Last fall my father asked me if I would like to study ski area nurseries and do a story about them. Well, he didn’t ask me, he told me I was going to and stuck me in a lot of nurseries throughout the winter. You see, I’m only four years old, so I don’t have lot of credentials or anything like that. But I am a good watcher and a good listener, and I know what I like when it comes to nurseries. This story is going to tell you what I want to see if I come to your area.
First of all, you have to have a nursery if mommies and daddies ski at your place. (Some of the friends I made this past winter told me they sometimes stay with grandmothers when their parents take short ski trips, but I’m not sure whether that meant that there was no nursery at the area or whether it was too much bother for a short trip.)
You know, after I learned how to open drawers, I pulled all the papers out of Daddy’s desk one day. He has lots of papers with numbers on them about ski areas. They say boys and girls ski until they get real old, like 21, and the boys and girls get married and then the boys become men and the girls disappear. Half of the boys still ski when they’re men, but the girls who disappear don’t come back again until they’re real old, like 35-40. Then they just sort of take it up again and don’t really ski like when they were girls. It seems to me ski areas should do everything they can to keep boys who become men and girls who disappear in the sport by providing nurseries.
O.K. So, if you decide to have a nursery, you have to decide who to let in. Some kids are too small and some kids are too big. I see some little babies come into the nursery and they are too small. They could get hurt realy easy, or pick up some germs, or just cry all day because every mommy has her own ideas and the nursery lady never knows whether to give the little baby milk, or water, or change her or what. Some babies are just too small. I think if you have lots of nursery ladies, it is okay to go in when you are six months big, but if it’s a real tiny operation, maybe two years old is a better starting point.
Kids can be too big, too. Around six or seven years old, kids can be real jerks. They think they’re too big to be playing on the floor with little kids. I think they ought to make this kind of kid wear skis and stand outdoors all day.
Some ski areas have nurseries which give ski lessons. These are best. All the big kids leave the nursery with a lady with a cap and jacket. At these areas, it works out pretty good when the big kids are in the nursery. They put on their outdoor clothes, they leave, then they come back and take off their outdoor clothes. The big kids don’t bother anybody; all they do is put on or take off their jackets, caps and mittens.
Remember, when you decide on the ages to let in, all kids aren’t the same. You have to have different kinds a things for different kinds of kids. In the table at the top of this page are some of my observations about what kids do.
| How Old | What They’re Like |
|---|---|
| 0-6 months | Just sleep or cry; have to watch and worry about them all the time. |
| 6-12 months | Can crawl around and get into things; stand up hanging on and start to walk. Eat baby food and like to sleep. |
| 12-18 months | Don’t play with anybody but themselves. Can walk and fall down and eat real food. |
| 18-36 months | Can communicate, but not reason. Become just like big people, competitive and possessive. |
| 3 yrs.-6 yrs. | Can realize danger; still like to play; go to bathroom by themselves. |
So now you have to have things for your nursery for the kids you plan to put into it. If you’re going to have little kids who eat baby food, you need heating appliances and electrical outlets as well as a sink. You have to have places to change these babies’ diapers and you have to have cribs so they can sleep. This stuff should be in a separate room from the crawl-around playroom. Did you ever try to sleep in the same room with seven kids hammering on a peg board?
It’s okay to have a tile or linoleum floor in the crib room, but I like to see carpets in the crawl-around room. Not those dumb shaggy things that get all clogged up with sandwich stuff and other things that kids clog things with, but solid broadloom weave carpets that are easy to clean. These carpets aren’t for looks, you know; it’s usually pretty cold crawling around on hardwood or tile floors, but more important, kids get bumps on their heads when they trip over toys.
Speaking about toys, it’s really pretty dumb to just dump all junk toys that nobody wants into a nursery. Daddies and mommies are always complaining that kids throw a ten-dollar toy on the floor and play with a hunk of nothing. The problem is kids want certain kinds of toys at certain ages.
