deafness” to what they are told, or even begins to attack in order to defend his position.

Try not to send orders from above, but invite the teenager to a dialogue: “let’s discuss, I’m interested in your opinion…” . In order for a teenager not to close and listen to you, it is important in any discussion to show respect for his position, even if you do not agree with it. Show him that his opinion has a right to exist, he can be an active participant in the dialogue.

…for him to study

It is normal for teenagers to lose interest in learning. The desire to communicate with peers comes to the fore, because this is how the child solves important age-related tasks. There are no “magic” correct phrases, after which your teenager will suddenly become good at studying.

What you can do here is to ask what are the difficulties in studying, what help is needed. And decide together how to overcome these difficulties. I’ll tell you again, using the example of my own son, how this can work. At the beginning of the school year, my son had not very good grades in mathematics. At first I asked what exactly the difficulty was, offered to find a tutor, but he refused. I agreed to see how things go for a while. Grades have not improved. I started talking about it again and suggested: come on, if there is another bad grade, you will start studying with a tutor. The son says: no, if there are two more. I agreed, because the difference is not fundamental, and the child was able to express his position. And he got two bad grades. I did not immediately dictate: tomorrow you start additional classes. She said that I was going to contact the tutor, and together we discussed how many times a week my son would study. In the end, he agreed to classes twice a week. If I started issuing ultimatums, we would definitely not agree. Teenagers need to feel that they are being considered.

… about his behavior

Start talking about unwanted behavior by describing your feelings: “You know, I get really upset when…” . Then ask the child how they feel about what happened. And tune in to understand his arguments. You should not make an evil expression on your face, put your hands on your hips and give the impression that you will now judge and pass a sentence. Explain in a calm tone why the action is considered bad: unhealthy, dangerous, offending or hurting the feelings of other people. Talk about the consequences, including what action you will have to take if the behavior continues. Offer to look for a way out together, promise help. Remind them that although the child is old enough, you are responsible for them until they reach the age of majority. Explain that you have the right to make decisions that the teenager does not like if you think it is necessary to care for him.

A heart-to-heart conversation

For a heart-to-heart conversation, it is very important not to impose your topics and ideas on a teenager, you need to be able to listen and hear. Try to internally switch the toggle switch, communicate not in the “parent-child” mode, but in the “you share – I listen” format. You, too, can share something with the child in such a conversation if he wants to listen. If he doesn’t want to, that’s okay too.

What should I do if my teenage child does not want to communicate with his mother?

In adolescence, the desire to spend time not with your mother, but alone with yourself or with your peers is the norm. Psychologists are more likely to be alarmed by the reverse situation, when a teenager of 14-16 years old spends a lot of time with his parents, constantly communicates and shares everything. I received complaints from parents when a 15-year-old boy does not want to go out with his parents and go on vacation. So this is absolutely normal! Communication with mom may well be short-term, superficial, dosed. Another thing is if the son or daughter completely refuses to communicate with his mother. Most likely, the way his mother communicates with him or has previously communicated with him is unacceptable for him. There is no need to somehow influence the teenager. This parents need to reconsider their relationship with him.

Psychologist’s advice: how to properly communicate with a teenager

Talking to a teenager can seem like a difficult task for parents. What needs to be taken into account in order for communication to take place constructively? My advice to parents is:

• If possible, study aspects of psychology related to communication with children. Consider the characteristics of adolescence. Perhaps what scares or upsets you is actually a variant of the norm.

• Try to communicate more often with your older boy or girl from a position of “mentor” rather than “commander”.

• Use active listening to help you learn more about your child.

• Talk about your feelings rather than demands, use “I-messages”, for example: “I am happy when…” or “I am sad when…” .

• Understand what the teen is interested in and keep the conversation going instead of pushing your own topics of conversation.

• Respect his personal boundaries: knock on the room before entering, do not touch personal items without permission, etc. This will show your respect and help to avoid many quarrels.

Questions and Answers

How to talk to a teenager so that he hears?

Talk to your grown son or daughter the same way you talk to adults you respect. A teenager is much more likely to hear you if, instead of lecturing, you show that you are ready for dialogue.

How to start a conversation with a teenager?

