A New Day in Child Care : More Providers Are Offering Nighttime Services for Working Parents
It’s 9 at night and moms all around Los Angeles are tucking the kids into bed. Someone else’s kids, that is.
Faith Parker has four little ones stretched out beneath blankets in Pasadena. Annabell Guerrero has 15 lined up on cots and in cribs in a pair of conference rooms in Hollywood. Three are napping on pillows at Rebel Amorosa’s house in Palmdale.
It may be dark outside, but a new day has dawned in the children’s day-care business. It’s called night care.
More than 1,200 day-care operators in Los Angeles County have begun staying open late to baby-sit youngsters for parents who work the night shift, juggle two jobs or take after-hours night school classes.
Some day-care workers will watch children anytime.
Need to drop your child off at 4 a.m. so you can get to work on time? No problem. Can’t get back before 11 p.m. or maybe 1 a.m. to pick up your child? Don’t worry. Want to take an overnight excursion to Las Vegas? Have a nice trip.
Experts say child care and the recession have turned out to be strange bedfellows.
The demand for child care has increased as mothers have gone to work to bring in a second income and single parents have taken on second jobs.
But plant closures and other layoffs mean that many families no longer can afford--or need--child care, forcing some day-care operators to work at night to compensate for shrinking daytime revenues.
At the same time, some laid-off workers have tried to create their own jobs by opening day-care businesses in their homes. To drum up business, they offer nighttime baby-sitting too.
Child care is a low-overhead business that is easy to start, said Lauren Buongiovanni, who helps run a state-sanctioned child-care referral service for the Long Beach, Bellflower and Cerritos areas.
In parts of the 2,500-square-mile San Fernando and Antelope valleys, competition has turned “very intense,” said Andrea King, manager of the referral service for that region. “Child-care providers are willing to negotiate just about anything.”
Said Alma Visser, a referral specialist who works in the Pomona area: “To make some money, they’ll stay open in the evening. It’s as simple as that.”
Visser is proof that a few nighttime services have been around for years. Nineteen years ago, she was the first teacher hired for a state-subsidized center that operated from 5 to 11 p.m.
“We got a lot of parents who were waitresses and people like that,” Visser recalls. “At that time, private day-care centers couldn’t make money doing it.”
Administrators of Childrens Hospital in Hollywood created a free overnight baby-sitting service for employees 10 years ago, hospital spokesman Steve Rutledge said.
Each night, hospital workers remove tables and chairs from a pair of basement conference rooms and replace them with folding steel cots for as many as 25 children, said Annabell Guerrero, night child-care manager.
“My friends ask me if I’ve been sick when I tell them I spent the night at the hospital,” said overnight camper Reisha Albury, the 8-year-old daughter of a night shift doctor.
Nurse Mary Ellen Farr of Redondo Beach said the chance to bring her 1-year-old son, Taylor, with her “is one thing that keeps me working here.”
Most evening child care is done in private homes. One of the few storefront centers open nights is run in Pasadena by Faith Parker. The former schoolteacher opened it after her husband died 16 years ago.
“I did it because I realized how much it would have meant to us to have had a little time away from our three daughters,” she said. “I realize how important it is for parents to have a little breathing space.”
To be certain, most of the approximately 6,250 licensed day-care businesses in the county live up to their names by offering only traditional daytime schedules.
A newly opened child-care center in the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles operates from 7 a.m to 6 p.m. That’s 6 p.m., sharp .
“We have a grace period of three minutes” for parents who do not pick up their children by closing time, said Barbara Ann Unszusz, the center’s director. There is a $10 charge for every 15 minutes after that.
Schools and storefront centers occasionally call authorities for assistance when parents are more than 45 minutes late and cannot be reached by phone, said Los Angeles Police juvenile unit Detective Pat Barron.
State regulations outline the responsibilities of child-care operators. Home-based centers are inspected every three years, but starting in 1993 they will be checked annually, said Ron Tate, state licensing supervisor in Los Angeles. The size of storefront centers determines how many children they can handle, he said. Home-based centers are licensed for either six or 12 children, depending on the number of adults on duty.
State regulations prohibit a child from staying in day care longer than 23 hours at a stretch, Tate said.
Many parents are surprised when they discover there is night care as well as day care.
“It’s such an overwhelming relief for some,” said Mona Lisa Williams, who offers overnight care in her Santa Monica home. “One woman broke down in tears.”
Swing shift utility worker Daphny Bell of Inglewood looked for months before finding someone to watch her 7-month-old daughter. “I thought it was impossible to do this. I was afraid I was going to have to take more time off work,” Bell said.
In the Antelope Valley about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, officials say half of day-care facilities offer evening service. That’s because of the long commute that many parents make to jobs in Los Angeles.
Palmdale child-care operator Rebel Amorosa is licensed to watch 12 children at a time. But as many as 22 different youngsters a day pass through her front door as parents working various shifts drop them off and pick them up.
Regina and Sergio Garcia leave their three children as early as 4 a.m. some days before traveling to jobs in the Los Angeles suburb of Sylmar. They return most afternoons at 4:30 p.m.
On Thursdays, however, their children stay until 10 p.m., when the Garcias take computer classes “so we can get ahead in the world,” as Regina Garcia put it.
Parents with short commutes and regular work hours also appreciate flexible day-care operators, Sandie Steven said. She is a Santa Monica mother who works as a supervisor in the returned check department of a supermarket chain.
She occasionally leaves her 2 1/2-year-old son late at night or overnight on Fridays with her child-care provider.
“It gives me a chance to be with just my husband,” she said. “The last time my son stayed overnight we went to dinner and to the movies and then slept in late the next morning. Then I had time to go have my hair done.”
Night-care providers say parents sometimes take unfair advantage of them, however. And that can contribute to nighttime child-watcher burnout, said Gloria Diaz, a child-care referral counselor for the Hollywood and Echo Park areas.
Olivia Reese, who offers night care in the Wilshire district, said mothers have shown up intoxicated to claim their youngsters. “I made pallets on the floor and they stayed overnight,” she said.
Penny Nairn, who runs a day-and-night child-care service in North Hills with her mother, Peggy, said the pair waited up all night for one mother to claim her child.
“She called the next day and said she’d gotten drunk, passed out and we’d have to keep the child another night,” Nairn said.
Lakewood child-care operator Carol Smith said parents have “forgotten their kids” at her house at least a dozen times.
“Mom’s out with the girls, dad’s out with the guys. Each thought the other had come for the kid,” Smith said.
