The mother sighed. “Her birthday is a week too late. She
missed the deadline for school this year, so we need child care.
It’s one of the reasons we’re here. I just couldn’t afford it.”
“Oh! That’s no problem. We have a child care center here. Your
daughter can go for free. That way you can go on job search.”
And then I realized what was going on. This was not a new
family who didn’t know the ropes. Our child care center was
full. We had no spots. Mom explained that she had indeed
gone down to our existing child care center and had been
informed that our center was just not big enough to meet the
need—to meet her need. While she was explaining this to me,
her daughter came around to the edge of the playground, to
where I was standing, with a question of her own.