Heather Armstrong (the author of Dooce) announced yesterday via her Twitter feed that she's been invited to attend The White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility.
I want to state up-front that I'm a big fan of Heather Armstrong, and a big fan of the current White House. (So much so that I'm strongly considering standing outside all night in the rain tonight to get tickets for the President's visit to Portland on Thursday.) In particular, I think her voice has done a lot to educate people about the need for healthcare reform in the US, not to mention how she's raised awareness of post-partum depression. However.... (you knew that was coming, right?)
But Heather Armstrong is also the object of envy of every working mother I know. She is one of the few people I can say honestly "has it all" -- she's doing something she loves and has become very famous for it. She and her husband both work from home, on whatever schedule works for their family. You could easily say that she, almost uniquely, has built a career for herself that is the ultimate in family flexibility. But her very unique set of circumstances are not, I think, replicable by a large number of people in the world.
One of the things that makes me proud to have the Obama family in a leadership position in this country is that they are a real, working family. I do strongly believe that they get it, that they do really think they "understand the challenges" of balancing work and parenting, to use the phrasing from their press release.
But, even before he went to the Senate, they were also highly-educated professionals in leadership careers, who had family and paid in-home caregivers available to them. I doubt Sasha and Malia were ever in daycare (although I don't know that for sure). I think its more likely that they were cared for in their own home, either by their Grandmother or by someone else (a nanny, perhaps) who became, more or less, a part of the family. I know they mean well. But the experience is so different for working mothers who are a bit farther down the pay scale.
The press release says they've invited "labor leaders, CEOs, small business owners, and policy experts" to this forum. I wonder if there will be actual working mothers there? Women who hand their child over to a facility at 7:45 am and pick them up at 5:45 pm, who work blue collar jobs, who work service jobs, the low-income women and families for whom workplace flexibility is most needed. There is a cynical voice in my mind who says that the mothers who most need to have a voice at this summit won't be able to attend, and will, in fact, not ever even realize that anyone was having the conversation.
Every morning, I send my son off to be raised by a woman whom I don't know well and who doesn't really share my personal values. And I count myself lucky, because she's warm and loving, because my son spends his days in a mostly unstructured way, because he gets to run in a pasture and play outside for hours ever day, and (to be frank) because she's very inexpensive. And then I go to work and spend a large part of the day watching other, more fortunate parents as they come into my workplace and share experiences with their own children.
I have to wonder if my voice and experience will be represented?
One interesting note: in searching Flickr for an appropriate photo to add to this post, I noted this: if you search on the word "daycare" you get page after page of child care facilities in third world countries. To get middle-class American images, you have to search on the phrase "preschool". I wonder why that is?
Showing posts with label babysitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label babysitter. Show all posts
“All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent.” - Benjamin Spock
April 7, 2009
During the winter, I must admit that we sometimes take our son to the local outlet of a National Chain Restaurant that has a giant play structure inside. Perhaps I should feel guilty for feeding my son four or five chemically altered chicken nuggets, but that guilt is heavily balanced by the opportunity for him to run and climb and swing on the giant playground equipment for an hour or two in the dead of winter, when its 14 degrees and there is two feet of snow on the ground.
The last time we were there, as we were leaving, we passed a man who was hauling a weeping child out by the arm.
"If you let anyone hit you again," the man said to the boy, "I'll punch you in the mouth."
My husband's mother (my son's beloved Mimi) spanked her boys with a wooden spoon. The boys laugh about it now; they were a military family and moved often - the boys love to tell the story of how once, when moving, their mother found a cache of wooden spoons - dozens, perhaps - that they boys had hidden away, in the forlorn hope that if there were no spoons to be found there would be no spankings.
I feel like, over the past few days, I've been running into spanking everywhere I look. Matt Haughey (noted blogger but not normally a parenting blogger) wrote earlier this week about how his parents would "whip" him and his brother with a belt, and how his grandmother, too, was a feared wielder of the wooden spoon. Ohio is considering a bill to outlaw "paddling" in public schools, and I find myself wondering how, exactly, that hadn't been done years ago. I was shocked to learn that although the State has a "limited ban" six school districts reported 110 paddlings of students during 2007-08 school year.
