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| Carnations seem to be the official flower of Parents' Day. |
Here's the back of the card:
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| "Mom, Dad, I love you" |
Unlike Children's Day, school is open on Parents' Day but Tek happened to skip that day because we took a road trip. (More on the road trip later.) They seem to be very good at observing holidays at the day care.
How many public holidays (mandating the closing of schools) have you experienced so far?
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ReplyDeleteThere have only been four "red days" so far - three in a row for Lunar New Year, and Children's Day on May 5. Another red day is coming up on May 25 for Buddha's birthday. May 1 was not a "red day", but because day care workers count as laborers (we were told in the letter sent home), that was also a day off.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't had too many school closings so far, but they seem to come in clumps. May seems to have a lot of holidays. And back in February, the week after Lunar New Year, the daycare asked families who were able to take care of their kids at home to please do so for a few days as the teachers prepared for the new school year starting March 1. It seemed weird to us, but it turns out only some of families treat the school as day care, a place to send kids because both parents work. Many treat it as preschool -- early childhood education plus a break for the stay-at-home caregiver.
When Ethan used to be in after-school care at a school-age daycare in the Netherlands, I would occasionally get a phone call coming up on a holiday that they were technically open for to ask if he was going to be there on his regularly scheduled days, because he was the only kid who was going to be coming in, and if I didn't want to bring him, they would close for that day. That was for parents where both have jobs, but with more vacation days or flexibility than is typical in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteDid you feel some pressure to not bring him in in order to let the school close? I'd have a hard time with that. I felt sorry about taking our boy to school on those end-of-year days but it was too hard to miss more work after the 3-day-holiday the previous week.
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