Gemma, Rhanne and Francis all have considerable childcare experience now but came at the job for some different reasons and thinking.
Here we find Gemma’s starting point:
The way my mum and ad were with me kind of inspired me to carry on…itb sounds really weird but the neighbours next door at the time had three children…so it got to Saturday afternoon and I would go round an help look after the children. [I was] 14 at the time, quite young…and it wasn’t me wanting my own children, it was just I enjoyed looking after them and helping; that’s where I think, on reflection that’s where it came from…neighbours children.
According to Rhanne,
Looking at Francis, It was through my children, really through having my children and when my eldest…took her to mother and toddler group and got involved with it, came on the committee and then became Chair..it was a voluntary role really…then she progressed on to Playgroup and I became a volunteer at the playgroup and did fundraising…I just wanted to be involved in what she was doing and the experiences that she was having and be part of that…that involvement in her life really. Then we I became involved, it was something I’d like to do as a career really that I’d never thought about..from leaving school, I just enjoyed doing it
Here we can see that there is common bedrock feeling that being with children, your own/anybody’s children is a good place to be and one which appeals to what is felt to be worthwhile. You could say that there could be ’vocational’ elements? Heart then head, initial heart-felt decisions taken and rationally developed according to the emerging sector landscape? These could be said to be realistically negotiated positions, now, in the light of change…this might have something to say about these more seasoned and experienced workers ahving a measure of command and satisfaction over their current roles and likely progression?
...always wanted to be a Nursery Nurse from when I was at school, left school [Why?] I just loved being with children…and families, I always wanted to be Mary Poppins, sounds a bit corny. I was a young school leaver (August birthday) so I did a BTec First Diploma in Care, that was my first course, which was quite scary being exposed to the elderley at the age of 16 but that’s been very beneficial, gave me a really good overview…We need also to remember that these participants are recollecting; that is looking back some years on a domain that has changed radically (National Strategy, public/private responsibilities, professionalisation etc) over that period. It begs the question whether the ideas are the same now?
