Reply to The Research on Various Childcare Options

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I could not have worked full time with my baby, who actually slept well and was I think average in terms of how hard she was (not a super hard baby but also not one of those magic easy babies either).

I tried working part-time with her at home for a couple months (with my company's blessing -- they desperately needed me back at work but I was not ready to return and technically was owed more time so this was the compromise we reached) and it sucked. Any job where you have regular phone calls and anything that runs on a strict schedule is really hard with an infant because no matter how well your schedule works 90% of the time, the 5% of the time that your baby is off schedule will just cause horrible havoc. I was in fact that mom trying to have a work call while my infant wailed in my arms on more than one occasion, and even though everyone understood that wasn't something I chose, I still felt the resentment and impatience from colleagues.

That said, I decided at that point to shift to a part-time contract position where I just did project-based work on my own schedule, and that's super easy with a baby. You just work when the baby sleeps, which is a lot of the time, and then arrange with your partner for some extra work time maybe one or two evenings a week and a chunk on the weekend. I didn't have a ton of meetings and was able to handle 95% of communications via email, so I only occasionally had to get childcare for important calls.

That time was really wonderful because it was a perfect balance -- I really appreciated being able to work and feel productive in ways that had nothing to do with being a mom, but I was thrilled to be able to be home with my baby full-time. The money was terrible (took a huge paycut to do this) but winds up being a wash because we didn't have to pay for full time childcare, and I had the benefit of no resume gap.

I know not everyone can make something like that work but if there's any way your work will go for it, try it! I also know moms who negotiated part-time schedules where they went in two or three days a week (there are real benefits to being able to work in person as a mom, it can be really good to get out of the house and put on real clothes and be in adult environments) and then did nanny shares for those days. So cheaper than full-time daycare and you still get 2-3 days a week at home with your baby.

I know these are not universal options but we should push to make them more widely available. With some workplaces that never used to allow WFH or flex time having to making space for those policies during Covid, there's an opening for people who didn't used to have one to make these arrangements. If you are mid-career and especially if you've been with your organization for a while, they are often very motivated to find something that will work, especially if you are willing to walk if they don't (I was -- it would have been hard but we could have done it for a year and then I would have applied to jobs).

Families need more options. [b]SAHP/daycare/nanny is actually a really narrow way of conceptualizing infant/toddler care[/b] and there's just no reason it should be limited to those three choices (which wind up actually being just 1 or 2 choices for most families because nannies or a SAHP are really not always a realistic option).[/quote]

Those are the options for those of us that cannot work while caring for a baby, work at the same times as our spouses (business hours) and don't have relatives available to help.

I have the super flexible work when I want job, allowed part time after my parental leave ended, and no it was not compatible with caring for a newborn, infant or toddler at any point. I'm glad you found a way to make it work.[/quote]

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