Dan Heath: Brenda Hawkins starts each day at her daycare with a question for the kids.

Brenda Hawkins: Today was, "Can I wear my pants on my head?" I'll come downstairs with a pair of pants on my head. I'll be like, "Hey, can I wear these on my head?"

[music]

Dan: At first there's not much consensus in the room.

Brenda: You have some that said, "No, Ms. Brenda. You can't wear them on your head." Others will be like, "Yes, you can."

Dan: This engagement with the question, that's exactly what she's looking for. Brenda has owned and operated her own daycare in her home for 30-plus years. She says when she started out, kids were given more answers than questions.

Brenda: It was more so drilling things into them. They were going to school super smart. They were able to identify letters and read and all that, but they couldn't figure out how to do it if it was something new.

Dan: Now kids are encouraged to ask questions and explore the answers for themselves.

Brenda: One thing I did for those who said, "Well, I can wear pants on my head," I gave them a pair of pants, and I let them wear them on their head.

Dan: [laughs] Because that's such an important part of it, isn't it? It's just-

Brenda: It is.

Dan: -they're not old enough to be just sitting and lectured to. They want to play, and so it's learning through play.

Brenda: Exactly. We can talk all day long but it's our experiences that really teaches us. When they have that experience like, "Wait a minute. I try walking around here with these pants on my head, they're getting in the way. They keep swinging in my eyes," and all that. They were like, "Okay, you can have them. Here, Ms. Brenda. You don't want to wear pants on your head anymore?" No. They're not comfortable. When they discover something and they learn something on their own and you see that light go off, they're unstoppable. You would think that they just won the lottery. They go home, "Look at what I can do," and they're telling their parents.

Dan: Ms. Brenda said I can wear my pants on my head.

Brenda: Exactly.

[music]

Dan: I'm Dan Heath, and this is What It's Like To Be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession: a nurse, a high school principal, a forensic accountant. We want to know what they do all day at work. Today we'll ask Brenda Hawkins what it's like to run a daycare out of her home. We'll talk about the most difficult kid she's ever taken care of, what it's like when a parent's kid doesn't want to leave daycare, and what the most dreaded disease is among daycares. Stay with us.

The first kids can arrive at Brenda's home daycare as early as 6:00 AM.

Brenda: They walk in, they want a hug. Their every morning starts off with a hug. They want Ms. Brenda's hug.

Dan: After that, they've got some free time before breakfast – bacon, eggs, and toast – breakfast of toddler champions. If it's not too cold, they're headed outside.

Brenda: We'll go in the backyard and they'll get a chance to play on the different equipment outside. We have sliding boards, we have little basketball hoops, seesaws, things like that, or we'll take a walk around the neighborhood. They get a chance to explore the neighborhood, and we talk about the different things that we see out there. We talk about the trees. We talk about the birds. We talk about it, and that's their time to ask me any questions that they have to ask me.

Sometimes that's a time where they just want to share stuff. They may want to share, "what I want for Christmas." They may want to share, "I went to Grandma's house last weekend." That's their time. Little people-- and that's exactly what they are, little people. Because sometimes people don't realize they're little people, and they want that attention. They want to be able to share. They want to be able to talk, and all they want is your attention.

Dan: By the time they come back inside it's time for lunch. Feeding eight kids between the ages of two and five sounds like a logistical nightmare. She's learned how to make it work over the years.

Brenda: We try to do family-style meals because we want to promote independence. I can remember when I first started doing child care, I was doing it all. I remember sitting in the class one day and they asked me-- they was like, "Why are you doing everything? Children can do it." I'm sitting back like, "But they're so small." "No, they can do it." We sit at the table. We have our little bowls. They dip their food out of the bowls and put it on their plates. Sometimes we have a mess going on, but also we teach them how to clean up our mess. We clean up behind ourselves.

Dan: Then they've got some time for music and movement, and then nap time. She says all eight kids actually sleep. Here's her pro tip.

