Didn’t get a kindergarten place

– Dit felt hopeless. We didn’t know what to do, or how the situation would turn out.

Annichen Larsen (29) talks about when the paternity leave was coming to an end in November last year, and they still didn’t have a nursery place for their son, Noel (1).

He was born on 2 December 2022, i.e. 46 hours after the “deadline.”

Because according to the current rules, the right to a kindergarten place applies “for children who turn one year old no later than the end of November of the year in which an application is made for a kindergarten place.”

– If he had come to the term on 26 November, this would never have been a problem, she says.

Moss Avis mentioned the case first.

– Underlying uncertainty

They were both going back to full time work.

Annichen as an architect in Moss municipality’s planning department, while the children’s father commuted daily to Oslo.

– I thought that this was not going to work, and that we would be in debt, says Annichen.

They made the loan interest-free, and called around to family and friends to hear what they could contribute.

Since November, they have been helped by ten different babysitters. Five of them are permanent family members, and they look after their son 3.5 days a week. The rest they solve with neighbours, friends and mothers of friends. On the days we don’t have anyone, we are both in the home office, have meetings online, and work in the evening after our son’s bedtime.

– The underlying uncertainty is exhausting. Especially the days I get up in the morning without having a passport for my kid, and the evenings spent calling around for childcare. It’s quite humiliating.

Some days it works, other days it doesn’t.

– Like next Friday, for example, then we don’t have a babysitter, and have to see if we can solve it by working half a day each.

Waiting lists

Ellen Pedersen, nursery unit manager in Moss municipality says that the municipality has sufficient capacity to fulfill the law’s provision on the right to a nursery place.

But confirms that they have waiting lists for children who are not entitled to a place.

– How many people do not get a kindergarten place the year they turn one?

– It is a bit varied, up to and including 2021, Moss municipality had good capacity overall, and excess capacity in certain reception zones. In 2023, the figure was 67 children under the age of three, born between December 2022 and July 2023.

Pedersen says that the municipality is working on cases about nursery capacity that will be discussed politically in April.

– When it comes to children without the right to a place, it is the Storting that adopts the laws that set the framework for childcare provision in the municipalities.

– The least I could do

The application deadline for applying for a nursery place in the municipality expired on 1 March. And a couple of days ago, Annichen found out that her son will get a place in the kindergarten they had as their first choice from August this year.

– It would just be missing, I thought. And I look forward to knowing that I can go to work every day and pay off the loan.

The 29-year-old believes that the current system of kindergarten enrollment will lead to more women going on unpaid leave at home.

– I question the equality in this. It is natural that the parent who earns the least stays at home. On average, this applies to most women.

She believes that the current arrangement is not fortunate, but understands that there are many considerations that must be taken into account in order to find another solution.

– But I think that a solution must be found so that the family does not have to be left in a financially uncertain situation. It is not just about taking unpaid leave to stay at home. The cash support you receive does not cover that wage loss. Next time we will plan so that the child is born at the “right” time of the year to get a nursery place.