Ask if he has time to talk now, if he can pay attention to you. Tell him that you want to discuss something with him. “There is a question on which I want to hear your opinion…”, “Can I discuss something with you now?” are quite suitable intros.

Parents, take care of yourself too

Adolescence is most often an emotional roller coaster for the whole family. It is difficult for a growing boy or girl: the body is changing, hormones are raging, the big world frightens and captivates at the same time. It is also difficult for their loved ones. Patience, respect and knowledge will help to make this “trip” as safe as possible. At the same time, dear parents, please do not forget about yourself. It is very important that you have some interesting activities in your life, things that bring you joy and pleasure, an interesting pastime. This will help you not to fixate so much on the teenager and it will be easier to survive his formative years.

You may feel that you have lost contact with your teenager, but would like to remain on good terms with him. Check:

• Do you understand what happens to a child during adolescence?
• Do you understand the challenges you face as a parent?
• Can you communicate with understanding, support and respect?

P.S. If you liked the article, please share with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons. And, as always, I welcome your comments and questions below.

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How I moved to Poland and returned back: several reasons not to emigrate abroad

Hello! I would like to share with you some interesting findings about my move to Poland at the end of July 2014. Now I have returned back to Ukraine and am in Lviv – I decided to move to this city after Warsaw.

I am from Donetsk. Like many of my friends, I grew up in a poor family. When I started to grow up and already remember something, one of the first things I heard: “Sasha, you need to grow up and go abroad. There is nothing to do here, in this damned country” .

As a child, I played football, showed good results and thought about a career as a football player, but then I realized that this is not what I would like to do in life. Then I got interested in web design, but in the end I became a frontend developer – typesetting and somehow dynamically changing web pages turned out to be much more interesting than creating and drawing something. After graduating from STEP in Donetsk and having received my first work experience, I moved to Dnepropetrovsk and there I was already getting career growth.

Moving to Warsaw

After about 2 years, I realized that it was time to fulfill my dream, that is, to leave for another country. I started looking for a job “out there”, but in the end it so happened that she found me herself (perhaps the “Secret” worked). The company where I worked then announced that due to the unstable situation in the country and the likelihood of completely losing the entire business, it would transfer part of the staff to Warsaw. My wife and I were delighted and applied that we would like to go.

The move was a success, I was furiously pleased that I had fulfilled my dream of “leaving the fucking country” for an amazing land of “social security and a better standard of living.” We really liked the city itself. As one of my friends said, I ended up in Ukraine 200 years in the future. We traveled a lot, saw other countries, cities.

But six months later, I began to suspect something… It all started with the fact that I simply calculated how much we earn. It turned out that “you will receive the same salary, but converted to the local stable currency” – this is much less than in Ukraine with our wonderful link to the NBU rate. The local currency may be stable, but the dollar turned out to be more stable – we sort of suspected this in advance, but could not do anything.

European taxes

In Poland, as in other European countries, there is a different concept of “taxes” from ours. They effectively trace this essence and help keep temples, squares, roads and everything else in excellent condition. The amount of taxes is huge, especially for non-residents of the country.

The locals themselves say that they really don’t like the system by which they pay taxes – they give too much as entrepreneurs (19% + ZUS). Many complain that hospitals pay for social services. employees and other disadvantaged (ZUS). That is, taxes are not something they are proud of. They also try in every way to reduce them. To do this, they use both legal methods, statements about forced expenses (you can register an apartment there as a workplace, and a car as a transport for work), and semi-legal methods (opening an enterprise, for example, in England and, according to its laws, paying only 10% of the profit if you earn less than £70,000 a year).

But that’s all for local residents who have a Polish passport or a Stałego Pobytu card. Newcomers, as a rule, receive a temporary Tymczasowego Pobytu card and can only work for “Umowa o prace”, which is under an employment contract. In this case, taxes are calculated as follows:
– If the tax calculation basis is PLN 85,528 or less (that is, a person earned up to PLN 85,528 per year), then the tax is 18% of this basis minus PLN 556 2 grosz.
– If the tax calculation basis exceeds PLN 85,528, then the tax is PLN 14,839PLN + 32% of the surplus over PLN 85,528.

It turns out that 18% is not 18%, but about 25%. In turn, 32% is not 32%, but about 39%.

