Imagine bringing your toddler home from daycare only to find her shoes taped to her feet. Some moms might get a laugh out of it, knowing how hard it is to keep track of children’s accessories. Not Jessica Hayes.
Hayes’ daughter’s shoes were taped so tight that the child was left with swollen and bruised ankles.
The photos of the little girl’s feet are upsetting, but some parents are criticizing Hayes for making the incident public.
While Hayes has now made her Facebook page private, she originally posted photos along with a description of the incident. According to Cafe Mom, she said:
“Someone was clearly upset that she was learning to take her shoes off and done it [sic] out of being aggravated.
This was also not just her shoes being taped up it was around her ankle, my 17-month-old child was unable to say anything.”
While Hayes understood that tape is relatively harmless, it was the carelessness with which they applied it that she took issue with.
Of course, toddlers run around all day and the tape might have slipped, but one can easily make the argument that a daycare worker is paid to pay attention to these things.
It’s hard to think of a one-and-a-half-year-old being taped up by adults and unable to stop it from happening or to communicate whether or not it was uncomfortable.
Hayes expressed her frustration with the two daycare workers in charge of caring for her daughter:
“Yes it does hurt and break trust when you put that trust into two individuals who have been with my daughter since she was 6 weeks old, and come in to her shoes being taped on to her as well as her ankles. This was left on long enough and tight enough to leave marks, cause swelling, and bruise.”
Hayes’ daughter wasn’t the only child with her shoes taped to her feet. Megan Howard Cheek also chimed in on the original Facebook post to say that same thing had happened to her child at the Elkin, North Carolina daycare facility.
Luckily, Hayes and Cheek both received support from the director of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church Day Care, who fired the workers responsible.
Director Maehsell Marley told local news channel WXII that she was disturbed by the incident:
“Pleasant Hill Day Care in no way condones or allows any practice that would be harmful to a child. We have an outstanding group of caregivers who strive to meet the highest of expectations on a daily basis for the children in our care, and what occurred in the shoe-taping incident is not a representation of who we are.”
The center sent out a note to parents explaining the incident but maintained the privacy of everyone involved. Marley and Hayes viewed footage of the incident and Hayes agreed that appropriate action was taken by simply dismissing the employees involved. No charges were filed against them.
Hayes agreed that many of the workers at the center were outstanding, mentioning that the family had a long-standing connection to the church daycare.
“I sent my daughter to Pleasant Hill Day Care as I went there as a child and so did her father. This place helped raise both of us and most of the people are still there today. I appreciate all (the) staff (at) this day care.”
As a single mother with limited childcare options, Hayes had no choice but to send her daughter back the following day. While she was confident it would never happen again, she hoped to find a new facility in the near future because of the way she had been treated by other parents whose children attend the center.
“…as for all the stares and bad looks I get from the parents with my child beside me, how immature and disrespectful can you be?” she wrote.
While the daycare center is part of the local Baptist Church, Hayes said:
“My child and I have never felt so unwelcome by ‘Christian people’ and this will be the reason my child gets removed once the opportunity arises.”
Hayes did not apologize for posting the pictures or voicing her opinion on the staff members involved, especially since she stated it was an isolated incident.
She defended herself to parents who claimed that she had tarnished the reputation of the facility and pointed out that her actions raised awareness among the staff and ensured it would never happen again.
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