I was at a work meeting today and a colleague was expressing her relief that she had a new au pair. Mothers with children have this, times of stability and then chaos until they get back to feeling secure again about the care of their children. I am thinking about this, because our care system here seems to be breaking up – one of the Polish carers has got another job, one of the Haringey carers is retiring, Daisy: this is her last evening as I have suddenly found out and she is with Anna now as I write this. She has been so good in a grandmotherly way, so solid, and for a long time now for five nights a week she has helped Anna to bed and sat looking over her until she has gone to sleep. And she has allowed me a half hour of calm.
The local authority system takes no account of relationships. It has not been important to anyone to tell us that Daisy is leaving this week or who will take her place. She has not been able to talk with her manager. She has been told simply to hand in the keys that she holds for clients – after 22 years of service. The wish to impose indiscriminate care giving is a management wish for control that denies the need for relationship - Isabel Menzies was working on this forty years ago, and it goes on now, with undiminished strength. It makes me sick.