An eventful day

Today was a very eventful day for us: Today was my first day at Pardes, and we gave notice that we are pulling Miriam out of her current day care at Gan Gabby's.

We finally decided last night that we were fed up with the money games played by the director of Miriam's daycare and gave our notice.

My day at Pardes was very uneventful. We did a lot introductions and I spent most of the day talking to people about where they were from and what they did before coming here. There was one lesson which was a lecture about a small piece of Torah, but other than that, most of the day was spent with pretty standard administration and orientation stuff. Though, one of my big fears was that I was going to be oldest people there and it was clear that there was a wide variety of ages. The people were very interesting and I think it's going to be a good year.

As for our other main event today: we told Miriam's provider that we will be pulling Miriam out right before the Sukkot vacation (Sept 22nd). Why is this?

1. We knew very quickly back in June that the director wasn't always level with us. She tells us one thing then another contradictory thing about the Gan: she's open in August, she's not open in August. Or, you must pay by check, and I'd actually rather have cash.

2. Additionally, she manipulates information and people to get her way. Well, not really her way, but, well, for the money. We firmly believe she will tell us anything we want to hear, but not always the truth. In talking between ourselves today, Debra and I realized that we both think Gaby feeds Miriam meat and doesn't tell us, which is why she has had such an upset stomach. She really "sold" me the Gan when I visited back in March, and was warm and welcome our first two weeks here. Quickly after that, both Debra and I realized that she is a good salesperson.

We figured that if Miriam was happy, which she seemed to be, and we knew what we were dealing with, it would be ok. But it wasn't. However, it has been harder to come to a final decision on this than we expected.

We have struggled with the fact that we are frustrated with Gaby, but when we have tried to rationally describe why, we weren't able to clearly describe what was going on. Everything that bothered us would be "just this one little thing that seems wrong" to us. She was very good at making things only slightly wrong, so it was hard to pin down why it wasn't right. It's what kept us there for so long, but after having the same feelings for two months now, we decided to go with our gut. I'll try to tell the story to give you an idea of our frustrations, but I'm not sure I can capture it:

I think the first major money issue we had with her was over the August vacation. In Israel, it's normal for all the daycares to close during the month of August. I think the entire country goes on vacation then, and most parents take their kids with them. It's also normal for parents to pay a full fee for the month of August so the day care providers can have some paid vacation. This is generally done in two ways: either you pay a little more each month for August or you pay for August and expect that you won't get care. This is notably different from the United States so basically I didn't know any of this.

When I met with her when we first got here, she told me the daycare was open all summer, and we didn't need to find a place for Miriam in August. And, if there was room, Silvia could join her there for the month. So we started daycare in the June and then paid for all of July and then August. We pay her 1800 shekels -- about $400-- ON August 1st, for daycare for all of August. However... on August 5th, she then asks us if we are going to do the summer Kitannah (summer camp) at the daycare? She then tells us that her daycare ends on the 7th, but after that we have to pay an additional 1500 shekels for the rest of the month. But I tell her we already paid. But that was for the day care, not for the summer camp, she says. What are you talking about? I said. It was in the contract you signed, she said.

Well, I did sign a contract, entirely in Hebrew, which she verbally told me included daycare through August. Well, she says, it was in the agreement, maybe you didn't understand it, do you want me to show you where? There was not a tiny bit of budge in her or any apology or any recognition that maybe she mislead me, or any apology that I had misunderstood. Or, any recognition that this was crazy to pay for August when we had only been here one month and didn't really owe the teachers a year's worth of vacation. Finally, when Debra told her we didn't have the money, she told us we could get the equivalent of a hardship discount on the summer camp portion, which we ended up doing.

Secondly, she MOVED the Gan without telling us. All we knew was that one Sunday, we were to meet in the park at the beginning of the day instead of the Gan. Miriam was sick that day so the next day, we bring her to the Gan and...no one is there. No sign on the door either. Well, it turns out she was doing repairs to the Gan during the break, and it moved to her house. So that day, I ended up taking Miriam and Silvia to the zoo, instead of taking Silvia to the pool as I'd promised her. I was so sick of Gaby, I didn't even call her to find out what was going on. I just assumed it was closed for some unknown reason and changed my entire day to now deal with two kids instead of one.

Thirdly, she triangulates all the time. She had one of her assistants call us last night to ask us to make out the September check to her, and not to Gan Gaby. What?? So, of course, Debra calls Gaby and leaves a message asking about this. Gaby doesn't call us back until 8:40 this morning, after we've left for her day care, and the message is that this is how she is going to pay the assistant this month. She often will tell the assistant to give us messages about money matters that were contentious.

Lastly, she operates as if she just doesn't trust us. She doesn't know us, fine, but she approaches the whole relationship with mistrust and fear, instead of trust. The first month when we didn't have a checking account and the ATM wouldn't give us enough money per day to pay her in full, we gave her 2/3 one day and said we'd give her the rest the next day. She sent her daughter to our house the next morning for the money.

When the daycare assistant called us last night to tell us that "Gaby told her to tell us to write the check to her" ...Debra had had enough.

I called our friend Timna and asked after her friend who just started a preschool. Sure enough, we called her friend Ofra, who has room for Miriam. Debra visited it this morning, and it seems like a lovely place. Debra felt that Ofra has great "earth mother" energy, as she was described by Timna.
(Yeah for Timna!)

As far as mistakes go, it was not such a terrible mistake. Miriam was relatively happy (we never felt that Miriam was absolutely grooving with the Gan, but she was happy with it.) It will cost us a little money to get out of Gaby's, but it will be worth it. We should learn to trust our instincts.

Let Miriam's new daycare begin!

-post written by Aaron and Debra-