Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda Land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: like the difference between neighbors, schools, and daycares for someone
Speaker 1: who was weighing it out? Sure, um, there are lots
Speaker 1: of differences between them. The ones that I think don't
Speaker 1: always spring to mind are thinking about the experience of
Speaker 1: the caregiver directly. Part of it is meeting that person
Speaker 1: and feeling like we're going to have open communication, we're
Speaker 1: going to have a strong partnership. And you can really
Speaker 1: only do that if you're meeting the person and you
Speaker 1: understand who that person is. Now, in home daycare, that's
Speaker 1: different because the person who's the set like running the
Speaker 1: daycare is also the educator, and so you're meeting that
Speaker 1: person from the get go. But even in a home daycare,
Speaker 1: if they have an assistant, meet the assistant. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Katie's Crib. WHOA Can we ever have
Speaker 1: enough podcasts about childcare? No? Because it's impossible. And the
Speaker 1: guest I have on today is making waves and moves
Speaker 1: in this arena and we need to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Her name is Bridget Garsh. She is the co founder
Speaker 1: and chief operating officer, who excuse me of Neighbor Schools
Speaker 1: is what it's called, It's awesome. Neighbor Schools is a
Speaker 1: Boston based startup company that provides a platform to help
Speaker 1: parents find trusted childcare while enabling childcare providers with all
Speaker 1: the tools they need to successfully run their own home daycare.
Speaker 1: Bridget also hosts Neighbor Schools podcast called Work Like a Mother,
Speaker 1: and the show shares story is of incredible women who
Speaker 1: are juggling work life and motherhood. Bridgets based in Boston.
Speaker 1: She's the mother to two little boys, Hudson and Brooks.
Speaker 1: I love those names. Thank you for coming on Katie's crib, Bridget.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to be here with you. Katie.
Speaker 1: I was on Bridget's podcast called Work Like a Mother,
Speaker 1: and I told Bridget that Brooks was on our list
Speaker 1: for our second child's name if we had had a boy,
Speaker 1: because Adam and I made our Broadway debuts together at
Speaker 1: the Brooks Atkinson Theater. So Brooks was like, I'm very
Speaker 1: impressed that you used it. I think it's a dope name.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you so much. It's actually inspired by
Speaker 1: my mom um. We lost her to cancer. Um, and
Speaker 1: so we I wanted a b name for Brooks. What
Speaker 1: was your mom's name? Bobby? Oh, I love that name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a beautiful name. And her made a name
Speaker 1: was Howard. But my father in law's named Howard, so
Speaker 1: that was a that's a no go, that's a I
Speaker 1: can't do that. That's fulfilled, right, Um, So tell me
Speaker 1: walk me through. You have two boys. What are their ages? Again? So,
Speaker 1: Hudson is four and Brooks will be two in two months.
Speaker 1: I can't even believe it. What were the childcare What
Speaker 1: was your child care experience? Overall? My kids have been
Speaker 1: in every form of childcare I think, except in O pair.
Speaker 1: So they've had a nanny, they've been in a big
Speaker 1: corporate daycare center. They've been in a small independent daycare center.
Speaker 1: They've been in home daycare, they've been in home pre school,
Speaker 1: they've been taken care of by family. I mean, they've
Speaker 1: they've had everything, and we've pieced together this crazy solution
Speaker 1: because the child care system is just so broken. And
Speaker 1: I want to also recognize it away that like, I
Speaker 1: have this immense privilege that I have options, right, and
Speaker 1: I could afford those options in the first place, because
Speaker 1: most families don't write like there are fifty one per
Speaker 1: cent of families in the US actually live in a
Speaker 1: childcare desert where they have no option at all, and
Speaker 1: in most states, childcare is often the cost of in
Speaker 1: state college tuition. So I want to recognize that I
Speaker 1: feel incredibly privileged to have had those options available to me.
Speaker 1: And part of starting neighbor Schools was because of this
Speaker 1: personal experience in which I saw how broken, you know,
Speaker 1: the childcare system really is. And when our CEO and
Speaker 1: my co founder Brian asked me to to build neighbor
Speaker 1: schools and work on solving this crisis, I was an
Speaker 1: enthusiasm plastic yes. But the irony of all ironies is
Speaker 1: that I couldn't actually join full time because of childcare,
Speaker 1: because I couldn't go salary free with paying for childcare.
Speaker 1: So I worked nights, weekends, everything until we raised a
Speaker 1: little bit of money and then I could join join
Speaker 1: full time. But the challenges surrounding childcare and finding childcare
Speaker 1: are just really near and dear to my heart. Do
Speaker 1: you have a couple of memorable moments when you were
Speaker 1: juggling running neighbor schools on weeknights? On weekends and raising
Speaker 1: your children into pandemic. Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Um.
