Creepy Old Man Child Care

I'm working on a conference that is happening this summer in July. It's the Lutherans Concerned Assembly. You can see details of the conference here. Yes, I think you should go, but that's not what this post is about.

I was in San Francisco last weekend doing some planning for the conference. Several local churches have decided that they want to hold a Vacation Bible School that happens at the same time as the conference. This would be hosted by one church, but just about any church in the Bay Area could send their kids. Parents who came to the Assembly could also send their kids to the VBS. It's like day care for 5-15 year olds!

I think this is an excellent idea, and I'm very supportive of them. However, we did have some further conversation about what services we should provide for children under the age of 5.

Keep in mind that offering services and programming for children is something that we haven't done yet. I think in the past, we've just assumed that GLBT people don't have kids. Well, they do. And we are also inviting any straight allies to the assembly who may also have kids (that was a subtle, but direct, invitation for you people who are trying to opt out because you are straight).

Anyway, some of the questions that arose had to do with where we could keep kids during the day. Another major issue is who should provide the service. Should they be licensed? Should we just get a babysitter-type person? How many people will we need? These questions never got resolved when I departed San Francisco.

On the plane ride home, I decided that I should write some text for the assembly web site that talks about children, youth, and families. When I got to the section about child care for children under the age of 5, I had a hard time finishing the sentence "Children will be cared for during specific hours by...". I didn't know what I could say. So, I wrote a note to myself in the document, in all caps (so I could remember that I needed to fix that) and landed in Minneapolis.

The next day, I forgot about that paragraph and sent it off to the webmaster. When he informed me that he had updated the web site, I went to check it out. There it was, my note to myself out there for the whole world to see. The sentence actually read, "Children will be cared for during specific hours by SOME CREEPY OLD GUY."

Needless to say, this was not the message I wanted to be sending. I sent an email to the webmaster, and then called him right away. I apologized for the mistake and asked him to take it down...RIGHT AWAY. He commented that he thought that sentence was a little strange (especially since I had put my note in all caps), but he just assumed that it was the name of a child care company.

I'm now envisioning Creepy Old Man Day Care. As you can see, I got the language fixed to something a little more positive. Let's just say that I need a review panel before I publish things.