Susan Burkey

Special to the Avis

  Almost everyone has been a volunteer at one time or another. Whether it's serving on the PTA, a church or youth group, it means giving time to a worthwhile cause. Some people volunteer hundreds of hours of time because they are committed to their church, PTA, Boy Scouts or hospital auxiliary.

Volunteer cottage parents at Queen Louise Home give away more than 6,000 of their time in a year. Twenty-four hours a day, five days a week for one year demonstrates a definite commitment.

Most cottage parents come to Queen Louise Home from the United States and are fresh out of college.

Bodil Due (Do-ay_) is not a typical cottage parent. She grew up on a farm in Denmark and has a few gray hairs. After 10th grade she left school and took a job as a maid/nanny and has worked with children ever since.

"I was very tired of school," she said. After a year, she went to work at a children's home, where she performed the duties of cook, gardener, as well as child care worker.

"I didn't mind because I was brought up to work hard," Due said. Then Due went to work in a kindergarten and despite the cigar smoking headmistress, decided working with toddlers was her vocation. Due returned to school for three years to become accredited as a kindergarten teacher.

In Denmark, according to Due, children between the ages of three and six are sent to kindergarten and grouped by age.

"Kindergarten, in Denmark, is based on children playing without adult intervention," Due said. Children learn to figure things out and deal with conflicts through play, she added. And, Kindergarten teachers encourage close friendships between children, she said.

Due compared the atmosphere at Queen Louise Home with that of a Danish kindergarten. Because the children who have lived at Queen Louise Home for some time have learned to interact with many different children, they're better prepared for school, according to Due. Since these children live in cottages, with as many as nine other children, they have to learn to get along.

After almost 20 years in education and being promoted to director of the kindergarten, Due decided she needed a change "because things became too easy." Over a period of two years she inquired about various volunteer jobs, until one day she saw a story in her local paper written by St. Croix resident Nina York about the children's Christmas seals program for Queen Louise Home.

"I knew this was it. The kids were the right age. I wanted another culture and history and this (St. Croix) is tied to Denmark."

After mailing the necessary forms and being notified of acceptance into the cottage parent program, Due arrived last May to begin her commitment at Queen Louise Home.

She said she knew there would be problems. However, the problems are different than she anticipated. She feels her experiences and her education have prepared her to better understand and relate to the children in her care at Queen Louise Home.

Due said her first challenge was to win the children's trust. This takes longer than with most children, because these children have had many different people caring for them--in their homes and at Queen Louise Home. Along with the role of being a parent, and an adult, she said it was important to show the children who is responsible at all times. This is difficult because some of the children at Queen Louise Home not only have been responsible for their siblings but, in some cases, their parents.

"It is also important that you are aware of you being the one who takes responsibility in all situations--also in order to establish a secure atmosphere, where the children know they can rely on you," Due said. Now, after 2 1/2 months, Due feels the children are beginning to trust her.

"They haven't accepted me as family, yet," she said.

In Due's cottage, the nine children range from 3 to 10 years old. Besides getting to know the children's personalities, it is necessary to learn their backgrounds, special health needs and developmental differences.

"You can't ask the same of the 3-year-old as the 10-year-old," Due said. A cottage parent's day begins at 6 a.m. with dressing, feeding and getting the children off to school. After the children leave, the cottage is picked up and the dishes washed. Child care workers arrive at 8 a.m. to help with the house work. The cottage parents have a 3-hour mid day break to write letters, shop or go to the beach.

After school, some of the children attend therapy, some have doctor's appointments and the rest play on the sprawling grounds behind the cottages. The cottage parents pick up and deliver the children with appointments while the day care workers attend to the children on the playground.

After dinner at 5 p.m. and the chores, (dish washing and sweeping), there's time for coloring, going to the park, watching a movie or the occasionally necessary "pajama ride" to calm over-tired children. Due said she plans to teach the children some Danish songs after she has translated them to English.

Due said she had anticipated the Queen Louise Home would be more angry and violent, considering their backgrounds of abuse and neglect. However, she said the children are generally happy, especially those who have been at the home a while. (Some of the children have lived at the Home 4 and 5 years

--all their lives.)

"They still have their individual problems. You do your best without being a therapist," she said.

Due said her favorite time of the day is the morning. "It can be real cozy if you let the children wake up slowly." Everyone is usually "in good spirits. The real conflict starts when everyone is tired," she said.

She knows she's not going to change the world or even the children at Queen Louise Home, "but to help as much as I can." She said she hopes to learn as much as she teaches. When Due returns to Denmark at the end of her contract, she will return to her position as director of the Trold Hoj kindergarten.

The director of Queen Louise Home, Masserae Sprauve-Webster said, "A cottage parent has to give, give and give some more. Bodil left her country to give to a community to which she has no ties. She is giving us the utmost."

DISCUSSION:

The above segment is presented primarily as a "wake-up call", lest we forget the growing problems of homelessness and abandonment of children. A useful exercise would be for students to attempt to list those customs and traditions inventoried in the Bennerson article that are likely to be missing in the life of the average Queen Louise child. The student might use specific concerns raised by Bodil to explain why those traditions listed are absent. Next, the class could brainstorm how the more useful of these traditions could be integrated more naturally into the program at the Home to reduce the level of social disadvantage faced by these children as they face the outside world.