Speaker 1: So I had joined Neighbor Schools full time before the pandemic. Um.
Speaker 1: But one of my one of my favorite funny memories
Speaker 1: was we were doing an event. So this is in
Speaker 1: the very early days of the company, and Brian, our CEO, lives,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe three or four miles away from me,
Speaker 1: and we met in like a Whole Foods parking lot
Speaker 1: to exchange flyers for an event, and we kept joking like,
Speaker 1: are the police gonna It was like midnight, you know,
Speaker 1: there's nobody around it, shady and yeah, and here we
Speaker 1: are exchanging flyers for like promoting childcare and recruiting more
Speaker 1: educators to join our network. So um that that's always
Speaker 1: something that springs the dive in like this crazy juggle
Speaker 1: of that was the time that worked was midnight, midnight,
Speaker 1: Whole Foods parking lot. Let's meet. Yeah, you were telling
Speaker 1: us why why you feel so passionate and personally inspired
Speaker 1: and invested in the Neighbors School's idea. Can you explain
Speaker 1: into us the start of at the very beginning, Well,
Speaker 1: I think, like so many couples, I had never really
Speaker 1: thought about childcare before I got pregnant with Hudson. I
Speaker 1: went back to work with Hudson when he was twelve
Speaker 1: weeks old. Um, my husband and I had done a
Speaker 1: lot of research and we were very fortunate that his
Speaker 1: employer at the time actually had child's care in the building.
Speaker 1: So we thought, we have struck gold. This is amazing.
Speaker 1: We are just set. And then it was probably about
Speaker 1: when Hudson was eight months old that his favorite daycare teacher,
Speaker 1: ms Quella left the daycare center, and then maybe like
Speaker 1: two to three weeks later, his other favorite daycare teacher,
Speaker 1: Ms Meg left. We were panicked. I mean we were devastated, Like,
Speaker 1: these are the people who, when Hudson was twelve weeks
Speaker 1: and he's this tiny, you know, human and I'm going
Speaker 1: back to work that they learned everything about him. They
Speaker 1: knew his you know, sleep schedule. They helped us navigate food, yep, naps,
Speaker 1: his first coals, all of it. Yeah, everything, everything, absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: So we were really wrecked. And it was at that
Speaker 1: moment that we actually realized that even though we were
Speaker 1: paying an absolute fortune, that ms Quella and Miss Meg
Speaker 1: were making nothing. I mean, our money wasn't going to
Speaker 1: these incredible caregivers who we, as you just said, trusted
Speaker 1: so deeply and had become part of our family. I mean,
Speaker 1: had since spent more time with them than they did.
Speaker 1: But it was going to overhead expenses. And I say
Speaker 1: that not not to make daycare center sound mean and malicious,
Speaker 1: because they're not. It's it's the reality that the economics
Speaker 1: of the whole daycare center model don't work, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's only so much money that parents can pay the
Speaker 1: cost of like rent and maintaining a building is super expensive,
Speaker 1: and then you need all this administrative staff to keep
Speaker 1: things running. So once all of that is paid for,
Speaker 1: there's such a little amount of money to pay the
Speaker 1: educators who are just essential to making childcare work, right, Like,
Speaker 1: childcare doesn't work without the humans there. And so when
Speaker 1: we started Neighbor Schools, it was with this vision of
Speaker 1: making child care better for everybody, right like parents and
Speaker 1: the teachers, for the teachers and for the children. And
Speaker 1: and the way that we do that is by supporting
Speaker 1: the caregivers, because like I was just saying, if there
Speaker 1: are no caregivers, there's no childcare period. So our platform
Speaker 1: is helping these incredible caregivers open and operate small licensed
Speaker 1: daycares that they run in their homes. And because they
Speaker 1: run these daycares in their homes, there are like two
Speaker 1: really interesting things that happen. Number One, all of those
Speaker 1: overhead expenses that I was just talking about God completely gone.
Speaker 1: So so that means they're typically thirty to more affordable
Speaker 1: for families. But the most of the majority is going
Speaker 1: to the person exactly. So instead of making thirty thou
Speaker 1: dollars a year, which is the typical salary um for
Speaker 1: a preschool teacher, educators can earn up to seventy to
Speaker 1: nine dollars a year doing what they love. That's so great.
Speaker 1: That was part of the inspiration for neighbor schools. And
Speaker 1: then the other part of it because starting, you know,
Speaker 1: one company wasn't hard enough. We have a marketplace where
Speaker 1: we worry about the educators and we also think a
Speaker 1: lot about the parents, and we want the process for
Speaker 1: parents to be better. I remember calling around so many places,
Speaker 1: leaving voicemails, I mean voice, never hearing back and never
Speaker 1: hear back. I know, I know, I know, it's really
Speaker 1: it's really true. I haven't had the same experience for sure,
Speaker 1: and you can't blame you know, it's because they're totally overextended.