In all European countries, taxes are very high, and the salaries of programmers are always written dirty. For example, if you see a salary of 70,000 euros per year for a programmer in Germany, then do not forget to subtract about 50% from there. You see a salary in the Netherlands of 55,000 euros – great, here’s a sign for you. Please note that everything is very cleverly done there. Upon arrival, you as an immigrant receive a 30% tax discount, but this is only for the first 8 years. And after 8 years of great life in this country, when you already have a house on credit, bicycles for the whole family, children and a wife, you suddenly start earning less.

With our 4%, you will receive as much more money in the next month as you were told when you increase. And, for example, in Germany, with initial rates of up to 2k euros per month, there is such a period when an increase of 500 euros will force you to enter a different line of taxpayers, and accordingly you will earn less than before the increase.

Laws for locals and visitors

You can object that “I’ll see what I’m paying for”, “The standard of living is better there”, “There are social guarantees there”, or “The police work there, and they don’t steal like we do”. In fact, it all looks like this meme.

Yes, you can go to the hospital and get treated for free for the taxes you pay, but you will be spoken to in the local language. Let’s say it’s not a problem. Then meet magnificent queues in Europe for 3-5 months.

Yes, you can call the cops if your bike was stolen under the office in the center (experience from our office), but if you do not take an employee who speaks Polish and English at the same time, then they can take you with you , to sit in a box, since you do not take your passport to the office. Our story ended with a colleague being told this: “Look, we will consider this case for a couple of months, and then we will close it. It is unlikely that we will find him.” Doesn’t it remind you of anything?

Yes, you can feel protected at home, but it depends on which area and whether it is a holiday. Otherwise, everything closes there on ordinary days at 6 pm, and nothing works at all on holidays (well, it’s really hard to explain what nothing means, it’s like “There is no bread. Not at all!” on the doors).

Maybe it’s all the little things. What does it mean “social guarantees and living standards only for locals”, you begin to understand when your requests are more complicated. Let’s say you can’t legally open a sole proprietorship like we do. You will also pay everything that you have accumulated over a long time if you get any kind of fracture or you just start having problems with your teeth.

Of course, there are many good moments. For example, round-the-clock transport, the ability to travel on a temporary residence permit. But I want to convey the idea that 90% of social guarantees work for people who have their own apartment in this country, and they are its citizens. Almost any topic, any item will not affect you. Or, at best, you will need to spend time on some additional documents and movements for this.

The concept of “standard of living” falls not on you anymore, but on those locals who grew up there and have been living there for a long time. For example, you can buy an apartment on credit and even add it to expenses in order to pay less taxes, but this can not be done in all countries and it will take a very long time to repay the loan (about 30 years). If you got into an accident and you are not a local, but there is a controversial situation, then you will be guilty, your rights may be taken away for a long time, and they will also issue a huge fine.

Warsaw. Highway near the airport

Do you need it?

So, most living standard preferences work and apply only to local residents. Therefore, you need to consider whether this country is worth your investment in 5 years (most often you just need to pay taxes, but not everywhere is so easy) to become its citizen. At the same time, you will need to part with your Ukrainian citizenship, which will entail the problem of returning and coming here.

Let’s imagine that you, a simple middle-level programmer, and your young wife decide to move to a European country. First of all, you must understand for yourself what exactly you want to see there, what kind of social guarantees and standard of living you want to receive.

If you think, like our parents, that “It’s just better to live there, because everything is at a good level there,” then you may be disappointed that, let’s say, you don’t get your 10% salary just because you provide refugees from Syria. Or you don’t get the same 10% just because there are excellent schools and universities, or highways between cities.

You ask yourself questions:
– Do I need a school?
– Do I need a university?
– Do I need roads (do I often drive a car somewhere far away)?
– Do I want to earn much less (maybe the salary will be the same in figures, but the expenses are much higher)?
– Do I need buses that run great and are in good condition?
– Do I want to pay a pension fund to locals?
– Do I want properly working state. services (after all, if you rent an apartment in a good area, you won’t hear about problems)?
– Do I want other services (but do not forget that the probability of English drops significantly there)?

Do not forget to add a foreign language and culture everywhere, because you did not study in their schools, you did not read their books, you did not watch their national films.

