"The real nightmare," she recalls, "was the lack of adequate child care. As a staff nurse, I had very little control over my schedule, and finding people to watch my kids was nearly impossible." Eventually worn out by the problem, she switched to privateduty nursing. In making the shift, Evans lost her insurance coverage, her paid vacation and her seniority, and she's not happy about it. But she's convinced she made the right decision: "I've gained my freedom to stay home when my kids are sick, or simply to have breakfast with them in the morning." When it comes to finding child care services, nurses have more problems than most working parents. Few child care programs are set up for parents who are frequently called upon to work evening or night shifts or who are routinely expected to be on duty at least some weekends, nights, and holidays. That nurses reduce their work loads, or stop working altogether while their children are young, is more than a vague suspicion. It is a fact borne out by recent studies that have tried to determine why nearly 400,000 of the 1.7 million nurses licensed to work in the U.S. are not