Generations of child care: Provider Cunningham to retire after 40 years

Fergus Falls Daily Journal - 6/9/2020

Jun. 9--Laurie Cunningham has been a child care provider in Fergus Falls for around 40 years, caring for generations of the area's children. Later this month on June 27, she'll be celebrating her retirement with her family and those who have become her family over the last four decades.

Although she technically began her day care in 1979, she began taking care of children much earlier. "I have always loved children. I started caring for other people's children when I was only 11 years old. It was, of course, referred to as babysitting," she says. "There's families that I had way back when I was babysitting that we still have connections to, and I've just always loved kids."

She says not much has changed when it comes to caring for children, although the day care industry itself has undergone numerous changes. "There's been changes as far as the rules and regulations," she says. For example, in Cunningham's licensure category, she could previously only have three children under 30 months old. Now, she can have three kids under 24 months.

There is also a growing shortage of day care providers, particularly in greater Minnesota, with a 2017 report from the Center for Rural Policy and Development estimating a shortage of 35,447 day care slots outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. "There is a shortage, particularly for infant care, and reality is infants are more work, when you have to be physically checking on them every so many minutes. It just requires a lot more time and attention," Cunningham says.

A growing number of families are also sending their children to preschool earlier according to Cunningham, and the fact that providers in her licensure category can only care for three infants means some day cares may not be able to make ends meet caring for so few children. "If you're going to do this and this is going to be your income and how you pay bills, you need to have 3- and 4-year-olds as well. If they're in preschool all day and they don't need day care, well, they're not going to day care then, they're at school," she says. "The more I see that happening, the more I think providers will not be able to continue because they just can't afford it."

Cunningham was approached to start a day care center, but she said she loves family care too much, where older and younger children can be together and learn from each other. "I've had families that I've cared for, starting from the first one to the last one, it's been 13-15 years by the time the youngest one no longer needs day care," she says. "So I've had amazing relationships with families, I've been there with them for 15 years."

She's even caring for some children whose parents she used to care for. "It's almost like grandkids," she says. "To me, there's no greater honor than being asked, when they grew up in my day care, to be asked to take care of their children."

___

Visit the Fergus Falls Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, Minn.) at www.fergusfallsjournal.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.