So, most likely, most of the social guarantees are not about you and your family. If you are a middle developer and you have a young wife, then why do you need a school or a university? Also, why would you pay any funds that provide for visitors and retirees in this country? Of course, if you are going there forever, then this may have a different meaning for you, but I am inclined to think that we should think about our old age ourselves, and not rely on the state. If you have a car and the road is important to you, then why do you need a good bus and all its services?

The point is that you will not use even half of these services, but you will pay for them like everyone else. Another 3-5 years, and you want to start your own business, but the lack of a local passport will stop you very much. Of course, in many cases, a passport can be obtained in many cases simply after staying in this country for five years, but given the current situation with migrants, the 5-year period itself raises a big question in this.

Think with your head

Returning to the fact that the move was inspired by my parents, I began to wonder – who were we raised by? People born in the USSR. How was it there? All people should be equal, sausage for everyone and 5 kopecks, and travel 2-3 kopecks. A sanatorium for hard workers on the territory of the USSR and stability in a vast country, but for some reason many wanted to leave this stable country and brought us up that way.

That is, you must have your own head. Before you decide to go somewhere, you must understand that it will be more difficult there and in many ways no better than where you are now. The parents felt bad because their countries were falling apart and they no longer knew who they were. Their currency often changed, you can forget about savings “on a book”. The state has always stolen something from them, there have always been bad hospitals and schools (although in their 20-30 years it was at a good level). After such difficulties, the idea that it is better where we are not, becomes much closer.

When it comes to moving, ask yourself what you would like to get from moving, what are your priorities. If you want to earn money, then our 4% is just a fairy tale for you. If you want to go to a great university, no one is stopping you from studying where you want and with the teachers you want to listen to, because you can afford it. If you want to send your child to a good school – what prevents you from sending him to a private school and taking extra classes home from good professionals? If you want good roads in your city, let’s make our deputies do it.

Listen to your parents in everyday matters, but constructive solutions to local problems based on their experience should still be considered with your own head, because the realities of the country where they lived have changed significantly over the years.

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return to Ukraine, Poland, relocation

Baby’s fontanel: answers to parents’ questions | Motherhood

Young parents ask the doctor a lot of questions about their babies. Especially often there are questions about why children need fontanelles on their heads, what size they should be and when they should close. Motherhood asked pediatrician Alena Paretskaya to answer the most common questions about fontanelles.

What are fontanelles?

Fontanelles are special connective tissue membranes in the region of the head, which are formed at the points of articulation of the bones of the skull. Unlike the head of an adult, which is a single bone in the brain part of the skull, in newborns the bones are separated from each other, they are interconnected by movable sutures, at the junctions of which fontanelles form.

In the area of ​​these fontanelles, the child’s brain is covered only by the membranes of the brain, as well as membranes from the connective tissue and from above by the skin. Usually, by the time of birth, a child has two fontanelles – an anterior or large fontanel in the region of the crown, shaped like a rhombus, as well as a posterior or small fontanel, triangular in shape, on the back of the head, which closes in the first month, and sometimes even in the womb.

In premature babies, these fontanelles may be large at birth, and there may also be lateral fontanelles in the temple area. They, along with a small fontanel, should close quickly after birth, but a large fontanel will close much later, at certain age periods. The region of the anterior fontanel is formed by the junctions of the parietal and frontal bones, the region of the posterior fontanel is formed by the bones of the crown and the occipital bone.

What are the functions of fontanelles in children?

Primary and main function of fontanelles is their help in the process of baby birth. When the child is ready for birth and the beginning of childbirth, in the process of opening the cervix, the head is configured – the child passes through the birth canal of the mother head first. At the same time, the bones of the skull overlap each other slightly due to the sutures and fontanelles, which gives the head a slightly smaller size and volume, allowing it to pass smoothly and without injury through the birth canal. At the birth of a child, his head may not be quite even in shape, slightly elongated forward and upward, egg-shaped. If there were no fontanelles and sutures, then there would be a higher likelihood of injuries, both to the fetal head and the mother’s birth canal.