Little babies want things they can feel and see move, different colors and textures and no edges to get cut on; bigger babies like nesting or building toys, like blocks; kids who can walk like pull toys and like to play with trains and cars; still bigger kids like sophisticated toys to play big world games, like doll houses and checkers. All these kinds of toys have to be able to be cleaned and washed because different people use them every day and they put germs on them.
Besides putting toys in the nursery for kids to play with, you have to put nursery ladies in the nursery to make sure the kids play with the toys. Some of my friends like Grammy types and others like Auntie types. I personally like the Auntie types who say they study people like me in school. These girls like their jobs; they are motivated and understand what kids want. I’ve been in some places where the women did their knitting and didn’t want any kids to cry or fight or anything. I want somebody to play with me and watch me when I do something; it doesn’t matter whether they are Grammies or Aunties as long as they like to work with kids.
Besides liking kids, nursery ladies should keep sick babies and other sick people out of the nursery. Little people get sick real easy. My mommy won’t let me go to a ski area when I have a cold, so I don’t think anybody should get into the nursery if they have a cold. It’s enough of a problem getting to know new kids and using other peoples’ toys every weekend without getting sick on top of it all.
There’s not much else that I can think of to say—I’ve only studied this thing for one season. Oh yes, what are the areas charging? It cost between 50¢ and 80¢ an hour to leave me in a nursery, but that’s pretty cheap because when Daddy goes skiing he likes to take Mommy and me along. Who knows, in a few years I may try it myself.
Kerry’s Suggested Reading List and Toy Company Recommendations
Books
- Beck, Joan. How to Raise a Brighter Child: The Case for Early Learning. Trident Press; New York, 1967.
- Fraiberg, Selma H. The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood. Charles Scribners and Sons. New York 1959.
- Spock, Benjamin. Baby and Child Care. Simon & Schuster, New York 1968.
- Lillard, Paula Polk. Montesorri: A Modern Approach. Schocken Books, New York 1972
Toys
- Childcraft Educational Corp.
P.O. Box 98
Bayonne, N.J. 07002 - Creative Playthings
Princeton, N.J. 08540 - Fisher-Price Toys
East Aurora, N.Y. 14052
Kerry’s Recommendations for People Who Run Ski Areas and Care About Little Kids
- If mommies and daddies can’t go to your place because there’s no place for little kids, then you ought to have a nursery.
- When you decide which sizes of kids you are going to put into the nursery, you have to design the place for those kinds of kids. Little kids need a place to sleep; big kids want to ski and middle-size kids want to play on a rug floor.
- Toys are special; they have to be washable and they have to be for certain ages. Big kids don’t want to play with blocks; babies don’t know what checkers are for.
- Nursery ladies have to like kids and want to play with us and watch us. Big girls who go to school to be nursery ladies are nice people.
- Keep sick people out of the nursery. When I get a cold I don’t go to the nursery; when I go to the nursery, I don’t want to get a cold.
What Kerry’s Dad Says
While nurseries can be an invaluable area attraction, each operator should check his state statutes and health regulations before embarking on such a service. Most states have strict rules about nurseries and day-care centers. These constraints often introduce economic considerations which may make the nursery a costly service to provide. For example, most states require emergency exits, separate rest room facilities for boys, girls and staff, hot meals and a registered nurse. Some call for one staff attendant for every five nursery children and many have square-footage-per-child requirements.
The intent of this legislation is to provide adequate safety for the children entrusted to nursery care. An area operator should not try to circumvent such regulations where it will impair the safety of the facility and expose the operator to charges of negligence. Often there are special circumstances, especially if the duration of the nursery visit is between two and four hours, where a variance from regulations would not diminish the safety of the operation. In every case, the operator should contact state officials and explain his circumstances. Frequently the state will relax its guidelines provided that the operation is not called a nursery or a day-care center nor advertised or openly promoted as such.—R. D. M.