Brenda: You can make sure the children have a full day so when it's nap time they're ready to go to sleep, or they'll make sure you have a full day.

Dan: You've got to wear them out is the trick.

Brenda: Exactly.

Dan: While the kids are napping, sometimes she gets a break, but often she's busy with the admin work of running a small business. After a nap, it's center time. There's a music center, a math center, an explorer center, and an area with blocks, which is a reliable crowd favorite. The kids cycle through them every 15 minutes, and then it's pickup time. Sometimes the transition home is easy, and sometimes it's not.

Brenda: I've had parents call me from the car crying because their children, they're crying to leave me. I had one parent call me, and she was like, "What am I doing wrong? I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong." I'm like, "What's wrong?" She says, "When I picked her up she was crying. She didn't want to leave you, and she cried all the way home."

Dan: That's hard.

Brenda: That's when you have to just let moms, and it's usually my moms-- I had one dad that was like that, but it's usually my moms. You just let them know you're doing absolutely nothing wrong. I always tell them-- I say, "My love is the next best thing to mommy and daddy's love." I say, "You're doing absolutely nothing wrong. They were just having fun. Plus they were with their peers. They were having a good time.

Dan: It's also just the sheer amount of time they spend with you. Of course, they're going to develop a tight bond.

Brenda: Right.

Dan: That's a hard one because that means you're doing your job well, right, when the kids don't want to go home, but you can understand why the parents feel the way they do.

Brenda: I definitely do, but I also tell the parents to be thankful, for the simple reason that they have a secure attachment with me. There's nothing worse than leaving your child, and your child is screaming and crying and they don't want to go. You say, "Okay, it's time to go to daycare," and they don't want to go.

Dan: Obviously, without needing to name names, who was the most difficult child you've ever worked with?

Brenda: My first daycare baby.

Brenda: Really?

Brenda: It's funny because we're still in contact to this day. I tell him-- I said, "I almost quit daycare." [laughter] I almost quit. It was like, "Oh, he cried every day." It was funny because for my 50th birthday, it was during COVID, and my daughters had created this video, and they had different children. They were grown and my kids are grown. Different ones that were in the daycare that would speak, and he was one of them. He was like, "I'm the reason why you're as successful as you are today. I was your best child." [laughter] I just remember him crying all day, but he was the type of child who could express himself.

I would always be able to tell the parents which children were going to be able to sing because they were the ones-- they were my high-pitched criers. [laughter] Oh, yes.

Dan: That's an optimistic spin on it. I like that. How did you manage to stick with the work after that? I imagine that must have been a pretty difficult period.

Brenda: At the time, I'mma to tell you, I was working my way through college. I needed the money, so I said, "Let me go ahead and stick it out." She was one of my girlfriends. I was going to stick it out with them. That's the thing I think that kept me going, because she was very insecure when it came to leaving people with her child. She was like, "No." She wanted to make sure it was someone she trusts. I was like, "No, I'm going to stick it out." I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad I did. I was working my way through college thinking that I was going into the right field but I really wasn't.

Dan: You switched into child development?

Brenda: I did. I was going to school for nursing. Actually, I was doing my clinicals. I would work in the hospital at night and I would be taking care of children during the day. I can remember one night I was in the hospital and I was talking about my babies and I was talking about the plans I had for them. One of the doctors asked me a question. They asked me a question. They said, "Are you sure you're going into the right field?" I looked at him. I was like, "Yes. I've been to school. I've been training for this. Oh yes." He was like, "I asked you that question because I looked at your face, and I've seen this a couple of times. Your face would just light up when you would talk about your children."

Dan: Wow.

Brenda: It was funny because I tried to ignore it, because I spent a lot of time and a lot of money going to school. I had to really think about that thing. I had to really pray about that thing. It wasn't rocket science. The fulfillment that I receive taking care of children, which is not the same when it came to dealing with people and working with people in the hospital. I changed my major. I went from being a straight C student to a straight A student.