After the birth of a child, the area of ​​the fontanelles allows the baby’s head to grow in volume, while the sutures gradually grow together. The fontanel also acts as a natural shock absorber, because children can sometimes hit their heads, and due to the fontanel, the blows are softened, and the fluid inside the head can move more freely. In addition, due to the active work of the brain and increased metabolism in it, the brain can heat up quite a lot. And since thermoregulation in infants is imperfect, the fontanel acts as a kind of “window” for the outflow of excess heat.

Due to the fontanel, modern physicians have the opportunity to examine the child’s brain using ultrasound through it, since ultrasonic rays do not penetrate through the bone tissue, but through the connective tissue membrane they penetrate quite easily. Such a study of the brain through the fontanel is called neurosonography (NSG or ultrasound of the brain).

What determines the size of the fontanel at birth?

First of all, the size of the fontanel depends on the level of calcium and phosphorus metabolism in the baby’s body. And this level is largely determined by how the pregnant woman ate while carrying the baby. If she took multivitamins in large quantities, while her diet contained a lot of dairy products and calcium-containing substances, the fontanelles of the child by birth will be small, the bones will be quite dense, the sutures and fontanelles will quickly close. Therefore, you should strictly follow the doctor’s recommendations when taking multivitamin and mineral complexes, do not abuse products with calcium, as this affects both the fetus and the aging of the placenta. Immediately after birth, it is difficult to judge the size of the fontanel, since the bones of the skull have not yet taken their correct places, but after a couple of weeks everything will be more clear.

With an excess of calcium and early ossification of the bones of the skull before childbirth, the bones and sutures become unyielding, and then it will be more difficult for the head to pass through the birth canal. This can lead to the formation of cephalohematomas (hemorrhages under the periosteum), intracerebral hemorrhages and injuries.

Naturally, the size of the fontanel also depends on the term of delivery. If the child is full-term, the size of his fontanel will be smaller than that of premature and immature children. In case of prematurity, the bones of the skull are not yet fully ossified, and there may be large gaps between them in the area of ​​​​the sutures, and, accordingly, the size of the fontanels will also be larger. The dynamics of fontanel closure in such children will be different.

How big should the fontanel be? If it is more or less than normal, what does it mean and what to do?

The size of the fontanelle in children depends on the age and characteristics of metabolism, the presence or absence of any neurological or metabolic diseases (rickets, hydrocephalus, malnutrition, etc.). If we talk about healthy and normally developing infants, their size of the fontanel has a certain dynamics of closure over age periods.

On average, at birth, the length of the fontanel is approximately 250-320 mm, and due to the alignment of the head after childbirth, it may increase slightly in the first weeks of life. In healthy full-term children, in this period, the size of the fontanelles can increase and then gradually decrease, so it is important to determine their absolute size – the length of the fontanel should not exceed 3.2 cm.

Fontanelles may be larger than normal in prematurity, or as a result of problems with the ossification of the skull, or as a result of congenital or acquired hydrocephalus.

If at birth there is a complete closure of the lateral and posterior fontanels, while the large fontanelle is very small in size, microcephaly is suspected. Such conditions require a thorough examination by a neurologist and additional research.

With a rapid and progressive increase in the size of the fontanelles with a divergence of the sutures of the skull, you should immediately contact a neurologist, this is a sign of increased intracranial pressure and accumulation of fluid in the head. With lesions of the nervous system, fontanelles and sutures can close pathologically quickly – this also requires a doctor’s consultation.

In children with organic brain lesions, the size of the fontanel decreases against the background of a very small increase in head circumference (or its absence), which does not give room for brain growth. With hydrocephalus, the picture will be reversed.

At what age should a large fontanelle normally close?

In a period of one to three months, the lateral and small fontanelles should close, and the size of the large fontanel should not exceed 240-220 mm.

In the period of three to six months, the size of the large fontanel decreases to 210-180 mm, while it is important to look at the growth in head circumference as well.

In the period from six to nine months, the fontanel also decreases in size to 160-140 mm, and by the age of 9 to 12 months reaches a size of 100-120 mm.

Normally the large fontanel closes completely by 12 to 18 months of age, for some babies (premature, with rickets or developmental problems) closing by 20 to 22 months is acceptable. This largely depends on the individual pace of development.

If the fontanel closes too early, is that bad?

