A « parental crèche » in France is a day nursery organised by an association of parents. They hire child care professionals to look after their children and they participate actively in the day-to-day running of the crèche. All decisions are being discussed in meetings between the parents and the professionals. This concept of child care started in the 70’s and is becoming very popular due to the lack of space in the municipal care centres.
The parental crèche is an “ideal” version of a day nursery, with only few children in comfortable and familiar surroundings, but it leads to its own set of problems: the parents run a small enterprise and need to take into account the views of the team of educators who are professionals, but not decision-makers.
The crèche in our docu-soap has been set up by a young mother in Paris, because she could not find a place in the state crèche for her son. The recent set-up of the centre with 14 children allows us to follow their growing pains and their development. Each episode deals with a particular problem and demonstrates that a healthy balance needs to be found for the benefit of the children.