the working mom thing

So, being a working mom leads to a different kind of soul searching than a mom who stays at home with her child. Both moms have to make very serious decisions for and on behalf of their child. I'm sure both are difficult and neither side has it any easier than the other.

This is what I'm currently dealing with....

Cha has been at the same daycare since she was nine weeks old. With very few exceptions the teachers and students have all been the same. There are several children that Cha has been with nearly every day since she was an infant. They act like siblings, which helps me feel better since Cha will be my one and only. It's been a real joy for me to watch these darling children grow and see the kind of people they are becoming.

I have watched one of her classmates closely since day one. He was eight months old when I first laid eyes on him but even back then I had a feel that he was bad news. I hate to label a child, but he put off this 'bad egg' vibe from a very early age. I was relieved when he was eventually moved into an older class and no longer with Cha every day. Fortunately this six month age gap kept him in different classes so she didn't have to deal with him every day. Well that all changed six months ago when Cha graduated to the 3 year old room.

For the past six months I've been hearing Cha talk about how this boy hits, kicks, bites and pushes her friends. I've witnesses it many times and have spoken to him in the same way I would hope friends would speak to Cha if they saw her behave poorly. This boy has run up to me many times at the end of the day to admit his bad deeds.

'I pushed Cha on the ground and made her bleed. Miss MJ put me in time out.'

He also has the habit of running up and trying to tackle or um, fondle other parents. I remarked to some friends one afternoon that this boy runs up to me and tries to grab my breasts with both hands. A week later another mom admitted that he did the same thing to her, only he had the nerve to actually go under the shirt! I'm telling you, this boy gives off a bad egg vibe.

I got a note from school recently that they are making some changes to the three year old room. It seems every year around the time the classes get super crowded. Starting next week there will be way too many three year olds for one room to handle, so they're splitting them into two smaller rooms. I'm sure you can imagine how many fingers I had crossed hoping that bad egg boy would be in a different class than Cha. I even spoke to the director several times about my preference.

When the class list came out and I saw that they were in the same room I was totally bummed. I tried to think positive. The boy was six months older so he should be moving up to the four year old room soon, right? And Cha was one of the biggest kids in class. She handles this boy better than most because she can hold her own. She's survived six months with this boy already, what's another month.

Well, I spoke to the director again today and found some troubling news. Thanks to 'developmental delays', bad egg kid won't be transitioning up to the four year old class until September, which is exactly when Cha will be moving. So not only will she be subjected to his bad behavior for another six months, but she'll continue to be in class until she graduates from this school. Grrr.

Part of me thinks that it's a good thing that she's learning to deal with difficult personalites at such an early age. This experience will better prepare her for public school and all the characters she'll meet. Another part of me wants to demand that the bad egg be removed from school and stop bullying my child. The directors have received many complaints about this child and his older sibling who is currently in the four year old room. I was told that one of the reasons they want to hold the boy back is because his sibling is just as bad and the teacher doesn't think she can handle the two of them together. Ugh!

So today I'm wondering if I should be looking at other options. Is this that much of a problem that I will take my child out of a school that I really like? I'm very unhappy that Cha will be spending every day with this boy. She's learned words and phrases that I am uncomfortable with and as she and the boy get older it's bound to get worse. She comes home with scratches, bruises, scrapes and stories of hurt feelings. Overall, she's happy when I drop her off and pick her up from school. She rarely complains about going to school and she talks about her teachers and her friends all the time.

Am I fooling myself or doing her a disservice by keeping her there? Am I making a molehill out of a mountain due to working mom's guilt? I know it's impossible to know, but how would a stay at home mom handle this situation?

Just curious.