This question is one I am sure will interest working parents with young children. Even if you don’t have a response to the specific question, I thought this might be an opportunity to compare notes. These days working parents often get so caught up in a blur of sleepless nights and hectic days, sometimes just the chance to share stories and tips and advice with our colleagues can help a lot.
Laura wrote to ask, “How can I convince my company that doing more to help me and all the other new moms who work here cope with the costs and problems of childcare is a good investment? I don’t know a new mom who isn’t constantly worrying about the costs and hassles of getting reliable childcare. It’s a constant distraction from our jobs, and this must be hurting the company, but how can you explain that to bosses who want to pretend our kids don’t exist?” 1
A few excerpts from “Two Years Without Sleep: Working Moms Talk About Having A Baby And A Job”:
“Childcare is probably one of the biggest problems. It’s a heartwrenching decision as to what to do. There are a lot of alternatives but when you are working and trying to figure all that out, you don’t have time. Going out and looking for the right place and interviewing all the right people. When you’ve got someone to help and you’re happy with it, it’s all great. When you haven’t, it’s a panic situation.”
–Marcia Ross
“The climate of the workplace doesn’t accommodate having a baby and a job. It’s the rules that separate out as much as possible the personal needs of the worker from the workplace generally. You come to work to do your job the way we the employers say it will be done. That’s true for coalminers as well as new moms.” –Carol Lewis
Good benefits make good economic sense. It costs a hell of a lot more to train a new employee to replace a good one than to just keep the good one in the first place. If a company’s too stupid to see that, let them die like the dinosaurs.
Comment by Tony Wang — May 4, 2008 @ 6:10 pm |
Children are a national resource. We should pay for each other’s kids, because we end up paying directly (in taxes) and indirectly (in quality of life) when children grow up to be illiterate, unable to work, criminal, unhealthy, etc. I’d gladly pay for your children because I need them to be my co-workers, my employees, those who provide the services I rely on, those who help put into office the people I want elected and so on. Working together and living together imply some cooperative interdependency. We need each other and we therefore must be sensitive to each other’s needs.
Comment by Suzanne Silk Klein — May 4, 2008 @ 6:10 pm |
I have just returned to work again after having my second child. My wonderful sons are eight months and two-and-a-half years old. Last week I was informed by our city’s family services department that I have come to the top of the waiting list for subsidized daycare. I first went on the list when I was pregnant three years ago! Fortunately I told them last year that I would soon need two spots.
My advice for working women planning to have a family is to find out as soon as you can about the services, daycares, playgroups, school programs, etc., in your area and get on the waiting lists. Periodically phone these organizations to make sure they haven’t lost your name, and to update them with any changes to your situation. Securing quality daycare is definitely a time-consuming task which seems to always fall on the mother’s shoulders.
Comment by Melanie H. — May 4, 2008 @ 6:11 pm |
I am very fortunate to work at a facility with on-site childcare. If I had not had this option, I don’t know how I would have been able to return to work. Unfortunately, it took the facility 10 years of lobbying from parents before it built the center. The center also is treated as stand-alone and does not receive much operational subsidy. The teachers there are the lowest paid people on site: they make less than the janitorial and maintenance staff. Even with the heartache that we parents feel with the pay of our staff, the center has been able to find many outstanding staff members.
These people are the living saints of our times. I have been able to take advantage of the center — my oldest child started there when he was a 10 weeks old. I used to go and breastfeed him a couple of times a day. I always took leave or leave-without-pay to go see him, so I did not take advantage of my employer in this respect. My children are almost at school-age, but I still go see them everyday. It’s wonderful. I only hope that somewhere, somehow, more women in America will be able to be as fortunate as I have been
Comment by Lucy F. — May 4, 2008 @ 6:11 pm |
If you want to get your employer to help you with your need for childcare, you have to take some of the responsibility for achieving that goal. Talk to other working parents where you work, find someone who’s sympathetic in your human resources department or on the executive team and have a meeting or brown-bag session where you try to figure out what is needed and what can be done.
Form a committee, circulate a petition, do something help point your employer in the right direction. Find out what other employers near you are doing. Find some real life examples to use as models. In our city, a group of employers in the same area got together to partially subsidize a stand-alone childcare center for their employees. It’s been a huge success and they’ve already expanded it even though it’s only been open for three years. An added plus is that it generated all kinds of great publicity for the businesses in it. Good luck.
Comment by Kathy O. — May 4, 2008 @ 6:12 pm |
There is no question that the issue of who should be responsible for our children’s care is an extremely sensitive debate. I personally feel that we all too often forget about the quality and value of our children’s care over economic issues. There is no doubt that many parents are forced into a need of double incomes, forcing tough decisions about where we place our children. At the same time employers may feel, if not approached properly, that the “burden” of child care is expected of them and somehow they owe us that.
I often wonder what the next generation will look like years from now when individuals or organizations have been responsible for the early years of day to day care and upbringing. There is no question that the first 5 years of a child’s life directly affects the value systems they grow up with. Having a child and raising that child is the most important “job” we could ever have.
How we cope with our financial needs and raising children is no easy task.
Comment by Gordon Ferguson — May 4, 2008 @ 6:12 pm |
Childcare in the workplace is essential to the working family of the ’90’s. Although I am not married, nor do I have any children (I’m a new hire), I would want my current employer to at least have that option available to me. This would make for more satisfied employees, hence, more satisfied employers. With all of the problems going on with daycare now, it would be good to know that your child is close to you and the parents of the other children are near as well to provide a small network of its own.
Comment by Thais G. Boyd — May 4, 2008 @ 6:13 pm |
Not only should our workplaces assist with the provision of daycare in the workplace, but our government, both state and federal, should recognize the contribution of parents who choose to, or would choose to if economic conditions permitted, stay home with their children. I feel there should be some type of assistance or tax break for those who wish to personally oversee their children’s upbringing.
Comment by Debra — May 4, 2008 @ 6:13 pm |