Dan: Wow. It just unlocked something in you.

Brenda: It did. I ended up earning my degree in early childhood education. I'm still in school to this day, going back to school, learning even more. I'm working on yet another degree because as the children change we have to change with them, and we have to be ready.

Dan: Do you feel like you're better at the work now than you were 10 or 20 years ago?

Brenda: I really am, yes.

Dan: What do you feel like you've gotten better at over time?

Brenda: I understand children. You have to study them. I understand them better because back then I was a babysitter. Now, don't ever call a childcare provider a babysitter because that, no. That's not a great term for us, but I was a babysitter. I watched children. I made sure I kept children safe. I made sure they had fun. Now I am able to work and I'm able to shape and I'm able to mold these little minds. I am able to make sure that they have those school readiness skills that they need to transition in the school. I understand them better now. I understand their needs better now.

Dan: Tell me about a particular child where you felt like you really made a huge difference in their development. Maybe they started from really a rough place and by the time they went off to school they had just utterly transformed.

Brenda: Actually I have a little person now. He was diagnosed with autism. It was all these different labels of what he couldn't do or wouldn't be able to do. I don't believe in that. I don't believe there's nothing-- I don't care. I understand that that's the diagnosis, but I believe you can be so much more than what you've been diagnosed as. I worked with him, and he went through some challenges. Some people said that they don't know how I kept it, but I was determined that I wasn't going to give up on this baby.

Dan: What were some of the things that he struggled with?

Brenda: Autism is a social disorder. He had a very hard time adjusting to others. He would really have meltdowns and tantrums, and even sometimes he would do some things to inflict harm upon himself. As a childcare provider, you have to make the decision too of do you really want to take this on, because it can also be a liability. You have a child that takes a full cup of milk and hit himself in the head, and he ends up with a concussion. They're not going to believe that he did it. They're looking at you. You have to really make a decision. Well, I made the decision to fight for this one.

Dan: Why?

Brenda: It was something about him. All that I can say, it was just something about him, that I refused to give up on him. I was determined that we were going to care, nurture, and love him through this situation.

Dan: When did you first feel like it was working? Was there a moment when you thought, "Hey, things are changing"?

Brenda: When we went to the amusement park… And it was time to leave and he didn't fall out. I was like, "Wow, he didn't fall out today." It was like, "Okay." It made me want to go back again. We went to an amusement park every day that week because I was just trying to see, okay, we're going to do it again. Let's see. I just created the experience for him to go. Now, the same little child who at an amusement park would have meltdowns, I've taken him to the Mexican ballet and he's able to handle it. Sometimes you go through hard experiences, but they tend to lead you to the good ones.

Dan: If you had a perfect video archive of all your school days over the years, what do you think would be the best moments for, like, America's Funniest Home Videos? What are some of the all-time grossest or funniest or craziest moments?

Brenda: When they come in and they're mimicking their parents. When they're mimicking their parents, or they will bring in objects from home that they shouldn't bring in from home. [laughs]

Dan: Give me an example.

Brenda: There were different personal creams that showed up in my house that shouldn't have showed up in my house. [laughter] Yes. Some of them where we would have to correct their language and we would have to say that sometimes-- The parents would use language that wasn't very appropriate, and they would say it and we would have to say, "No, they said bucket. They said “bucket." [laughter] We would have to say things like that because they did say something they really shouldn't say.

Dan: Brenda has been in business for so long now, sometimes when she goes out she sees kids she took care of decades ago.

Brenda: I tell people-- as I said, we used to have nothing on me in this area. Because when I go out, people are screaming my name. "It's Ms. Brenda." My sister, she actually said, "I can't take you anywhere." She lives probably about an hour away from me. It's like, "How do they know you? Come on now." It really has got me as I've been in business forever.

Dan: So long that at this point the kids she served have grown up, and sometimes they come back to see her and bring news.

