Personal Narrative: I Never Feed A Baby

I applied to at least fifty summer jobs, and then I was hired on the spot. My first career as a teenager finally happened at The Goddard School. It was an obscure scenery: long hours, funny co-workers, and rude parents, all here for one reason which was for the children. I started with infants immediately and I guess that's what I get for saying I could work with any age knowing I never fed a baby or even changed a diaper. All at once, I absorbed the life of a "teen mom" whom people often make fun of: I was essentially the child's caregiver whom people often take for granted. It was a bizarre world working for a draining eight-hour shift. Everything was yellow, and white because of the walls and piles of toys in multicolor bins.
Quickly getting
exposure to all aged children forced me to adapt. There were babies, pre-toddlers, toddlers, and pre-k children. I found myself growing patient and my personality growing brighter. There were children who were shy and then there were children who had a full-on personality at such a young age. There were adults who talked about their weekend and how they were falling over drunk, and I felt joy come to my heart because they actually trusted the new girl on the block with information that could hurt their career. Then there were the parents.
I was a master now, of the various types of parents: the rich parents who act snotty; the dad who was the primary caregiver; the same sex parents; the clingy parents who couldn't get enough of each other; and the emotional parents when they had to detach from their young. The phrase that I learned the most was "Good morning, how are you"? I quickly learned this because not greeting parents got you the evil eye or even got you to be reported for being rude for not speaking when you made eye contact.
Likewise, I felt a certain astonishment, because with all the disruption there was a great deal of warmth.
Alongside me was my co-workers who were mainly minorities, I saw issues through adult eyes. Young mothers getting screwed over by their baby’s dads: Teenagers who were only a few years older than me getting pregnant by boys who are still in high school but still driven and focused to make their life and child's life the best it could be. In reality, we were all tired and we all were trying to make a living for ourselves. We were all changing diapers, wiping down tables, microwaving the children's food and it was hard not to think of yourself as a robot repeating the same process every day. This is tiring for people who have been performing such a task for fifteen years, like the older employees who had to repeat the same process when they returned home with their own
kids.
Long shifts, hysterical laughs with co-workers, ordering food from different restaurants, and single dads trying to get Instagram usernames from women.
In the mindset of that, I formed and gained a learning experience that changed me, how I act and spoke to people. I learned how to take care of children and even enlighten my older co-workers. The school was open five days a week, and I remember my first thought: How this white and blue building does not need me, that if I quit this place will still go on without me. The Goddard School gave me a sense of purity. Years of being a straight-A honors student while being a full-time athlete gave me the acceptance in the world. It was an honor taking care of children. There’s a true meaning behind a daycare, and I am
thankful.