Started calling preschools around Nizampet for next year. Four calls so far. Two of them opened with 'is the mother working?' before telling me a single thing about the school. I am the mother, I'm working, and I'm the one on the phone. My releases run late some weeks, so pickup arrangements matter to me, but nobody asked about those 😄 Is this just a script to check pickup, or should I read something into it?
when we were looking they asked me if the mother would handle the meetings. i'm the one who goes. it's a script, just a lazy one
Often it is a proxy for 'will someone be free at 12.30'. I would answer with the real arrangement: who picks up, who is the emergency contact, what happens on a late day. Then see whether they adjust. The schools that kept talking about mothers after that were the ones we crossed off.
Speaking from inside a school: the enquiry form usually has a line for parent availability and some front-office staff just ask it this way. Not great wording. What I'd listen for is whether they have a plan for working families at all: who can be a regular pickup person, how late they wait, how they reach you on a day you're stuck at work ♥
Ask them back what they'd do differently if the answer is yes. Their reply tells you more than the question did.
Keep going
More from the parents who were here.