Speaker 1: It's like, you want to be so pissed that you're
Speaker 1: paying all this money for a daycare or preschool and
Speaker 1: someone should be fucking calling me back. But honestly, the
Speaker 1: one person who's heading up the entire thing and running
Speaker 1: the entire administration and trying to, you know, be held
Speaker 1: accountable by all these parents, I mean, it's fucking impossible.
Speaker 1: They also need to like have boundaries. I get it.
Speaker 1: Like it's all a mess, which is why I think
Speaker 1: it's so amazing that you're spending the time to change
Speaker 1: this and change people's lives. Um, you start neighbor at schools.
Speaker 1: You're doing this on weekends and week nights. I mean
Speaker 1: it's just insane. Um, what were the first schools you started? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really built the neighbor Schools platform around our very
Speaker 1: first educators. So our first educators were Miss Debb and
Speaker 1: Miss Martha. Ms. Deb has this incredible background of working
Speaker 1: with early intervention and working with all of these children
Speaker 1: to help them learn and grow. And Miss Martha, um,
Speaker 1: she was a nanny for many, many, many many years,
Speaker 1: and so as they were going through the entire licensing
Speaker 1: process and you know business set up process of getting
Speaker 1: their E I N and their business bank account and
Speaker 1: all of these different pieces. Um, would you help them
Speaker 1: do exactly? We built the product around them to know
Speaker 1: at every step of the way what is it that
Speaker 1: they're they're needing and like what they're required to do.
Speaker 1: It's like I try to put my nanny in this situation.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, like you guys are holding these amazing
Speaker 1: caretaker's hands. How do we file taxes? How do we
Speaker 1: get insurance? How do we make sure my house is
Speaker 1: set up appropriately? What things do I need to purchase
Speaker 1: that each child needs to have? Is there a limit
Speaker 1: to how many kids can be in each neighbor school? Yes?
Speaker 1: So I think this is a really unknown fact is
Speaker 1: that licensed home daycare is incredibly regulated and it's controlled
Speaker 1: by the same licensing agency that oversees you know, daycare centers.
Speaker 1: So the same health and safety standards, the same environment
Speaker 1: are the same, and the ratios are very strict as well.
Speaker 1: So in Massachusetts, just as an example, um, you can
Speaker 1: have six children. I think a lot of us were
Speaker 1: sort of scrambling during covid um, which did you notice,
Speaker 1: like a huge neighbor school boom during the pandemic. Nobody
Speaker 1: can say, of course, like I'm nodding away at you,
Speaker 1: and nobody can actually see me, Daddie at you. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm nodding at Katie saying yes we did. We did
Speaker 1: see this real spike in um educators actually looking to
Speaker 1: open their own daycares, and then also families, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: and families being like, holy crap, I'm still I'm working
Speaker 1: from home right, my children can't go to preschool or
Speaker 1: whatever we were doing before because of COVID. What the
Speaker 1: hell am I supposed to do? Is there some sort
Speaker 1: of say for option, especially before we knew how COVID
Speaker 1: worked in little ones. But like you know, I was
Speaker 1: hearing about all these sort of home school situation pods
Speaker 1: popping up of like these are the six kids with
Speaker 1: one teacher that we can get tested and everything's you know,
Speaker 1: so you were noticing a big spike. What did you
Speaker 1: learn from the first month that you provided services to
Speaker 1: our initial educators and the families. That's such a good question. Um,
Speaker 1: I think they're different. They're different, but they're they're similar.
Speaker 1: So on the educator side, we realized how community was
Speaker 1: going to be really important for all of the educators
Speaker 1: who were becoming part of Neighbor Schools that if you
Speaker 1: think of it right to be an entrepreneur, to start
Speaker 1: your own business, to work with children all day long,
Speaker 1: you want that connection and that learning and your colleagues.
Speaker 1: You want colleagues to be able to turn to. And
Speaker 1: so that's another part of Neighbor Schools is the community
Speaker 1: for educators to connect and learn from one another. Whether
Speaker 1: that's like we do a show and tell where people
Speaker 1: show off their spaces and everybody talks about, well, this
Speaker 1: is how I set up my you know, UM reading center,
Speaker 1: and this is how I set up my STEM area
Speaker 1: and they're all learning from one another, or it's connecting
Speaker 1: like in the pandemic, you know, we had UM, the
Speaker 1: lead UH doctor for who was building and working with
Speaker 1: the licensing agency on COVID protocols come and talk and
Speaker 1: answer all of the questions. So that was something I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think we fully knew when we started
Speaker 1: the company UM, but that we really evolved as we
Speaker 1: were working with the educators themselves. And then on the
Speaker 1: parents side, you're at this incredibly overwhelming, very vulnerable time
Speaker 1: where it's just information overload. And so many of the
Speaker 1: first nine parents that we've talked to you had no
Speaker 1: idea what to expect, right Like, they just had no
Speaker 1: idea what they were looking for or what to even imagine.
