I recently put my daughter in daycare. I didn’t want to do it, but being that I’m a single parent, I don’t have much of a choice.
After dubious research, I found a daycare center that seemed like a good fit. It was run by a girl named Wendy and seemed fairly popular in the neighborhood, as there were a number of kids there when I went to investigate. One of the things I particularly liked about it was the fact that they had security cameras set up around the center so that parents can get access to them and check on their kids.
It quickly became an obsession of mine. All the kids wore jackets that they daycare provided, because the air conditioner had been on the fritz so it was quite cold there, but it was easy to tell which little girl was mine. I loved being able to watch my daughter play with other kids as I worked and it gave me the peace of mind knowing that she was doing all right.
I couldn’t keep my eyes glued to the screen the entire time, but in passing I saw that she had made a friend she played with almost every day, and even had a favorite toy. It was a little medicine ball that she and her friend would toss back and forth. They played with it every day.
After about a week, things seemed to be going quite well. My little girl had started really grasping potty-training and was more well-behaved than I’d ever known her to be. Needless to say, I was impressed with the daycare.
That was when she started singing the song.
She hummed it at first, and when I asked her what it was, she told me it was a song they taught her at daycare. Eventually she learned all the words and began to sing.
We eat their teeth
And eat their bones
And slit their throats inside their homes
We sing this song
And when we’re done
We’ll go to hell and have more fun.
She sang it all the time, no matter how many times I had to ask her to stop. It made my skin crawl. Why would they teach a song like that to children?
The next day, with the song stuck in my head, I resolved to call Wendy. I wanted to tell her that I disapproved of that song and I didn’t want that or anything else like it taught to my daughter. If it continued, I would be forced to find a new daycare.
As I watched the children play on my computer screen, my little girl playing with the ball like she always did, I picked up my phone and called the daycare.
When Wendy answered, I told her about my concern. She was incredibly polite about it and said that one of the other children had been going around singing it – she said she thought it was from a movie or something - but she was working on putting a stop to it because that song was definitely not for children. She said it disturbed her just as much as it did me.
I’d been pacing around my office as I spoke to her, and just as we were saying goodbye, I looked back down at the screen and noticed something peculiar.
The Wendy on the screen was not on the phone, but was helping a child with his juice box.
She said goodbye and hung up the phone, and I watched the cameras, not reciprocating her farewell, but transfixed on the screen in front of me. I stared at my daughter and her playing with her ball and tried to think of how many time’s I’d seen her drop it as they tossed it back and forth. I didn’t think I’d seen that happen very much.
And the kid in the corner was always in the corner, working on the same puzzle. How long had he been working on that puzzle?
That’s when I began to suspect that instead of watching a live feed, I’d been watching a recording.