The Daycare of Grandmothers

I grew up in the soft perimeter of grandmothers — the ones who stepped in when my parents worked nights. Their houses all had a certain texture: thin curtains that let in the morning light, ceramic knick-knacks, the smell of old coffee, bowls of hard candy that tasted like perfume.

It wasn’t daycare. It was a network of women holding up the family. It was a generation doing unpaid labor long before I had words for it.

There’s a simplicity to those mornings that still lives in me: cereal in a plastic bowl, cartoons humming, the click of the heater. If my childhood has a color palette, it’s the muted tones of those kitchens — avocado green appliances, beige vinyl floors, the kind of homeliness that felt like safety.

I didn’t know then how much work it took to create that sense of ease. Now I do.