Speaker 1: So we knew that we needed to make the parent
Speaker 1: experience better. We needed to make that modern and educational
Speaker 1: so that people were learning as they were finding child care.
Speaker 1: So with the parent experience, what we've done is you
Speaker 1: take a short quiz right where you're sharing all the
Speaker 1: basics of you know, what days you need care and
Speaker 1: what your budget is, but you're also we're presenting you
Speaker 1: with things like here twenty five activities, pick three that
Speaker 1: are important to you. And then we're doing that like
Speaker 1: heavy lifting on the back end to say, Okay, this
Speaker 1: person is really interested in nature, right like, that's outdoor
Speaker 1: space is going to be really important to them, and
Speaker 1: building almost like there their unique profile of what their
Speaker 1: needs are, and then teaching them about the things they
Speaker 1: should be thinking about while they're going through the whole process,
Speaker 1: so that when they hit submit on that quiz and
Speaker 1: then they start to see, Okay, here are the recommendations
Speaker 1: We've taken out all those voicemails and those phone calls
Speaker 1: right like, you know, right away, if we have a
Speaker 1: spot available, what are the values to that to those
Speaker 1: parents exactly? And then surfaced all of that information like
Speaker 1: the educators story and their background and reviews from families
Speaker 1: so that you're not hunting and searching for it, because
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, it's all about transparency,
Speaker 1: and everybody wants to feel like you are making a
Speaker 1: really good decision because this is the most important decision
Speaker 1: that are going to make. Like I dropped Albie off
Speaker 1: at eight thirty today and he's getting picked up in
Speaker 1: four So he's spending a lot of time with people
Speaker 1: who I trust, and I am completely rest assured that
Speaker 1: they know what type of parent I am, how I
Speaker 1: like to parent my child, and we are in constant communication.
Speaker 1: It's just because the kid is spending more time with
Speaker 1: them than they are with you. So these are very important.
Speaker 1: So it's cool. It's like you're giving them like you're
Speaker 1: you're really making a profile and making sure that everyone
Speaker 1: is transparent of what their wants are, what their expectations are,
Speaker 1: um and also that we're learning together, you know, like
Speaker 1: we don't know who this kid is yet you don't
Speaker 1: know how to parent perfectly. You've never done it before.
Speaker 1: It's all a huge group effort, you know. We talked
Speaker 1: to so many parents and it was informed, you know,
Speaker 1: by our personal experiences as well. But this feeling, and Katie,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you had this when I remember
Speaker 1: being pregnant and starting and my mother in law was
Speaker 1: like constantly, you know, what's happening with childcare? What's happening
Speaker 1: with childcare? Have you found childcare yet? What's going on?
Speaker 1: And I couldn't even imagine like holding a baby that
Speaker 1: was mine, let alone, let alone these women who are
Speaker 1: like on lists to like, like you said, of women
Speaker 1: have no options, then some women who do have options
Speaker 1: are literally trying to get on lists for daycares at
Speaker 1: their work that might be offered to them while they're
Speaker 1: pregnant because the list is years of a waiting list.
Speaker 1: Like I have friends that work at different you know,
Speaker 1: studios and uh in Hollywood and it's like, yes, there
Speaker 1: might be a daycare center in the building, but they
Speaker 1: can't even get in. It's really hard. And then just
Speaker 1: the mind boggling nature. How was it for you that
Speaker 1: transition of like dropping your twelve week old baby off,
Speaker 1: like you said, like you're dealing with the hormones and
Speaker 1: the identity shift. You just became a mom less than
Speaker 1: three months but before, I mean, it's horrible. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just horrible. I think, well, and for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I found maternity leave really hard. Like I had gone
Speaker 1: from running this big team and working with all of
Speaker 1: these people and seeing people all day every day, and
Speaker 1: I felt super alone and really isolated, and I kept thinking,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get back to work. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to get back to work. And I was sort
Speaker 1: of counting down from the minute that my husband went
Speaker 1: back to work, especially he didn't even have that he
Speaker 1: had no paternity leaves, so we took two weeks quote
Speaker 1: unquote vacation so backwards. We do a bunch of episodes
Speaker 1: on that on Katie's Crib about the pay family leave
Speaker 1: and things. I mean, it is a fucking mess. And
Speaker 1: whoever picked like the three month mark is also insane.
