Family care
By Jeyling Chou
Oct. 10, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Ask 4-year-old Adam Bustamante what college he wants to go to
and he’ll say UCLA.
“I’m telling him to say “˜Harvard’
now,” his mom, Misti Bustamante, says with a laugh.
Then ask Adam, who is not your typical preschooler, about the
mohawk he sports. Bustamante admits the ‘do was initially her
idea, and now he won’t let her get rid of it.
During the week, the time that mother, son and mohawk can spend
together are limited to a few evening hours. Monday through Friday,
Bustamante picks up her son from the UCLA Early Care and Education
center at Bellagio around 5 p.m.
The pair are self-admitted film nuts and enjoy watching movies
together at home. Recently, they spent three consecutive nights
watching the “Star Wars” trilogy. Adam’s current
favorite is “Spiderman.”
At the age of four, Adam’s knowledge of summer
blockbusters could likely rival that of any movie-loving college
student ““ including his mom.
Bustamante was a single mother at age 18. She hasn’t seen
Adam’s father since she left him after he was born. She is
also starting her third year as a graduate student in the UCLA
Teaching Education Program.
“I am the typical age of a college student, but my
responsibilities are a lot different,” she said. “I
have someone I’m more accountable to.”
And though Bustamante makes jokes about Harvard, Adam spends his
daytime hours in a facility that can be considered among the Ivy
League of day care in terms of the difficulty of admission.
UCLA’s Early Care and Education operates three centers,
and there are currently almost 700 families on the waiting list.
The centers serve only UCLA faculty, staff and students, taking
care of the children while their parents conduct research and take
midterms.
“You can’t really beat it for convenience,”
said the care center’s resource program coordinator, Judy
Bencivengo. “People drive to the UCLA campus from far away,
and they want to have their baby physically close to
them.”
For many busy UCLA families, child care becomes a concern as
soon as the pregnancy is known. Those fortunate and patient enough
to be admitted into the ECE centers are saved from the excruciating
search for child care that is close by.
Bustamante is able to enroll Adam at the center free of charge,
due to grants from the state Department of Education. She knows she
is one of the lucky ones.
“It’s nice that the child care is here, but
it’s not available to everyone,” she said. “It
helps me, but it doesn’t help a lot of people.”
At 22, Bustamante is the youngest parent at the Bellagio Center,
but she has met many student-parents who have had to look to other
child care options.
“We’re a rare breed at UCLA,” she said.
“We’re very underrepresented, and the university
doesn’t take us into account.”
Simple things, like guaranteed parking, could make it easier for
UCLA students with children, she said.
Juggling the enormous duties of being both a student and a
parent, Bustamante says it would be impossible for her to hold a
job. She spends her days on campus studying so that she can spend
the nights and weekends with her son.
Bustamante lives in the University Apartments, and the financial
aid she receives is not nearly enough to cover the rent. It is a
constant struggle to make ends meet.
Bencivengo holds a monthly workshop on child-care resources at
the Center for Women and Men. The majority of parents who attend
the workshops must seek child care outside of those offered by
UCLA.
“The best child care goes to the most persistent
shoppers,” she said. “Most people enter into the search
with no idea about what to expect or what to ask. It’s
emotionally very wrenching to leave your baby no matter how
committed you are to your endeavors.”
A few parents with younger children are able to participate in
the UCLA Infant Development Program. The program has two centers,
one of them conveniently located within the central campus in Franz
Hall.
Closely affiliated with the psychology department, the child
developmental program bases the care it provides on the latest
research in child development theory. Faculty in the psychology
department also receive priority on the program’s long
waiting list.
“The first years are some of the most important in
determining how a child does later on,” said Angel Truong,
interim director of the program at Franz. “If they have a
strong start with us, they’re able to take on the next
challenge.”
All of the teachers in the developmental program are former UCLA
students who completed the applied psychology minor, which focuses
on the development of infants and children.
The program is much smaller than ECE and provides care for less
than a dozen children at each location. The small group sizes allow
for individualized and customized care. Under the watchful eye of
the teaching staff, children are given time for uninterrupted play
in a fenced playground outside, or indoors with toys that encourage
sensory and cognitive exploration.
The Infant Development Program also serves as a teaching and
research facility for the psychology department. The center in
Franz features an observation room with a one-way mirror through
which the program’s teachers as well as psychology students
can observe the children at play.
“You really have to be in the zone with the child,”
Shabazian said. “The focus here is supporting development and
not providing it ““ seeing them as competent and not
helpless.”
Though there are no one-way mirrors at the three early care
educational sites, Adam’s teachers employ many of the same
principles of child development by encouraging natural childhood
curiosity to develop into a lifelong enthusiasm for learning.
“As far as learning every letter of the alphabet, we try
to intrigue them so it doesn’t feel like a chore,” said
Gay MacDonald, the program’s executive director. “I
don’t know how many levels of education have people that
excited that consistently.”
A chef prepares the children’s meals and snacks at the
centers. MacDonald reveals that their favorite dish, believe it or
not, is broccoli.
“I know he’s having more fun there than if I were a
stay-at-home mom,” Bustamante said.
While Bustamante has now grown accustomed to a life that
doesn’t involve much staying at home at all, the decision to
have Adam at such a young age turned her world around.
“Everybody told me to have an abortion and I just
didn’t,” she said. “I had the whole world telling
me to do something, and I was by myself doing something else.
“I credit that choice with what got me here,” she
said. “If I didn’t have him I would have goofed off a
lot more.”
She is the first in her family to attend a four-year
institution, let alone go to graduate school.
The elements of her personality that allowed her to stick with
her decisions at age 17 have continued to carry Bustamante through
her current everyday obstacles.
“I just deal with stuff. I’ve learned to really
schedule my time,” she said. “I’ve learned to
make that giant pot of spaghetti that will last for a week so the
money will stretch.”
As a young mom, Bustamante feels her parenting principles
probably stray slightly from traditional, but not without reason
and the best of intentions.
“I let him voice himself more,” she said. “I
really want him to grow up feeling he has a voice in life and being
active about the things he’s passionate about. He probably
gets away with a lot more ““ he’s four and he has a
mohawk, for crying out loud.”
Bustamante admits that Adam is sometimes difficult to handle,
and she wonders if it is due to the lack of a father figure.
“Having him has made me a lot more picky in the men
department,” she said. “I think I have too much baggage
for men in their twenties to handle, and I don’t blame Adam
for that because that’s me.”
But in the meantime, Adam has his mom, his teachers and friends
at his day care, and Spiderman.
