UNL facilities provide day care for students’ children
Two UNL facilities make sure
students’ children have sanctuary
while their parents are busy.
The University Child Care Project
and the Campus Recreation Pro
gram each have day-care programs
for children of students at the Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Child Care Project, located
in the YWCA building at 1432 N St.,
is a full-time child-care program
that admits children of hill-time
UNL students. It is licensed by the
State of Nebraska.
Director Barbara Vigil said a dif
ficulty with the system was its in
ability to accept part-time enroll
ments.
“It’spartofourleaseagreement,"
she said. “But many students need
part-time care."
Vigil also said finding care for
children was a difficulty, especially
for infants. She said parents-to-be
usually spend time on a waiting list.
“For infants, most people are on
the list for eight or nine months,”
she said. “People usually sign up
when they find out they’re preg
nant. I had one parent sign up
before she became pregnant.”
Vigil said infant care was harder
for the program to provide because
one teacher is needed for every
three infants, as opposed to one
teacher for nine 3-year-olds. “It’s
not very cost-effective," she said.
All teachers counted in the
teacher-student ratio are paid staff,
Vigil said. Supervising teachers have
college degrees in either human
development or education.
In addition to the day care, the
program, which is in its 22nd year,
also sponsors a state-approved all
day kindergarten, Vigil said.
The Campus Recreation Center
sponsors a temporary day care for
children whose parents are using
the center. This program started
this year, Campus Rec officials said.
“We iust opened it in October,”
said Sally Pfeiffer, coordinator of
informal recreation.
“We’ve had a lot of requests for
it, but it’s patterned after a Univer
sity of Colorado setup that opened
one and a half years ago. It was so
successful, we thought we’d try it,”
she said.
Pfeiffer said the program was
open to anyone using the Rec Cen
ter, but non-members had to pay
twice the membership rate of $ 1 per
hour per child (with a two-hour
limit).
Pfeiffer said children totals were
not available for February, but more
than 300 children came to the facil
ity in January.
Jan Calinger is a freshman news-edito
rial major and a Diversions contributor.
Adopted man glad to be alive
Women should think of unborn child when considering options
My motner wno Dore me was
not married — not when she
conceived me, nor later, when
she gave birth.
I don’t know if she was ever
married. I’ve never met her — I
was adopted.
In those days and at that time,
little compassion was spared for
unwed mothers. They were con
sidered outside polite society and
their chances in the world were
slim. Still are, I know, but the
times were definitely different—
It was 1964.
The Beatles had just come to
America for the first time, and
they wore suits. There were no
ies.
Lit JFK had just been killed
and the times were in the process
of a‘changin.’
Still, social workers counseled
mothers who were giving up
their children for adoption to
think of that child henceforth as
dead. They would never be al
lowed to contact the child, never
know who raised the child.
F.ven now, when the rights of
all concerned are construed dif
ferently, many women — who
gave up a child at that time—do
not know that they now have
access to channels of communi
cation with the adoptive family
and the child.
Maybe they learned to think
of the child as dead after all, but
somehow I doubt it.
There is somewhere in the
world a woman who, around
Dec. 4 each year, remembers that
once she gave birth to a boy who
she never saw or heard from
again.
It seems terrible to me, and
sad.
All this is not to say that I ever
felt unwanted. I knew from as
soon as I cobid understand such
things that I was adopted by my
family. If anything, tnat knowl
edge made me feel a little supe
rior to siblings and friends who
were mere accidents of ti mi ng—
In order to deal with my strong and conflicting
emotions over the abortion controversy, I have
come to picture the pregnant woman as a kind of
symbiotic life form — an Idea I get from science
fiction and one, I hope, that does not seem too
cold (though perhaps we could use a little cold
abstraction when dealing with this Issue).
I was chosen.
I knew I had been anticipated
vividly for some months before
my arrival in the house of my
parents, and that they knew they
wanted me.
And I have never been
ashamed of being “illegitimate.”
1 thought I was as legitimate as
the next kid, maybe even more
so. And I’ve always taken a kind
of perverse pleasure in being a
bastard. It lends an air of tne
rascal to my otherwise bland
biography.
What has been difficult for
me is dealing with the issue of
abortion and abortion rights. I
know how much I value my
freedom, and I don’t tolerate
anyone telling me what I can or
cannot do with my own body. It
seems an obvious human right.
But when I was bom, abor
tion was illegal and unsafe. It
was also seen as morally uncon
scionable. All these factors must
have contributed in some de
gree to the decision women like
my biological mother made
about what to do with a baby
they could not support.
I am grateful, to a woman I do
not know, that she was brave
enough to make the terrible de
cision that she had to make. The
idea that I might never have
been at all, I find too horrible
really to comprehend.
My friends are also glad I was
born, 1 think, and in a small way
1 imagine I feel an indebtedness
to life, to the world, to make it a
little better by doing what I do
best for it. It is a payment for my
life—the chance, atleast, to feel
the sun on my face.
In order to deal with my strong
and conflicting emotions over
the abortion controversy, I have
come to picture the pregnant
woman as a kind of symbiotic
life form — an idea I gel from
science fiction and one, I hope,
that does not seem too cold.
(Though perhaps we could use
a little cold abstraction when
dealing with this issue.)
In symbiosis, twodistinct lives
occupy a single destiny. In the
case or a human pregnancy, the
symbiosis is temporary and un
equal: One of the entities has to
make the decisions for both.
I can only hope that unmar
ried women who find themselves
pregnant and under the extreme
pressu res such a condition bri ngs
with it will come to face their
responsibilities as seriously as
they can.
After that everyone must make
their own decisions by their own
lights; no one else can or should
try to take on the weight of those
decisions for them.
I am a man. The question will
never pose itself to me in the
same way as it can to a woman.
All I can say is:
I’ve enjoyed being alive. I’m
happy to be here.
Mark Baldridge I* the Art* and Enter
tainment editor and a Diveralons con
tributor.
Mtehelle Paulman/DN
Sydney Turner, a UNL student, picks up her son, Nick, 3, at
the University Day Care Center located at the YWCA.
Mom goes back to school
Flexible schedule benefits single parents
Some women swear they know
the moment of conception when it
happens, weiL.it was sort of like
that with me. The moment I knew
I’d be single-parenting, the idea of
becoming a tull-time student was
conceived.
I admit it wasn’t instantaneous.
For several months, as my marital
bliss evaporated into the mist, I
plotted ways to survive on my own
with two elementary-aged young
sters.
Going back to school made the
most sense.
Now, thanks to loans, scholar
ships, social services, a part-time
reporting job and child support, no
one in our household trio suffers.
We can afford the basics — rent,
shoes and Amigos.
“School is my job," I tell my kids.
And when they misbehave or it’s
been an extremely stressful week, I
threaten to become part of the 8-to
5 work force again.
It’s a gruesome thought.
Especially since school also af
fords me a flexible schedule, more
so than any 40-hour-a-week job.
Most days I can be home by the
See MOM on 8
u^nuns.
toil a Ug
Jm A SlAtB
