Today is International Women’s Day, and I don’t think childminders shout about their brilliance nearly enough.
When we talk about women holding communities together, we rarely picture the woman in her living room who has already wiped three noses, negotiated a snack dispute and sent two funding emails before 10am. We tend to picture athletes, engineers, pioneers in their fields and rightly so. But the thing is: that is exactly what we are. Experts in our field, doing extraordinary things every single day as if it’s nothing, when actually it’s HUGE!
We wear all the hats.
Playworker.
Chef.
Cleaner.
Negotiator.
Receptionist.
Sales and marketing manager.
Email writer.
Organiser.
Planner.
Nutrition expert.
Designated Safeguarding Lead.
First aider.
And that’s before we even mention the growing-your-own projects, the make-it-yourself resources, the decluttering, the tidying, the craft making and the spontaneous song writing that somehow happens mid-morning. So much time, effort and love goes into what we do. People might see a pretty table, a thoughtfully set-up activity or a colourful plate of food. What they don’t see is the thinking behind it. The knowledge of which child loves dinosaurs, which one is obsessed with ducks and which one will only engage if there’s shredded paper involved. Suddenly you have Dinosaur World meeting Three Little Ducks on Paper Mountain and it works. That doesn’t happen by accident. It takes skill to weave children’s interests together, to choose stories that deepen learning, to spot the schemas in the play and to extend them naturally, all while counting, wiping noses, changing nappies and offering cuddles. It takes experience to do all of that seamlessly in a home-based setting where your workplace is also your living room.
One of the reasons I created Not Just a Childminder was because I wanted to celebrate and spotlight the women doing this work. Earlier today an article I wrote for Twinkl Childminders also went live celebrating the women who quietly lift and support our community. The idea for that piece actually grew from the nominations childminders shared for the magazine feature. If you’d like to read the Twinkl article, you can find it here. Inside the magazine itself there is also a feature highlighting just ten of more than fifty childminders who were nominated in a very small corner of the internet. That in itself says something. There are so many more of you quietly doing remarkable things that will never trend on Facebook because social media only ever shows a tiny snippet of what is actually happening. If you’d like to read the full feature celebrating these childminders, you can find it inside the magazine here.
Today feels like a good day to say it clearly.
You are brilliant.
You are skilled.
You are carrying far more than people realise.
And you deserve to shout about it.
So whether you share a win, tag a fellow childminder who inspires you or simply pause for a moment to acknowledge your own hard work, know this: you matter. Your colleagues matter. The work you do matters.
We are not “just” anything.
We are women who hold everything together.