Do you remember the mother-in-law who was secretly breastfeeding a baby behind its mother’s back? How about the daycare assistant who wrote on a baby’s stomach to shame their mother into sending a diaper?
Unfortunately, it seems there’s no shortage of questionable stories out there- and this one from Tucson, Arizona, is no exception. This story went viral several years ago and has since resurfaced online. It’s a reminder of the risks involved with childcare.
Alice Martin was the mother of a 15-month-old girl who was attending Tucson’s Creative Beginnings Preschool. One day after school in late February, Martin noticed her daughter was acting particularly fussy — and her maternal instinct kicked in.
Naturally, it was hard to decipher what exactly was causing discomfort.
That night, while Martin was changing her daughter, she was stunned to find her covered in red marks. Martin’s initial reaction was that it was “stomach-turning. It feels both angry and sad at the same time.”
“At first, I was like ‘are those really bite marks?’ And then, my brain kinda stopped thinking and I started crying,” she told KOLD News 13. “There’s over 25-plus, it’s hard to tell. 25 would be the minimum that the police officer and I discussed.”
Appalled, Martin reported this devastating and unacceptable event to the Tucson Police Department (TPD). The Crime Scene Unit photographed the infant girl’s bitten body.
Read: Single mother faces prison for letting her 14-year-old babysit
Daycare Case not closed…
A TPD officer, Raymond Smith, confirmed that the bites were likely from another child at the daycare. Ideally, the staff at Creative Beginnings should appropriately work with children who may bite others.
However, Martin and her husband are more astounded by “the fact that [Creative Beginnings] didn’t notify [her] when [she] picked her up.”
According to a woman who works at the North 1st Avenue preschool, Martin’s claims are unsubstantiated, but they wouldn’t share anything more.
KOLD News 13 received a statement from the Arizona Department of Health Services saying:
“The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) is investigating the incident at Creative Beginnings Daycare and working with law enforcement. The investigation is not completed and ADHS cannot comment on pending investigations.”
Sadly, more than two months have passed without repercussions and Martin believes it’s very unlikely that there will be any for the daycare.
You can see footage of Martin’s daughter and a brief interview in the video below.
Now that the story has gone public, other parents and educators may start questioning whether this is a regular occurrence. It’s especially alarming that the ADHS has reported Creative Beginnings Daycare as failing to:
- Properly sign children in and out
- Keep track of the correct number of children in a room
- Keep their diaper changing station up to regulations
“You always want to protect your children and I feel like that didn’t happen. I feel like I left her with someone that didn’t look out for her at all… The fact that nobody intervened in how many minutes, maybe they were left alone, maybe they just disregarded the cries, I don’t know. But it takes some time to do that kind of biting and my daughter would have been very upset.”
Since then, Creative Beginnings Daycare has also declined to comment to news outlets, such as KPNX, ABC, and Fox News.
If you or anyone you know has experienced something like this before, these 6 tips for choosing child care and avoiding bad experiences with caregivers should help:
- Check their policies
- Ask about commitment
- Look down and around
- Drop by and spy
- Talk away
- Trust your gut
Keep Reading: Signs of Anxiety in Children: Emotional, Behavioral, Physical, and How to Help
