Up until a few months ago, the idea of being trapped in a room full of screaming children, many of whom appeared to be infected with some kind of plague, was reserved for my most vivid nightmares. You know the type I mean, the ones that feel so real you wake up and spend five minutes reminding yourself that everything is fine; it was just a bad dream.

But what happens when that dream becomes a terrifying reality, and you’re suddenly forced to confront your worst fears several times a week?

Leaving your screaming child with strangers might seem traumatic, but where else would they eat mushroom risotto and learn the ukulele? Credit: Marija Ercegovac

Earlier this year, my one-year-old started daycare, and now I regularly find myself trapped in a very real room full of actual screaming children, many of whom appeared to be infected with some kind of plague (almost always hand, foot and mouth).

Sending your child to daycare is a Big Parenting Milestone, and as such, other parents rejoice in sharing unsolicited and usually unhelpful advice. They’ll say things like, “Oh, he’ll be fine! Kids are so resilient,” while their resilient child has a mental breakdown because, I don’t know, their shoelaces are too tight, or their apple is the wrong shade of green.

At this point, I’ve become largely desensitised to the lies peddled by other parents, so instead, I focused on what mattered to me.

My main concern was the drop-off, having been warned that this was a traumatic exercise that involved two things I disliked: public crying and other people’s children.

The orientation pamphlet provided by the centre explained that “starting childcare is often more upsetting for parents than it is for your child.”

Immediately, I suspected this to be false; in the same way, I don’t believe that sharks are more scared of humans than we are of them or that the best way to handle a rampaging grizzly bear is to stand your ground. These are fine in theory, but when you’re facing an upset grizzly bear (or child), you only want to run.