This Past Season of Childcare
On March 13, when my kid’s daycare announced they would be closing for at least two weeks, I walked back to my bosses office and told him that I didn’t know what work would be able to look like for me on Monday. He, with the SAHM wife, concluded that I would be unable to work at all and the company would have to hire a temporary replacement for me (probably this idea excited him: he rarely spoke to me, and when he did had nothing positive to say about any part of the work I contributed to or completed). However, I worked part time so it was less of a transition than I thought it would be (although my hours were sometimes a bit out of typical office hours). My darling niece, Julia, unable to be on campus for her senior semester of college, came to watch the kids a few days a week, and we settled into a sweet routine of working, playing, eating, and sleeping.
In May we went to my parent’s house for Mother’s Day and my birthday. It was a little break in scenery and quality time with my parents who we hadn’t spent time with since Christmas. One joy of the weekend was that Margot began walking independently, which was a pleasure for us all to witness as her skill progressed while we were there. At one point I was telling my dad about how delightful it’s been to see the kids change the last few months and how I didn’t remember enjoying this season of Hardy’s life as much as I am with Margot’s, and he reminded me: I had been at work.
Don’t get me wrong, being a working mom is just fine and working at an office is wonderful, but we must acknowledge that childcare is essential to allowing people (especially moms) to work, and so work can’t exist without childcare. So then, really I ask you, why don’t companies or the government support childcare? Why are there year long waiting lists at childcare facilities? Why isn’t there governmental support for home daycare providers? If the economy is so dependent upon schools opening and childcare facilities being open, why isn’t the current president and majority senate party making any propositions or allocating any funding to schools or daycares to prepare to open during a pandemic? On the other hand, in America we rely on our employers for healthcare, disability insurance, life insurance, etc, so why don’t office buildings have care facilities available to tenant’s employees? Work is built on the suppression of mothers (or primary home care providers). And, please note, my boss thought I couldn’t work at all when I told him my kid’s daycare closed: do you think my husband’s company had the same response? Of course, my experience is from my place of privilege and experience as an office employee, so consider the plight of a factory or shift worker or other essential business worker or someone whose schedule fluctuates weekly, or someone who travels for work and hours may be greatly impacted by traffic and road conditions? But I digress.
Please see the following for more eloquent words and knowledge on this topic:
One of the benefits I personally experienced of being home with my kids during the pandemic has been seeing them change and progress in their life and experiences in a way that wouldn’t have been possible working from an office every day. I generally ended my work days around 3:30, or whenever Margot got up from her nap. We would video friends or family, sometimes we would look out the window or watch Great British Bake Off like we did when I was on maternity leave. After Hardy would get up from his nap, we might go for a walk, or play, or sometimes Ben would end his workday and I squeeze in a couple extra meetings. (I must note, that yes I was working part time, 30 hours per week, but that didn’t mean that my work load changed one bit from my full-time load. I just got it all in. It was my job and I just did it even though it was hard and stressful and no one acknowledged it. As Michelle Obama wrote in Becoming, “At work I will still attending all the meetings I always had while also grappling with most of the same responsibilities. The only real difference was that I now made half my original salary and was trying to cram everything into a twenty-hour week. If a meeting ran late, I’d end up tearing home at breakneck speed to fetch Malia […].” )
My learning curve wasn’t working from home, rather working while watching the kids and then how to transition quickly from work to mom so that I could be present. Even with my niece and sister watching the kids a few mornings a week, which we were so very lucky -and my kids so blessed- to have, those working hours felt so precious that I packed an entire day’s schedule into a few hours. Ben and I had nightly meetings to make sure our schedules didn’t overlap too much (“I have a meeting then too, but I can have them down here with me”), and I have some mom-shame about how Hardy would BEG for attention some days (“Mom, watch this! Mom, watch. Mom. Mom. Mom, are you watching? Mom, watch me. MOOOOM!”), but we had some quiet moments and fun experiences that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. The playground was closed so we would bring some balls to the tennis court and while Hardy would play, Margot would practice walking. The kids’ cheeks red and cold from being outside; Margot’s dirt stained Carhartt overalls so she could crawl around on anything; videoing with my parents; visiting the Little Free Library at the house with the bird feeders on Elkhart; Hardy playing “Julia and Hardy” (where I was Hardy and he was Julia)… And still, I remember being grateful for Blippi and Umizoomi and Dora the Explorer.
There is so much beauty in a family trying and learning and playing together and apart, cleaning up and eating and holding and sleeping and talking and tickling and reading and nursing and crying and wiping and bathing and cleaning and arguing and bossing and and and and - it’s all just love, right?
Anyway, this is just MY experience, in my household. I believe that systemic changes are necessary for childcare in this country. We had the amazing privilege of close family being willing and able to care for our kids, not to mention being able to work from home for companies that could weather the crisis (and our companies doing work for other companies who could weather the crisis). I am thankful that our childcare facility opened at the end of May, and we continue to take many precautions to keep our family healthy so the facility can remain open.
Obama, Michelle. Becoming. New York: Crown, 2018.