Brenda: When my baby shows up here, first of all, they show up in my house and they're like, "Ms. Brenda," and they'll start to tell me all the things. "I remember when you told me that a nap was my friend and I didn't believe you at that time, Ms. Brenda, but now I wish I could take a nap during the day." Then they would tell me, "Well, I'm expecting and I don't want anyone but you taking care of my children."

Dan: Is it ever a burden to be a support to so many people? Do you feel like you can't go out in public and have a crabby day because you got to be Ms. Brenda?

Brenda: Yes. [laughter] Without a doubt. There's no other answer but yes. Because you know that you're known, so I really can't have a crabby day. I also know that there's a standard that I have to have, and it's okay because with my beliefs, I believe in upholding that standard anyway, but I know there's a standard. Ms. Brenda can't go out and be on a beltway and someone cut her off and she'll be there fussing and carrying on. Ms. Brenda can't do that, okay?

Dan: You can't curse a blue streak at somebody and then--

Brenda: There you go. I can't do that because you best believe someone is watching.

Dan: Let me switch gears and talk about the business side of things for a minute. What have you learned as a business owner over the years? Maybe there were some things you did 10 or 20 years ago that you've learned that's not good business.

Brenda: Let me tell you, I had a lot of mess-ups. I had a lot, oh yes. I remember when I started my daycare, my contract was one page. Now it's five pages and a handbook. Because I am so personable, you have to be careful because people will try to take your caring, your concern for your weakness. They'll try to turn it into a weakness.

Dan: How so? What will they do?

Brenda: That parent who, "Oh, Ms. Brenda won't mind. I can show up at seven o'clock. Ms. Brenda won't mind. I can spend my daycare money and then I can pay her next week."

Dan: Oh, yes. Oh gosh, I hadn't thought about that. How do you handle situations like that?

Brenda: This is the thing that I've learned. That if you don't enforce your contract it's not worth the paper it's written on. Basically, everything is in writing. Whenever someone try to cross the boundary, I actually have to refer them back to their contract, and I make sure that I enforce it. Now, I understand that situations occur out there and things happen. However, it shouldn't be a habit. I make sure I explain myself very well in my interviews.

I tell people if someone's late picking up-- they're never late, they're late picking up and I know there's an accident on the beltway, nine times out of 10 I may tell you, "Give me a call." I'll tell you, "All right. We'll be here when you get here. Take your time. Get here safely." If one of them is late Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and again, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you're going to have to pay for that. There's also a right to quit because if you can't respect the contract then we can't move forward.

Dan: Why is it that daycare is so expensive but daycare providers get paid so little?

Brenda: I ask people this question, "Is it really expensive?" That's the question. When you think about what you're getting paid, what you're paying for, is it really expensive? When you think about your daycare providers, just think about it. We work an average of 50 to 60 hours a week.

Dan: Wow.

Brenda: We're providing those developmental growth experiences for your children. We're feeding them. We're caring for them. We're doing so much for them. When you break down what we charge into a hourly wage, a lot of us are not making $5 an hour. Then another thing is this. Is it really expensive when you're talking about one of your greatest, one of your most prized gifts, to make sure that they're safe? To make sure that they're learning? That when you're not able to be there, they're receiving that nurturing, they're receiving that care, they're receiving that love. Making sure that they're good. Is it really expensive?

Dan: Ms. Brenda, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What is a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?

Brenda: Okay. That would be a “dope-and-drop.”

Dan: “Dope and drop.”

Brenda: Yes.

Dan: Okay.

Brenda: A dope and drop is something that tends to frustrate me. A child will wake up in the morning, they'll have a fever. They'll have some type of symptoms, some type of illness. The parents will medicate and they'll bring them to daycare. Then usually around two to four hours later, we end up with a child with a fever or something's going on. Potentially it's a case where the whole daycare can end up sick behind that. Anyone in the field, they know about dope and drop because I think we've all experienced them. I can now tell you what they gave them by what time this fever shows up.

Dan: You have got to have like an Olympian immune system by this point in your life.