I like to think that we, as a society, have moved past hitting children as punishment, but I know it isn't true. I remember, long before our son was born, having dinner with another couple, friends who had two small daughters. Both parents (she a nurse and he a teacher) told us that they had spanked the girls, that sometimes "a good swat on the bottom" was the only way to teach. I remember glancing at Josh nervously during that conversation, realizing that we did not know these people as well as we thought we did, wondering where else our philosophies of living diverged. Before my son was born, my husband told me that he would "consider" spanking our child (natural, I suppose, as a child of a spanker himself) if the offense was grave enough. Now, though, I know he can't imagine himself ever doing it, ever pulling our small son over his lap, ever hitting our son for any reason. I'm confident in that, confident that neither of us would ever do it.
I found out recently, however, that Sarah, the woman who cares for our son during the day in her home, spanks her daughter. One of the reasons that the daughter (Hannah) gets spanked is because she sometimes bites my son.
I don't feel like he's in danger there. Sarah has gone through the process to become a certified in-home daycare provider, and I know she's taken classes and has random in home visits. I also know that Sarah is fairly religious (enough so that she has faith-promoting bumper stickers on her car), and that spanking is somewhat more common in highly religious households. Mostly, I guess, I just don't get it. She has a degree in early childhood education. She's warm and nurturing with the children in her care, and my son is comfortable there. I have no thoughts that she would ever hit him or hurt him in any way.
Now I'm faced with a quandary. Its not up to me to tell her how to parent her own child. We tried once before to move him out of her care (with disastrous results). And, of course, there is the issue that we're not exactly in a position right now to afford an inevitably more expensive childcare solution her "in the city". So what do I do? What would you do?
The last time we were there, as we were leaving, we passed a man who was hauling a weeping child out by the arm.
"If you let anyone hit you again," the man said to the boy, "I'll punch you in the mouth."
My husband's mother (my son's beloved Mimi) spanked her boys with a wooden spoon. The boys laugh about it now; they were a military family and moved often - the boys love to tell the story of how once, when moving, their mother found a cache of wooden spoons - dozens, perhaps - that they boys had hidden away, in the forlorn hope that if there were no spoons to be found there would be no spankings.
I feel like, over the past few days, I've been running into spanking everywhere I look. Matt Haughey (noted blogger but not normally a parenting blogger) wrote earlier this week about how his parents would "whip" him and his brother with a belt, and how his grandmother, too, was a feared wielder of the wooden spoon. Ohio is considering a bill to outlaw "paddling" in public schools, and I find myself wondering how, exactly, that hadn't been done years ago. I was shocked to learn that although the State has a "limited ban" six school districts reported 110 paddlings of students during 2007-08 school year.
I like to think that we, as a society, have moved past hitting children as punishment, but I know it isn't true. I remember, long before our son was born, having dinner with another couple, friends who had two small daughters. Both parents (she a nurse and he a teacher) told us that they had spanked the girls, that sometimes "a good swat on the bottom" was the only way to teach. I remember glancing at Josh nervously during that conversation, realizing that we did not know these people as well as we thought we did, wondering where else our philosophies of living diverged. Before my son was born, my husband told me that he would "consider" spanking our child (natural, I suppose, as a child of a spanker himself) if the offense was grave enough. Now, though, I know he can't imagine himself ever doing it, ever pulling our small son over his lap, ever hitting our son for any reason. I'm confident in that, confident that neither of us would ever do it.
I found out recently, however, that Sarah, the woman who cares for our son during the day in her home, spanks her daughter. One of the reasons that the daughter (Hannah) gets spanked is because she sometimes bites my son.
I don't feel like he's in danger there. Sarah has gone through the process to become a certified in-home daycare provider, and I know she's taken classes and has random in home visits. I also know that Sarah is fairly religious (enough so that she has faith-promoting bumper stickers on her car), and that spanking is somewhat more common in highly religious households. Mostly, I guess, I just don't get it. She has a degree in early childhood education. She's warm and nurturing with the children in her care, and my son is comfortable there. I have no thoughts that she would ever hit him or hurt him in any way.
Now I'm faced with a quandary. Its not up to me to tell her how to parent her own child. We tried once before to move him out of her care (with disastrous results). And, of course, there is the issue that we're not exactly in a position right now to afford an inevitably more expensive childcare solution her "in the city". So what do I do? What would you do?