In rare cases, there are options for closing the large fontanel by the age of six months, then consultations with a pediatric neurologist are recommended to rule out craniostenosis and microcephaly. These pathologies interfere with the normal growth rate of the brain and its development, which will affect mental abilities.

Sometimes the fontanel closes within 7-10 months, with normal development of children this is not a pathology. If monthly increases in head circumference do not suffer, then nothing interferes with the development and growth of the brain, and the child develops according to age.

What to do if the child is one and a half years old, and the fontanel does not grow in any way?

If the fontanel closes poorly after a year, it is worth taking the child to the pediatrician and excluding rickets, a disease associated with vitamin D deficiency and impaired ossification of the skeleton. Usually, with proper treatment, everything quickly passes.

What determines the timing of fontanel closure?

You can often hear that the early closure of the fontanel can negatively affect the child’s condition and development, but this is only partly true. If these are individual characteristics, and the size of the head at the same time increases according to age, then everything is fine. But if the rapid closure of the fontanelle is accompanied by a slowdown in the growth of head circumference, then the closure of the fontanel will have an effect on brain growth by limiting the amount of free space inside the skull.

If the fontanel closes late, does this indicate a calcium deficiency?

This is also only partly true. Late closure of the fontanelles may be an individual feature, or it may be a sign of a deficiency in the body of vitamin D, which helps the absorption of calcium by bone tissue. Vitamin D deficiency leads to the development of rickets, and then, in addition to the fontanelles, there will be a violation of the formation of all bone tissue with violations in the structure of the ribs, bones, teeth, as well as child anxiety, sweating, nape baldness and poor sleep.

Rickets is typical for children born in conditions of insufficient sun activity (children of northern latitudes, children born in autumn and winter), and to prevent this disease, babies are prescribed vitamin D drops. In the future, prevention is carried out with the introduction of complementary foods enriched with vitamin D. Frequent exposure to the sun, massages and, in some cases, also calcium preparations are useful.

If the fontanel is larger than normal, this may be a sign of impaired outflow of cerebral fluid from the region of the lateral ventricles of the brain (as a result of infections, hemorrhages, and other problems). In addition, the large size of the fontanel may be the result of metabolic disorders, hypothyroidism or Down’s disease, with prematurity.

If you have any doubts about the size of the fontanel, you should undergo a full examination by a pediatrician and take blood tests, as well as urine for calcium and phosphorus levels. If more serious pathologies are suspected, consultations of a neurologist, orthopedist and other specialists are necessary. It is important to monitor the rate of increase in head circumference and the level of psychomotor development; if changes are detected, treatment will be prescribed.

In normally developing children, the head circumference is larger than the chest up to four months, then they are compared, and by six months the chest circumference prevails over the circumference of the head.

What does a swollen (protruding) or sunken fontanel mean?

Normally, the fontanel should correspond to the level of the skull bones. With the vertical position of the baby, he can slightly bend inward, and when screaming and crying, slightly bulge. When touching the fontanel, a slight pulsation can be felt, not visible to the eye, due to the passage of the cerebral artery next to it.

But if the fontanel protrudes or sinks, this may indicate possible pathologies.

If the fontanel protrudes excessively, you need to be alert. If this happens at rest, while there is no visible pulsation in the fontanel area, it is unchanged when crying, constantly tense, you need to contact a neurologist. This may be a sign of hydrocephalus or increased intracranial pressure.

Retraction of the fontanel usually occurs as a result of severe dehydration of the child due to diarrhea and vomiting. With such violations, an immediate visit to a doctor is necessary, and before he arrives, it is necessary to solder the child in order to restore the water balance. If it is impossible to solder, a drip infusion of liquid will be necessary. Without treatment, this condition is dangerous for the nervous system.

Is it dangerous to inadvertently touch the fontanel?

The fontanel, despite its tenderness and apparent fragility, is a fairly strong formation, and when touched, no brain structures will be damaged. Therefore, you can safely touch the fontanel, touch it and wash your child’s head, comb your hair without fear of consequences.

Is it possible to cut a child’s hair when the fontanel is not completely closed?

The fontanelle and the haircut are not interconnected in any way, it cannot be damaged in any way during the haircut, so you can carry out any procedures with the baby’s hair. The fontanel itself does not require any special care.

Photo – photo bank Lori

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