Ece: Thoughts You Will Have That Are Totally F***ing Normal

By Sarah Knipping

Returning to work and enrolling your child in an early childhood service is a huge, frightening, exciting, and daunting rollercoaster. You will wonder and worry about a million little details that you never even thought about before. THIS IS TOTALLY F***ING NORMAL.
This book unravels the ponderings of every new daycare parent and will help you remember that you are not alone, you are not the first person to worry about these things, and it is all totally f***ing normal. You've got this, new daycare parent!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Knipping
• Release date: Apr 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393060727

Sarah Knipping

Born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand Sarah went on to study Classics and Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington. When this (not so surprisingly) didn’t eventuate into thousands of high paying job offers, she took to travelling the globe. After wandering her way across 37 countries she returned home to NZ to study early childhood education, but her heart pulled her back to Kenya (the favourite of said 37 countries). She took her teaching with her and taught in a school at an orphanage in Nakuru for a year. She always loved to write, and when she returned home to NZ decided it was high time to stop wanting to be a writer and put pen to paper and actually be a writer. She is currently living in Wellington where she teaches under two’s (who are beyond adorable and keep her very much on her toes), drinks a lot of coffee, and spends time with her wonderful family and friends.

Book preview

Introduction

Kia ora e hoa mā, (Hello my friends)

This pukapuka (book) is dedicated to all those amazing mums and dads who are embarking on the weird and wonderful journey that is being a working parent with a young child. I’ve had many a mum or dad debrief, cry on my shoulder, or vent about the challenges that come along with balancing a modern lifestyle, keeping up with a modern working world, keeping on top of bills and mortgages, and being an engaged and loving parent.

Trusting someone else with the care and education of your little one can be a total emotional roller coaster - which is totally f***ing OK! You may have none of these thoughts, or all of them, or six of them all at once.

This book intends to take a light-hearted approach to all the ins and outs of being a day care parent and all the things you never realised you would spend time pondering.

Your own journey of parenting while your little one attends an early childhood service is your own - but, even when it feels like no one else in the world could possibly understand how you’re feeling, this book is here to reassure you that;

1. everyone is feeling some of this, at some point in time, and

2. yes, it does f***ing get better, and

3. yes, it does f***ing get easier, but

4. while it is s*** and hard, it is totally OK to not be OK, and totally OK to feel like you might actually be going bonkers.

You are all amazing.

Your kaiako (teachers) are all amazing.

And we are all in this together.

Huge love to you, amazing māmās and pāpās who are giving life and parenting their all.

Aroha nui,

Sarah xx

On mana...

I’ve broken my own rule and added definitions of te reo Māori throughout the text. This is something I usually avoid like the plague - our reo is our taonga and I dislike having to diminish its mana by bracketing it with an English kupu (word) equivalent any time I use it.

But (yes, I’m also that person that begins sentences with ‘ands’ and ‘buts’, don’t tell my standard 4 English teacher - sorry Mr Talbut!), like I said in my rant about the word ‘ECE’, this book, and this topic, are universal. The trials and tribulations of a parent returning to work here in Aotearoa are not too dissimilar from a parent doing the same in many other corners of our beautiful globe. And so (see, did it again!) I’ve given a one off definition for each kupu for all our readers from across the moana (ocean).

Disclaimer

Funnily enough, I'll be the first kaiako (teacher) to rant and vent about how much I hate the term ‘ECE’ and how much it diminishes the amazing mahi (work), learning, and teaching that goes on everyday... and yet I've gone and put it in my pukapuka (book) title!

Why?

1. Because ‘Early Childhood Education: thoughts you'll have that are totally f***ING normal’ doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...

2. Because the themes, worries, and freak-outs covered in this pukapuka are fairly universal and happen for any parent, anywhere