Speaker 1: We are not set up. We are not set up.
Speaker 1: And this whole thing of like you can have it
Speaker 1: all now, No you can't. You can't. It's impossible. It's
Speaker 1: so hard unless you're bridget and you're making moves to
Speaker 1: make changes in support the mothers and the care givers
Speaker 1: out here. Tell us about neighbor Schools successes. Please brag
Speaker 1: a little bit, would you? Yes? So, so far since
Speaker 1: we started the company, we've launched more than seventy daycares
Speaker 1: and we are just getting started. And through our research,
Speaker 1: I think something that's so exciting is we've found there
Speaker 1: are a hundred thousand people, mostly women, who want to
Speaker 1: open home daycares, and you know, the sad part is
Speaker 1: that ninety percent of them will fail because of the
Speaker 1: administrative and like regulatory hurdles because there are literally a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty seven steps to go through this whole process,
Speaker 1: and educators are expected to go through it alone. But
Speaker 1: that's we see that as opportunity because we know there
Speaker 1: are a hundred thousand people. Think of all the child
Speaker 1: care spots that that is going to create for families.
Speaker 1: Think of all of the jobs that is creating right
Speaker 1: for people who want to work with children, these well
Speaker 1: paid jobs. So we see that as an incredible opportunity
Speaker 1: and we're not going to stop until there's a neighbor
Speaker 1: schools in every neighborhood across the country. Oh my God,
Speaker 1: I'm have goose bumps. This is fucking amazing. How okay,
Speaker 1: you've told us that a caregiver can make anywhere from
Speaker 1: seventy nine a year from opening a home school. How
Speaker 1: can a parent find a neighbor schools for themselves? I
Speaker 1: know you're predominantly based in the Boston area. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: first and foremost come to our website. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: find me, find me. I'm on I'm on Instagram, I'm
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, And I want to hear from people, right Like,
Speaker 1: this is such a deeply personal mission um to me
Speaker 1: as a mom and as a founder, that I want
Speaker 1: to hear from from everybody because we see this as
Speaker 1: a movement. We see this as an opportunity to change
Speaker 1: the child care system for the future and to make
Speaker 1: child care accessible and affordable for families across the country.
Speaker 1: So we want to hear from people, and we want
Speaker 1: to know where people are really looking. I mean, we
Speaker 1: we look at maps, we look at you know, childcare deserts.
Speaker 1: We think about all of those things as we're expanding
Speaker 1: and adding you know, new locations. Um, but knowing the
Speaker 1: humans and the people that are in need right now,
Speaker 1: or the people that could step up to help with
Speaker 1: this crisis and that we could help open their own
Speaker 1: day hairs. Those are the people were trying to connect
Speaker 1: with each and every day. A little bit of a
Speaker 1: dark question, But I know a lot of moms, especially
Speaker 1: with a twelve week old going back to work, are
Speaker 1: struggling with a lot of anxiety about passing their kid off.
Speaker 1: How do does neighbor schools make sure that safety is
Speaker 1: enforced within each child care location? I mean, Jesus, we
Speaker 1: don't even want to talk about. I mean, I remember
Speaker 1: I never thought I was going to be this kind
Speaker 1: of mom, And then I remember I had to go
Speaker 1: back and shoot a scene and my son was eight
Speaker 1: weeks old, and my postpartum anxiety was rearing its ugly
Speaker 1: head in this NonStop, obsessive thought of my night nurse
Speaker 1: shaking my son because he was not sleeping, and I
Speaker 1: know she was really tired, and I was convinced just
Speaker 1: because my brain was looking for a villain that made
Speaker 1: no sense. How are you guys enforcing the safety? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, first and foremost, that's why we're focused solely
Speaker 1: unlicensed home daycare because the rules and regulations right, and
Speaker 1: that means I don't I don't think even people understand
Speaker 1: fully what that means, right, Like that means CPR, first
Speaker 1: Aid certified, like medication administration, safe sleep, child development, all
Speaker 1: of these pieces. They everybody is background checked in the home.
Speaker 1: So it's not just the educator, but it's everyone who
Speaker 1: lives or is frequently in the home. They're all background checked.
Speaker 1: The home is um inspected by the licensing agency to
Speaker 1: make sure that it is safe for kids, and they
Speaker 1: do drop in visits. But so that's licensing. The other
Speaker 1: piece where you know, we my co founders and I
Speaker 1: all come from a technology background, and where we see
Speaker 1: technology being so powerful here is is every time a
Speaker 1: family goes to tour a daycare, right, we are getting
Speaker 1: information from that family about their experience when they were touring.
