When you have kids, daycare is one of the most expensive costs associated with raising children. Some parents, however, are lucky — like myself — as you may be fortunate to have local grandparents living nearby who can help support you when you need a babysitter. Unfortunately, not everyone is this lucky. A mother from Mississippi recently sent her child to “one of the top daycares in Desoto county” and after witnessing a snippet of footage that was captured on the on-site CCTV camera, she was upset by the way one of the nursery teachers handled her toddler. Specifically, while the child was sleeping soundly, the clip shows the childcare worker abruptly lifting her up without trying to wake her up first, and as a result, the child falls over, as she’s still half-asleep, sparking a debate online about child safety and a potential breach of trust.
In the brief video captured by the on-site camera, you can see a young Black toddler lying on a blue carpet sleeping. She’s wrapped up in a pink blanket and is wearing a blue top. Next to her is a small children’s slide, which indicates that she is indeed in a daycare. While she’s soundly sleeping, however, a nursery teacher walks into frame, sporting blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and white sneakers.
The daycare worker proceeds to pull the blanket off the child, and lift her up by her arm. She plops the child on her feet next to her, and the youngster — who is still wobbling around as she’s still half-asleep — falls onto the floor face-down right next to the nursery teacher. Surprisingly, the childcare worker doesn’t attempt to stop the child’s fall, or even help her up from the floor, but just casually walks away from the kid. As the video plays, you can hear the mother watching the clip, and she describes things further, saying, “There, she was crying. She started crying.“
Adding some additional context to the clip is a statement from the mother of the youngster, who allegedly made a complaint to the director of said daycare. The mother explains:
This happened at Kids R Kids of Mississippi in Horn Lake, MS. It’s supposed to be one of the top daycares in Desoto county but I most definitely beg the differ. I made the complaint to the director and she felt that the lady did no wrong. This is a very careless act to pull a BABY up out her sleep and just expect her to walk it off. We as grown ups need a min to collect ourselves before getting up on our feet, let alone a baby…. I told her i didn’t want my child in this careless girl’s care again and she stated that I need to come get my child. She discharged my baby out the system which caused my camera view to be disabled while my child was still in their custody. I am beyond angry about this.
Via kingmade_nuke3 on Instagram
The daycare’s director son is in the same class with my daughter so I asked her how would she feel if it was her child she was looking at getting treated that way. She got teary eyed and said she is not bringing her son in this situation which let me knew that she knew it was wrong what had happened. I thought the camera would be a benefit but yet it was only an asset to watch my child get mistreated and nothing get done about it except my child gets discharged from the daycare. So please share this video. We must protect our kids because no one else will.
As the video continues to circulate online, social media users flooded the comments to share their thoughts on the questionable footage. Over on Instagram, one user wrote, “Poor baby didn’t even know what happened” while another chimed in with, “As a mother this made my blood boil. But for that baby it broke my heart. Why? She’s just a baby.” Meanwhile, another commenter penned, “As a daycare teacher. I never did this to kids. I rubbed their back and told them it’s time to get up. But this is ridiculous smh. This is why parents have a hard time leaving their kids at childcare.” A fourth declared, “Please seek legal aide. They retaliated against you and that was child abuse“.
With the footage snowballing on social media, it serves as a timely reminder of the importance of safe and proper handling of children, particularly in a childcare setting. Frankly, on a more personal note — and as someone who used to work in education as a teacher — I wouldn’t be best pleased if I ever saw this sort of footage of my toddler being mishandled, especially for someone who is so young and so vulnerable.
