Just the other day I bought a nice bottle of champagne to celebrate the biggest milestone in my life as a mother yet: my 19-month-old is finally going to Kita! I’ve waited for this moment for over half a year, while entertaining a toddler and working from home as a freelancer. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my child, but managing calls with my editor while he’s rhythmically banging a wooden toy against my head has been somewhat difficult.
Some parents decide to start an Elterninitiative, founding and running a Kita by themselves.
Everyone’s familiar with the horror stories around finding an apartment in Berlin, but only Berliners with children of a certain age have experienced the Herculean task of finding a Kita spot. A recent study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung revealed that German Kitas are about 384,000 spots short for 2023 – and over 17,000 of those daycare-lacking kiddos are registered in Berlin.
Not great prospects, especially for those who aren’t in on the unwritten rule to put your Nachwuchs on all the waiting lists while they’re practically still in utero – and god forbid you move to Berlin when your tot is already toddling. I thought I had plenty of time when I started to fill out application forms with my then 6-month-old, but boy, was I wrong! I was met with a sea of waiting lists and rejections.
The reason behind the missing Kita spots is not the lack of space, though – there seems to be a Kinderladen or Tagesmutter in every other ground floor corner apartment in the city – but that there aren’t enough educated nursery teachers to provide care for our little ones: according to the study, there are almost double the number of teachers there used to be, but since the number of brats is also significantly higher, the German capital alone would need more than 35,000 Erzieher*innen in order to fulfill the ‘four kids per teacher’ rule.
Why aren’t there more qualified teachers? The job simply isn’t attractive enough. The pay is grim (a Berlin Kita caretaker nets only €2100 a month on average), and opportunities to move up the ladder – or over a Pikler-triangle – are rare.
The government attempted to step in three years ago, developing the Kita Navigator online reservation portal in a bid to make sure every tot finds a spot. Each family is entitled to be on 10 waiting lists, and in theory a Kita will call you once a spot opens. In reality though, many of the institutions don’t use Navigator at all, preferring emails and phone calls from prospective families.
The German capital alone would need more than 35,000 Erzieher*innen in order to fulfill the ‘four kids per teacher’ rule
This leaves parents to come up with their own ways to navigate around the Navigator. Before Covid hit, families could simply show up, perhaps with treats in tow, and promise to be as involved as possible in Kita activities and to bring any unborn children to their institution, too.
Gone are the walk-in days, though. These days, you’ll have to rely on luck of the dial, crossing your fingers that you happen to call a Kita the moment there’s an opening for the age, gender and ethnicity of your child. And when there are simply no spots? Some parents decide to start an Elterninitiative, founding and running a Kita by themselves. There are advantages to this ploy, but there’s also a price: time, energy, and – perhaps most threatening of all – potentially annoying parents.
The verdict: our system is failing Berlin’s parents – especially ones who can’t afford to be on leave for longer than a year playing hide-and-seek with the local Kita class roster. But whatever your battle strategy, the good news is that successfully finding a Kita spot will only toughen your skin for level two: Grundschule. Prost!
Parent confessional: How I snagged my Kita spot
“We heard about this great bilingual Kita, so we just went round, dressed up a bit and talked about all the good we’re doing in the world, trying to sound potentially super useful for the Kita community. It worked! Both of my children now attend”.
– Holger, Mitte
“The Jugendamt offered us a Kita 40 minutes away that just wasn’t feasible. My husband was officially working and paying taxes abroad – in reality he travels back and forth – so I filed as a single parent working full-time and got an extended Gutschein. Suddenly the place across from us was happy to accept my daughter”.
– Sophie, Friedrichshain
“We’d burned through all of our savings when a friend told me it would be easier if we said we don’t speak German at home at all, even though we did. We changed our applications, saying that it was crucial for our kid to go to Kita because otherwise he won’t be able to integrate. Apparently, they take that rather seriously. We had a spot within a month.”
– Deb, Neukölln