Speaker 1: All the families who are enrolled in a neighbor school's program,
Speaker 1: they are getting um we're getting feedback from those families
Speaker 1: about their experience within the program. So there's this huge
Speaker 1: opportunity to really use data to have much more visibility
Speaker 1: into what's happening on a regular basis. And if a
Speaker 1: parent does say something, then we are able to you know,
Speaker 1: step in immediately and talk to the educator and work
Speaker 1: with the educator and the family to resolve it and
Speaker 1: figure it out. Brilliant. I just love that you're making
Speaker 1: school care happening homes. But you have to follow the
Speaker 1: same rules and regulations as every daycare across the country.
Speaker 1: So how did you start of neighbor schools services? Um? Again,
Speaker 1: as the coronavirus pandemic like settled down, how we've adapted
Speaker 1: to to COVID and what that's looked like over time. Yes,
Speaker 1: Okay got well first and foremost. When childcare was shut
Speaker 1: down in Massachusetts, it was incredibly difficult and for me personally,
Speaker 1: I was I don't even know, thirty nine weeks pregnant
Speaker 1: maybe with Brooks at the time that all of that
Speaker 1: was happening. Luckily he was nine days late, so it
Speaker 1: gave me a little extra time. Oh my god, bridget
Speaker 1: to work with the team on it. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: it was really hard. It was so unknown. You know,
Speaker 1: you have you have daycare providers that we're trying to help,
Speaker 1: We're trying to help families, right Like, that was a
Speaker 1: really really hard time, and licensing shut down for a
Speaker 1: while because the state was so over run by handing,
Speaker 1: Like what do we do with all these COVID protocols
Speaker 1: that they weren't licensing new people, and so we have
Speaker 1: you had this perfect storm of like people needing childcare
Speaker 1: more than ever before. We're not able to actually help
Speaker 1: and and create more programs because licensing is shut down
Speaker 1: and what a shit show. Yes from a business perspective,
Speaker 1: you know. It allowed us actually some time to really
Speaker 1: work with families and understand, like I was talking about before,
Speaker 1: sort of the experience and how we could improve apparent
Speaker 1: experience and especially during COVID help people feel really secure
Speaker 1: in their choice and feel like they had that level
Speaker 1: of transparency and feel informed. Um. And then in the
Speaker 1: fall of then licensing started to come back online. Then
Speaker 1: we had more families you know, looking for care and
Speaker 1: really the wheels started to turn and everybody came back. UM.
Speaker 1: But it was more about than the transparency and how
Speaker 1: do we empower all of the educators to really talk
Speaker 1: about their COVID protocols. How do we help parents understand
Speaker 1: what all the COVID protocols are UM and what's being
Speaker 1: dictated and what that means like can you bring a
Speaker 1: love e? Can you not bring a lovey? I mean
Speaker 1: these really like practical questions. I remember this ship like
Speaker 1: it was like, well, I kept albeit of school because
Speaker 1: I was also pregnant, and no one knew. Oh god,
Speaker 1: but you're right, Like, oh my god. People were like,
Speaker 1: you can't you can bring a lunch, you can't share
Speaker 1: a treat, you can't, Like, oh my god, like this trauma.
Speaker 1: I have to unpack it for like five years. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. We took my kids to the
Speaker 1: park over the weekend and I was like, I remember
Speaker 1: when the playgrounds were close. Oh my god, they had
Speaker 1: they had yellow ours had yellow caution tape all over it.
Speaker 1: Exactly they're doing construction on one of the playgrounds. So
Speaker 1: I saw that yellow caution tape and I like had
Speaker 1: this flashback to, oh my god, what's happening. Well, you
Speaker 1: deserve like a thousand medals because I just fucking shut
Speaker 1: our doors. And I was like, by you know, like
Speaker 1: and I could, whereas other people couldn't. Um, can you
Speaker 1: tell us like the difference between neighbor's schools and daycares
Speaker 1: like pros and cons For someone who was weighing it out, sure,
Speaker 1: there are lots of differences between them. The ones that
Speaker 1: I think don't always spring to mind. Are thinking about
Speaker 1: the experience of the caregiver directly right Like in a
Speaker 1: center based program, if you're touring this is something I
Speaker 1: had no idea about. If you're touring a daycare center,
Speaker 1: they sure to meet the actual teachers, the caregivers who
Speaker 1: are going to be with your child. Oftentimes it's going
Speaker 1: to be an administrator, it's going to be a director
Speaker 1: or an assistant director, and so really meeting the actual
Speaker 1: people that are going to be caring for your your kid,
Speaker 1: because as you were pointing out, Katie, part of it
Speaker 1: is just feel Part of it is meeting that person
Speaker 1: and feeling like we're going to have open communication, we're
Speaker 1: going to have a strong partnership, and you can really
Speaker 1: only do that if you're meeting the person and you
Speaker 1: understand who that person is. Now in home daycare, that's
Speaker 1: different because the person who's the set like running the
Speaker 1: daycare is also the educator, and so you're meeting that
Speaker 1: person from the get go. But even in a home daycare,
Speaker 1: if they have an assistant, meet the assistant, understand their background,
Speaker 1: their experience, and and really get to know all the
Speaker 1: people who will be working with your your Kiddoh Um.
