地道美语听力练习:Getting Childcare

地道美语听力播客English as a Second Language Podcast (ESLPod)，是一家位于美国加州洛杉矶的英语教育研究机构推出的英文听力会话，于2005年7月23日首播， 主播Dr. Jeff McQuillan为南加州大学的语言学博士， 现专注于外国语学生的英语学习研究。该播客在iTunes store播客的教育子分类中，与Grammar Girl Just Vocabulary常居前三甲.

My friend Susan is an engineer and she's also a single mom. She has been working some odd hours lately and was having a tough time finding childcare for her 4-year-old daughter and her 8-year-old son.

Her daughter, Kimberly, is enrolled in a preschool and Susan is able to drop her off on her way to work. But, the preschool closes as 6:00 p.m. and sometimes Susan can't get there in time to pick her up.

Her son, Paul, is in the second grade and goes to a public school near their house. Paul gets out of school at 3 p.m. but Susan never gets off work before 6:00 p.m., and sometimes later.

So, what can she do with the kids after school? I went with Susan to check out a latchkey program at the local community center. It seemed like a good idea. Paul would be picked up from his school and he could stay at the center to do his homework and to play in the center until as late as 7 p.m. The tuition was fairly low and there was rolling admission. The trouble was, there was very little supervision of the kids and the staff seemed inexperienced.

Now, Susan is considering hiring a nanny . The nanny would pick both kids up from their schools and bring them home. The nanny could make dinner for them and stay with them until she got home. This would be ideal, but a good nanny is hard to come by and is very expensive to hire, even the ones who don't live in.

I don't envy Susan. Single moms‚ and dads‚ have it tough.

Script by Dr. Lucy Tse