ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 10, 1996 TAG: 9601100144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BOSTON
SOURCE: JON MARCUS ASSOCIATED PRESS
AN AVALANCHE OF APPEALS from working moms and dads had child-tending services scrambling.
Mary Jane Pontes had spent two snow days at home with her kids, and she was already eager to get back to work - as a schoolteacher.
``Today I'm sort of wishing that I was spending my day with 22 kids in the classroom instead of my three,'' she said. ``Even they're saying they're sick of it.''
At least Pontes could watch over her own children without penalty. When the blizzard closed schools Monday and Tuesday from Virginia to Massachusetts, other parents had to make hard choices between going to work and staying home with their kids.
Many parents tried frantically to find a place to leave their children.
``We haven't had something like this in, I can't even remember when,'' said Marsha Cooper, managing director of Caregivers on Call, a New York-based emergency baby-sitting service that was flooded with appeals for help from parents - at a price of more than $85 a day for in-home baby-sitting.
Medical student John Langell, faced with such a problem, took his children, Michael, 9, and Ashley, 8, with him to the hospital where he works in Philadelphia.
``They've been having fun,'' said Langell, a former Southern Californian.
In the Washington area, many businesses and government offices still were closed Tuesday, and parents simply stayed home with their children. But Mothers' Aides Inc., a baby-sitting service in Fairfax, Va., said bookings are pouring in for the end of the week.
Experts said the scramble for child care during recent snowstorms pointed out clearly some of the trends of the '90s: more parents working, more single parents and more kids, thanks to a baby boomlet.
``There definitely are many more problems for families when schools close than there used to be,'' said Thomas Consolati, president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. ``Parents are caught between the problem of responsibility at work and responsibility at home.''
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: KRT. color.by CNB