Brenda: Oh, I do. I do. I do because I've seen it all.

Dan: You've probably had it all.

Brenda: Yes. Without a doubt. I've definitely had it all.

Dan: What phrase or sentence strikes fear in the heart of a daycare owner?

Brenda: It would be hand, foot, and mouth disease.

Dan: Have you had an outbreak?

Brenda: I've had three in my 31 years, and it is really not pretty. They let you know that there is a seriously contagious virus within your daycare. I've had this virus come in, and within 24 hours I end up with one child. It's a lot of deep cleaning that has to be done with it. It's funny because if one child comes down with the virus one day and of course they're out for the next seven days, then another one comes down with the virus two days later, you have to deep clean again. You're just steady clean. You're looking at probably about two to three weeks of basically deep-clean everything.

Dan: What is a sound specific to your profession that you're likely to hear?

Brenda: The cleanup song. If you walk into any daycare, you're normally going to hear The Clean Up Song.

[music - “Clean Up” song]

Brenda: It's just a fun song that motivates the kids to clean up. Tidy up your area.

Dan: Childcare providers don't make a lot of money. They work long hours. They handle the big emotions of little children. Near the end of our conversation, Brenda told me why this work that doesn't get as much respect as it should is so meaningful to her.

Brenda: There are so many broken adults walking around because their spirits was broken when they were children. If we can make sure that they have a joyful childhood, then we'll produce some healthy adults.

Dan: Do you think there was anything in your childhood that led you on this path?

Brenda: It definitely was. That's a part of my why. I want to be what I didn't have as a child, or I wish I had as a child. Came from a broken family. My parents did the best they knew how. They did the best they could, but it left me with some insecurities and some struggles that I had to overcome in my adult life. It doesn't bother me because it actually led me to my purpose. My pain led me to my passion, and my passion led me to my purpose. It turned me into this protector, this nurturer. I'm like the child defender. When I see the smiles on their face, it puts a smile on mine.

Dan: Do you think that you would have inevitably found your way to this work even if the doctor hadn't made the comment that day?

Brenda: Absolutely. Because I was the house on the block. There's always one on the block where the kids gravitate towards. I was that house. It was like the kids in the neighborhood, the older kids in the neighborhood, "Oh, that's Ms. Brenda. That's Ms. Brenda." When I ended up in daycare, it didn't surprise me at all.

Dan: In a way, this was your destiny?

Brenda: Yes, it was. Without a doubt. I'm a firm believer that our birth, our creation is to solve some distinctive problem on Earth. I believe that this was my problem to solve.

[music]

Dan: Brenda Hawkins runs a daycare out of her home in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. It's called God's Gift Christian Child Care. When I listened to this interview afterward, I was surprised by my own question there at the end about destiny. I'm not even sure I believe in destiny, at least as a spiritual matter. I think what I was getting at was that Brenda was so well suited for this work and so motivated by it that she almost couldn't help but end up doing it, which sparked a curiosity about people who don't follow that formula. People who haven't found a job that feels like a destiny.

Are you one of those people? If so, do you think you just haven't found the real thing yet? Do you think that your particular bundle of skills and interests just doesn't correlate very well with the set of jobs that are currently available, or is all of this talk just too dreamy-eyed? Finding that perfect job might be a luxury in a world where you have immediate needs – bills to pay, and groceries to buy. Anyway, if you have any thoughts on this to share, will you send me a note? I'm at dan@whatitslike.com.

In the meantime, I'm just delighted for Brenda and for the kids she served for 30-plus years. Delighted that she found her thing. Tiring out kids before nap time. Holding the line with parents on payments and pickup times. Starting and ending every day with a hug and cultivating the potential in every child. Folks, that's what it's like to be a daycare owner.

A shout-out to our recent commenters on Spotify: Shy Eye Shelly, Keven Wang, L Phelps, and Judah. Thanks too, Jamyla Krempel, for helping us find Brenda. This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath. See you next time.