Speaker 1: The other one that I hadn't thought about really at
Speaker 1: all was this idea of continuity of care. Right like
Speaker 1: in most daycare centers, you transition from room to room
Speaker 1: once you get to walking or September right, were right,
Speaker 1: This is like my nieces in daycare. It's like she's
Speaker 1: about to turn one, and then she gets moved into
Speaker 1: like the walkers room where she's like the baby, you know,
Speaker 1: because she's like the oldest in the baby room she
Speaker 1: currently is in, and she's moved there, moving her to
Speaker 1: one nap versus two naps. So now she's going into
Speaker 1: like the room where the kids have one nap, and
Speaker 1: so her teachers will change. So a homecare situation, as
Speaker 1: you will be with this one caretaker through a lot
Speaker 1: of these milestones, whereas daycare centers your kid will get
Speaker 1: moved from room to room or teacher to teacher. Right, yep, exactly.
Speaker 1: And and similarly right, um, there's mixed ages, right like
Speaker 1: in a home daycare, it's a mixed age environment. So
Speaker 1: it's very mantes Sory esque in the sense of you
Speaker 1: have the older children becoming leaders and they're teaching the
Speaker 1: younger kids, and the younger kids, you know, see my
Speaker 1: my son's in this great home preschool and he he's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, yes, oh yeah. Same, my my son's
Speaker 1: in a mixed age two. My son's in mixed age two.
Speaker 1: He loves the five year of the big the big boys.
Speaker 1: He's into it. And he hate my son hates the
Speaker 1: littles of like, dude, come on, you have a little sister,
Speaker 1: have some empathy, and he's just like no, Like the
Speaker 1: three year old kids are like taking his ship and
Speaker 1: he doesn't like it. Right right, Also, like self reflection,
Speaker 1: you were just in that totally, totally yeah. But so
Speaker 1: that's that's I think another key difference is like, which
Speaker 1: do you feel resonates with you more? Is it important
Speaker 1: for you to have that mixed age experience? Is it
Speaker 1: important for you to have all of the kids relatively
Speaker 1: a on the same age in this environment where you
Speaker 1: are transitioning. So so those are some of the pieces
Speaker 1: that that are different. That's great, that's so helpful. And
Speaker 1: and the other piece, um is and it's so like
Speaker 1: boring and practical. But pay close attention to your contracts.
Speaker 1: Read your contracts very very thoroughly, regardless of any any
Speaker 1: childcare setting, right, like whether you're hiring a nanny, make
Speaker 1: sure your childcare contract is very detailed. We had a
Speaker 1: nanny who wanted to charge us extra for like reports
Speaker 1: about what what our child like was, what Hudson was
Speaker 1: having trouble with, like he was having trouble with tantrums,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to charge this extra for some like advice.
Speaker 1: We should do a whole we should I need to
Speaker 1: do actually a whole episode on contracts. It's really I
Speaker 1: answer so many people's questions when their first hiring a
Speaker 1: nanny because I have my personal experience with it. People
Speaker 1: are like, what are paid sick days? How much? How
Speaker 1: many weeks have paid vacation? Do you do? Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And again when I got handed the stack of the
Speaker 1: contract for where Albie is at preschool, it was thicker
Speaker 1: than my Obviously, when you get married to someone, it's
Speaker 1: like one fucking page. It's literally one page. And then
Speaker 1: I'm sending my kid to preschool and it is like
Speaker 1: the fucking thickest thing, which I'm sure yours is too
Speaker 1: for daycares, but you really got to look at that
Speaker 1: ship of like vacations, like what happens if your kid
Speaker 1: gets hurt? Has an allergic reaction. Like you said, like
Speaker 1: administering medication sunscreen. I mean it's like insane. Yes, it
Speaker 1: totally is, and it should be right, like like that's
Speaker 1: part of what makes you feel like this is such
Speaker 1: a trusted environment. But I mean one of the centers
Speaker 1: we were at, it was an annual contract and we
Speaker 1: didn't actually know that until we signed, and then it
Speaker 1: was like if we needed to change, and we were
Speaker 1: on the hook for the tuition for the rest of
Speaker 1: the year. So read the contract, retract because if you're
Speaker 1: not happy there, you want to leave, you might still
Speaker 1: be paying for six months. Okay, great to know. What
Speaker 1: are a top few lessons you've learned from your podcast
Speaker 1: Work Like a Mother? Oh, my goodness, so many things
Speaker 1: about the podcast. I mean, just to give everybody some
Speaker 1: background about the podcast, I shared a little bit about
Speaker 1: how I felt super lonely and isolated with my first
Speaker 1: maternity leave. Um, but I had friends, like I had
Speaker 1: these incredible fellow working mothers that I could rely on
Speaker 1: for advice. And one of my closest friends, she actually
Speaker 1: had a baby a month before me, so we got
Speaker 1: to spend time together and with Brooks being born and uh,
Speaker 1: pandemic where work is now remote and we didn't see anybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, we literally didn't see anybody at all. My father,
Speaker 1: I think, met Brooks for the first time when he
Speaker 1: was six months old. Like, we just didn't see anybody.
