Mr. Jane and I are so, so fortunate that we have good quality, affordable daycare for Baby Jane that we absolutely, positively love. It is so wonderful to drop Baby Jane off in the mornings and know that she is in a secure, loving, enriching care situation. It frees up so much of my mental energy (and Mr. Jane's, too)---I'm not constantly thinking about her, because I know she's having fun and is being well cared for, too---so that I can concentrate on work while at work. A novel concept, I realize.
The flip side, though, is that her daycare is a home daycare, which means that if something happens to our wonderful daycare provider (like if she gets sick or has a family emergency), daycare is closed. Our Plan B for these situations is that we split daycare duties, with Mr. Jane taking the classes-and-office-hours shift. This is not ideal, but it's mostly workable---there have only been one or two times where one of us had to postpone a meeting as a result of the Daycare Shuffle.
But Mr. Jane travels as part of his job, and our Plan C is...well, we don't have one.
And we so desperately need a Plan C, oh, right about now.
I can't help thinking, in addition to the endless loop playing in my head right now*, how much easier and less stressful this situation might be if we had, you know, family-friendly workplaces. Like with emergency childcare resources available, or some kind of flexible, creative way to help deal with the occasional childcare (or family care) emergency. Or even just an acknowledgment that we're complex people with complex lives, and allowing for a way to blend all those pieces of our lives together more seamlessly, with less of a struggle. I guess I'm just frustrated with the fact that things like childcare/family care emergencies are pretty common among workers with kids/elderly parents/sick family members, but we all struggle on our own to find our own solutions, and hide this all from our bosses/colleagues, because god forbid we show any side of us that's not the "ideal worker"! When in reality, if we could just acknowledge that this is a common occurrence, and have a workable solution at the ready, well then we actually *could* be ideal workers because we could be actually doing our jobs! For pete's sake, this is not rocket science.
* The loop is currently sounding something like this: "oh my god I have SOOO much work to do! How am I going to get all of this done? There's no way I'm going to get it done! Forget that, how the hell am I supposed to concentrate when I have no idea who's going to be taking care of my kid this week? Could I actually bring her to that meeting? What if daycare is closed all week? I can't believe daycare is closed. I can't believe how much work I have to do! I wonder if [colleague] could watch her while I'm teaching? When the hell am I supposed to write that exam? And what about that research deadline? What am I going to lecture about tomorrow? I have no lecture for tomorrow! Will I get any sleep tonight?"
Read the comments on this post...Read More...
[Source: ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]