"Real sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy." - Gandhi
July 18, 2008
The website UKFamily.co.uk (a division of the Walt Disney Company) has apparently released the following survey findings (which I can't actually find on their site): Two-thirds of working mothers with young children would like to give up work to care for their family. Of course the UK press has picked this up with headlines like 62 per cent of working mums 'want to quit job for a normal family life' (Daily Mail) and Working Brit parents don't even have five minutes a day with their kids (ANI).
"According to Life coach Suzy Greaves, the survey revealed just how many think that they could be better parents if only they had more time on their hands.
"This research shows just how many of us think we'd be a 'better parent' if we had more time. We feel guilty about everything - the amount of time we spend at work, the lack of time we have to play with our children and the amount of time our kids spend in childcare," Greaves said.
"As a result, many working parents, especially mums, are running themselves ragged trying to overcompensate.
"It's time for us to stop being self-critical and let go of our guilt - an absolutely useless emotion - and then shelve some of the tasks that take up so much of our time.
"It really doesn't matter if everything isn't crisply ironed or the toys all put away. Instead, we parents should give ourselves a pat on the back for the amazing amount we do achieve.
"Let's model happiness to our kids instead of guilt and martyrdom," she added."
I feel like I should add some commentary there, but I just can't.
Yep, two posts today. Amazing.
"Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber!" - Lord Byron
Have to say, I certainly had days when I wished I could hire a night nanny, not for every night but just for a night or two until I could get rested again:
(NY Times) Baby Cries at 2 A.M.? No Need to Get Up
Of course, my second thought was "what are these babies eating?" I'm sure many of them are being fed breast milk by bottle, but I also suspect that women with these "high pressure" professional jobs, as well educated about infant health as I'm sure they are, just aren't able to pump four or five times a day to provide milk for their babies.
As a working mother, night nursing (and snuggling) with my son was such a wonderful, close time time with him. It provided him with food, security, and close contact with me, and it gave me time to just gaze at him in wonder. Four a.m. in the half-light of dawn is always the way I'll see the infant E best in my mind's eye. He loved to wrap his tiny hands up in my hair before he went to sleep.
"The dog was created specially for children. He is the god of frolic." - H W Beecher
June 11, 2008
Yesterday, I attended a meeting at a local business that specializes in dog-related products. Their office is that special kind of creative chaos that is full of bright color and music and dogs and little kids. In some ways, you might even consider it to be a model for the "parent friendly" office - there is a little playroom set up in one of the offices, and there were young children playing happily there, in sight of their parents. One of the employees has a 17 week old son, and she is encouraged to either bring him in or to leave a couple of times during the day so she can nurse him. All the staff are cheerful, fun people, and they clearly love their work environment.
But when I was there, something odd happened.
The wife of the founder and CEO brought in her adorable one-year-old daughter. It had apparently been prearranged that the CEO's assistant (who is the mom of two young children) would watch the daughter for an hour while the wife had an appointment. From the way the daughter and the assistant reacted, it was fairly clear to me that this was a regular thing - that the little girl regarded the assistant as a regular caregiver and trusted adult. And fortunately the assistant (I'll call her L) is clearly very attached to this lovely little girl.
I'm not sure "family friendly" is supposed to mean "free drop-off childcare" is it? Somehow I had the silly idea that the days when you could ask your husband's secretary to pick up the dry cleaning or watch your baby for an hour had past.
Obviously I don't know the details of the arrangement. It is clear that the folks who work for this company consider each other to be "family" so I suppose its possible that this is a task she volunteered for. But it seems to me that there is a line there that maybe shouldn't be crossed. The assistant is a bright, talented young woman with a gift for organizing chaos. Its pretty clear to everyone that works with her that this is an entry level position and that one day she's going to move on to bigger things within this fairly small company. I hope, for her sake, that she doesn't feel obligated to do this in order to make a good impression with the owner. I also hope, for her sake, that her willingness to watch this child for an hour or so here or there doesn't get her pigeonholed as "the sitter" and make it impossible for her to move up when the time comes.
Edited to add: Work It Mom just pointed me toward this article from last week's Boston Globe: Bringing up Babies at Work. It kind of runs around the edges of some of the issues I'm talking about here. (Also, I had no idea that Zutano was based out of Cabot, VT.)
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