Kim McLean, a UTSC alum who served as the university’s Chief Administrative Officer from 1999-2012, here discusses the N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre, which is located right on campus, and explains how big of a support the Centre was for her as a young working mother.
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The N’sheemaehn Childcare Centre, I sat on the board there for a while. I was quite involved when my children were there. We actually donated money to create a second playground that’s at the child care. It is a wonderful, wonderful facility, and it’s small.
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It had, at the time, it had about 54 children in it and it was just, at first, when I had my children there,
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I was still working in planning and budget downtown, but for the latter part of my youngest son and my elder son I think was there just a couple of years, I was at UTSC
0:40
and it was just a fabulous resource to have as a working mother. To, you know, you don’t want to have daycare where it’s adding another hour to your day by the time you get home, so it was great.
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I could go over at lunch and watch them play or I could interact with them at the centre. And it was just a, it’s a really well run daycare. I have to say that it gave me great confidence in working
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because I felt my children were well taken care of and were learning all the right things. There are some things I think the daycare did better than I could have done. And my children to this day know how to use their words
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when they’re talking to me about, you know… And it’s really interesting to see how much impact that childcare has had on the way they are as individuals.
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I also think the childcare centre was amazing to me because there were things they would do. They would celebrate all the different holidays
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and things like that. So my children grew up in an environment where they experienced other children
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and their cultures in a very different way. And I think it has made them very accepting of many things and open minded.
