The little nook that was installed as a quiet reading spot underneath the stairs is now occupied mostly by a red dog bed, and occasionally a dog. The industrial-size changing table is gone, and so are some of the toys.

Valentine closed her decades-old home child care business last August after she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. But her work in child care continues, and she was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association for Family Child Care.

Valentine’s parents bought a hotel in Lake Placid when she was 7, and they moved to the area. She attended Lake Placid Central Schools and started working at a child care center in the mid-1980s. Within a few years, she decided to start her own family day care out of her own home.

In Valentine’s day care, Tiny Tykes, kids learn through play, outside whenever possible and far away from screens — aside from a few special movie days, like watching the Polar Express before Christmas. Rob Seymour, whose two young kids attended her day care, said he was impressed with the feat of getting more than ten kids bundled up in their snow gear to play outside.

From her decades of experience, Valentine has refined her philosophy. She said family child care — officially licensed child care facilities that operate out of provider’s homes — offers an escape from a childhood that can often become “institutionalized” early on.

In a mixed age group, younger kids learn respect for the older ones, and older kids learn to be patient with babies getting in their way. The kids benefit from “continuity of care,” staying with one provider for years instead of getting siphoned off into classrooms and pre-K programs.

“Life is based on relationships, so (we’re) instilling the skills needed to carry on a good relationship,” Valentine said.

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Becoming family

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Seymour and his wife have lived in Lake Placid since 2010. When their oldest son was five months old, they looked for child care in the area. They compiled a list of things they wanted to see in a provider and made appointments to visit each option. “Joanie” was recommended to them by a childhood friend and she was the first provider they visited.

“We walked out of there, and my wife looked at me and said, ‘we can’t go anywhere else,'” he said.

Kim Moran has worked various retail and hospitality jobs, but has found herself returning to child care. She started her own home day care for five years when her kids were young, then worked for Valentine for eight years starting in the 1990s. After a hiatus, she returned to Valentine’s home around 2015 and retired a few months before Valentine’s diagnosis.

“I fell back into it like we had never been apart,” Moran said.

“It was like we picked up exactly where we left off,” Valentine added. The women often finish each other’s sentences, they say.

The two women have stayed close with many of their day care kids and their families. They still get invited to attend birthday parties and Thanksgiving dinners. And they’ve worked together long enough that they saw multiple generations of some families pass through their doors.

“You know you’re doing a good job when the kids that you had years ago bring their kids,” Valentine said. “When they’re like, ‘I want my kid to have the same experience.'”

Seymour said his kids loved the slip ‘n slide that Valentine would set up on special days on the slope in her backyard. She also had a garden, a mud kitchen and a huge Kune Kune pig from New Zealand named Milton. The kids were always coming home with crafts and gifts for their parents. But what he’s most grateful for is the fact that “Joanie” is like family to them.

“These kids got a lot of love, and when they’re that young and so in need of love and affection,” he said. “To know that they’re getting that all day, without us being there, is so important to us.”

This affection goes both ways. Although she is getting her cancer treated locally, her oncologist is in Boston, and over the past year she has made many trips there. During those visits, she stayed with the family of one of her day care students. She and her husband have only had to get one night at a hotel during her entire treatment.

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Passing it on

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In Lake Placid and around the country, the need for quality child care is immense, Valentine said. There are many reasons for this, but part of the problem is that child care workers are some of the most underpaid laborers in our society. For providers, there are also many hoops to jump through to adhere to regulations and obtain licenses.

Sarah Thompson, a local physician at Hudson Headwaters and another Tiny Tykes parent, described the child care situation in Lake Placid as “impossible.” She and her husband moved up here for their jobs, and Valentine’s day care is what made it possible for them to work after she gave birth to her first child.

“It was everything,” she said. “Knowing your child is in a safe place and well taken care of is everything as a new parent,” she said.

Part of Valentine’s focus now is to empower others to continue her life’s work. A lot of child care providers are reaching retirement age like her, so she’s looking for ways to educate and encourage other people to join the profession. This has mainly been through the Family Child Care Association of New York, where she is currently president.

The Family Child Care Association helps gather child care providers like Valentine, providing them with resources and community in a line of work that can often be isolating. The association is also working to address practical concerns that might stop people from pursuing this work — like forming a group for health insurance for home child care providers who are self-employed.

In a video presentation of the award, the National Association for Family Child Care executive director, Erica Phillips, recalled meeting Valentine for the first time and being stuck by her kindness and sincere commitment to her work.

“There was no pretense, just someone who had lived this work, believed deeply in it and carried both its challenges and its possibilities in her heart,” Phillips said.

This heart is evident when Valentine talks about her work and her day care kids. More than a year after her diagnosis and her decision to close her business, her eyes still swell with tears when she thinks about the kids who have played in her basement and the care she still wants to give.

“The hardest thing I ever did was close,” she said. “It was a career of the heart, and I loved all the kids that came through that door.”