The Unbearable Lightness of Being an Early Childhood Educator in Day-Care Settings ^†

Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Escola Superior de Educação, Campus de Benfica do IPL, 1549-003 Lisboa, Portugal

CIIE—Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Educativas, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

In the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera explores the existential tension between weight and lightness, questioning whether life is better lived through fleeting, consequence-free choices—marked by lightness—or through decisions that carry meaning, responsibility, and a sense of rootedness—marked by weight. Early in the novel, Kundera draws on Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return to suggest that if our lives were to repeat endlessly, every action would acquire immense weight; yet, if lived only once, as if with no return, everything might feel light, and precisely for that reason, unbearable. When we transpose this reflection to the world of early childhood educators in day-care settings, a similar paradox becomes evident. The profession is often romanticised as a natural extension of feminine instinct or love for children, shrouded in an illusion of lightness—the lightness of spontaneous care, innate vocation, and silent devotion. Yet beneath this idealised image lies the concrete, symbolic, and political weight of a profession marked by emotional labour, high demands, and a constant struggle for legitimacy. Here, lightness does not mean a lack of gravity—it means its concealment. These educators carry the weight of demanding working conditions, with high child–adult ratios, scarce resources, long hours, and intense physical and emotional exhaustion; insufficient social recognition, reflected in low salaries, institutional invisibility, and discourses that dismiss their pedagogical knowledge; deep emotional impact, resulting from the tension between affective involvement and the need to maintain professional boundaries, between the care they offer and the care they are denied. Just as Kundera reveals that rootless lightness can become unbearable, so too does this study show that the idealised, simplified view of early childhood education contributes to the silencing of suffering, the trivialisation of ethical commitment, and the devaluation of the intellectual labour that unfolds in the day-care settings. To reclaim weight—in this context—is both a political and epistemological act: it is to recognise that caring for and educating young children demands not only the body and the heart, but also thought, time, networks, and recognition. It is to say, with Kundera, that what seems light may, in fact, be the hardest to bear, and that the dignity of this profession lies precisely in the courage to carry that weight, together.