Speaker 1: It was a totally different ballgame. I mean, I wanted
Speaker 1: to share this experience of returning to work and all
Speaker 1: the ups and downs and having that community that I
Speaker 1: longed for and had with my first work. Like a
Speaker 1: mother came out of that, that experience of wanting to
Speaker 1: share that with others, to create that community of mother's
Speaker 1: coming together so that they could feel I think, a
Speaker 1: little less alone and the other pieces. It's so easy
Speaker 1: and and I feel like, I mean I still battle
Speaker 1: this right I look on Instagram and think everyone else
Speaker 1: has it perfect. Oh my god. I actually was going
Speaker 1: to bed. I was going to bed last night thinking
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fucking delete this app, like honestly and not permanently,
Speaker 1: but just like for a week, because like I was
Speaker 1: going to bed looking at like lunch boxes and these
Speaker 1: things for travel, and then I was like going to
Speaker 1: her shop page of like how I needed to pack
Speaker 1: his snacks, and I was like, what am I doing?
Speaker 1: Looking at this at night. This is not her fault.
Speaker 1: She's incredible. This is my own ship. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: Worked Like a Mother exists because it is a battle
Speaker 1: between feeling inspired by other moms, but then also at
Speaker 1: the same time keeping it really real and patting ourselves
Speaker 1: on the back that even if I didn't pack my
Speaker 1: ship the way that woman did or whatever, it really
Speaker 1: just depends on the mood you're in. Like sometimes I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's really inspired me, and then some moods I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just like I'm a failure. I'm a total failure. I
Speaker 1: suck like I screamed at my son twice yesterday. I
Speaker 1: was like, yesterday was not a good mom day. But
Speaker 1: I think that that's a great reason to create a podcast.
Speaker 1: Is making women feel less alone. Information is power, making
Speaker 1: people laugh and just taking away some of the perfect
Speaker 1: imagery that is surrounding us. And it's just not true.
Speaker 1: It's just not true. What has been your favorite interview
Speaker 1: from Work Like a Mother so far? And you don't
Speaker 1: have to say me. I was going to say, well, okay, well, well, um,
Speaker 1: I have to say Emily aust I mean, Emily incredible,
Speaker 1: so incredible, She was a lifesaver to me during my pregnancy.
Speaker 1: And actually Brian, my co founder, is the one who
Speaker 1: gave me her book, and he said, you're gonna know
Speaker 1: the the original Expecting Better Better, It's amazing. And I
Speaker 1: carried that around like bible, like I literally, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, like, what does Emily say about this?
Speaker 1: Was Emily say about that? So that was a really
Speaker 1: incredible experience. And she's an incredible follow on Instagram. Yes,
Speaker 1: she's an incredible following this time because it's just factual
Speaker 1: and information. I don't feel judged. It's great. Um, that's
Speaker 1: a great interview. And please everyone listened to Work like
Speaker 1: a Mother's Emily Astar episode and Katie's Crave episode with
Speaker 1: Emily Astar because she's looking amazing. Finish this sentence. Parenthood
Speaker 1: is a journey with lots of ups and lots of downs,
Speaker 1: and you will get through it to the other side. Everyone,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to this episode of Katie's Crib Again.
Speaker 1: Go look at Neighbor Schools dot com if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a neighbor school, if you want to figure out
Speaker 1: how to start a neighbor school, if you want to
Speaker 1: go to a neighbor school. If you know a caretaker
Speaker 1: who should be an educator with neighbor schools. All of
Speaker 1: the above go to Neighbor Schools dot Com also work
Speaker 1: like a mother of the podcast that Bridget Garsh hosts
Speaker 1: is incredible. Bridget Garsh, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on Katie's Crib. Oh my goodness, so much fun. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening to today's episode. I want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns. Let me know.
Speaker 1: You can always find me at Katie's Crib at shataland
Speaker 1: dot com. Katie's Crib is a production of Shonda land
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from Shondaland Audio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M M