|
Are You an Entrepreneur or...?
13 comments
When was the last time you backed up?
11 comments
8 Ways to Overcome Idea Block
11 comments
Business Travel...with Baby?
8 comments
The Art of Self-Promotion
7 comments |
       |
I’m starting to reconsider our 2-year-old daughter’s daycare schedule. I’m beginning to feel like 8 hours a day 5 days a week is way too much for a 2-year-old. I come to this thought not as a work-at-home mom who is feeling guilty about sending her child away to let other people take care of her while I slave away (contentedly) in front of my computer without interruption.
I don’t think my slight change of heart over daycare came from this NPR poll:
Moms Say They’d Cut Pay for Time with Kids
Frankly, I’m not sure I’m ready to cut my pay to spend more time with my daughter.
I think my new view of daycare comes from bonding more with her and becoming more sensitive to her needs. Forty hours a week of daycare is just too exhausting for her even though she loves the interaction with other kids, something she gets much less frequently with a work-at-home mom who doesn’t have many girlfriends with kids her age.
There are some strong and convincing pros for keeping her in daycare that I recognize including:
1. I’m finally getting real work done with a normal workday. Before putting her in daycare a little over a month ago, I was trying to squeeze 10 hours of work into 4 hour days when the babysitter would be here to care for her. Now I have more time to be productive without interruption.
2. I’m able to take on more clients and grow my business. Let’s face it. As an entrepreneur, the bottom line can be a very compelling driver.
3. I’m able to increase our household income. While I hope at some point, my increased earning capacity translates into more travel, right now it means helping to dig ourselves out of debt and get back on track. Much of the debt happened while I was suffering from post partum depression and my income unexpectedly plummeted for nearly a year.
But if I separate my business self from my family self, the picture is quite different. The cons for keeping her in daycare become glaringly painful:
1. She is utterly exhausted every day. I know she enjoys seeing the kids, but it just seems like too much too soon.
2. I have much less quality time with her. I didn’t think I’d miss spending time with her, but now that she is so much more verbal, we are really beginning to bond after our tumultuous first year.
3. She needs more variety. While I know that the daycare she is in provides a wonderful play-led program that includes a lot of learning, I still think she needs a variety of atmospheres. I’m a firm believer that she will adapt to new things more if she experiences new things more often.
We’re going to keep the schedule the same for the summer although I won’t have any qualms keeping her out once a week to spend the day with her at the park or the library or even the zoo. We are paying for full-time daycare so won’t get reimbursed for that time but it is not about the money.
Then in August, my girlfriend will start splitting the daycare schedule with me. She only needs 2 days a week for her daughter. So I’ll bring our daughter Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and she will bring hers Thursday and Friday. In this scenario, we can both split the cost.
On Thursdays and Fridays, I’ll bring back our old babysitter or find someone to come in 4-5 hours a day, similar to the way we were doing it before. I’ll have to make sure my work is relatively done by Wednesday evening so I can use Thursday and Friday to get ahead and prep for the following week.
Then I can be more flexible in my mommy time.
All in all, I know I’m very lucky to even have the flexibility in my worklife to create a more ideal option. I don’t take that for granted. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the topic in case it sparks some ideas for someone else.
What is your arrangement for daycare and getting your work done? How are you feeling about the “balance” or lack of balance you’re experiencing?
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Work/Life.
Tags: aliza sherman, balance, daycare, work-life
June 8th, 2008 at 11:57 am
My daughter has 2 1/2 year old quadruplets and an older son who is 3 1/2 (gonna be 4 in July). She has 2 “work at home” jobs plus finishing her college degree online. Her husband is co-owner of one of the businesses (web hosting/development) and they also have a “bee farm” currently with 50 bee hives. They could NOT afford daycare for 5 children under the age of 4! There are family members who come to her house to help out in the mornings, from 8 - 1:30 (nap time for all kids), but after naptime until bedtime (8 pm for quads, 9 pm for big brother) they’re on their own. My daughter packs in as much “work” as she can during the afternoon nap “quiet time”, then after all the kids are in bed, they work until around midnight. Way to exhausting for me, but it’s the ONLY way they can get their work done. She has a blog http://MultipleMayhem.com where she can rant and rave, then get back to work! To me she is a “wonder woman!”
June 8th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think you’re figured out a great arrangement and it’s great that you’re able to have some flexibility with it. My daughter goes to preschool where she could have the full-day option. But she goes only to 3pm, at which point I pick her up and we have a hodge podge of babysitters lined up for diff days, including my mom. On Fridays I spend the rest of the day with her. This makes it a bit nutty — I have to pick her up, if sitter is sick it’s an issue — but I find it’s good for her to be able to have some variety, to play in her room after school, etc. The other reason we do this is because I am trying to keep her Russian going (it’s where I am from and what I speak with her), and so our sitter is Russian, which helps with the language. It would be MUCH easier to keep her in school til 5pm, but like you, I am lucky to have some flexibility and I think it’s good for her.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
We are lucky to have always had a combo of family-care and daycare. When my son was two he spent 2-days at an all day preschool. When he turned three, we upped that to 3 days. We;ll keep him at three days until he goes to kindergarten. On the other days, he is watched by my FIL and an Aunt.
I have always kept a flexible option in my work to be able to WFH when need be. So I am usually the one that does the sick days, the school inservice days, etc. I try to only work 6-7 hours in the office and then work the rest from home after my son has gone to bed to that we can have late mornings or late afternoons together as well.
I could never do the 5-days at day care. I worked at a day care in college and it broke my heart to see some kids dropped off at 6am and not picked up till after 5pm. I just couldn’t do it.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
[...] things to do.” Like meetings with new clients. Case in point: I was driving my 2-year-old to daycare and then heading directly to a client meeting afterward, hoping to make it there within minutes of [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 1:47 am
My son goes to daycare and has since he was 6 weeks old. There are days when I feel bad about letting someone else “raise” him for 9 hours a day, but then I spend the day with him and realize I am not built for full time childcare. The daycare he goes to now offers swimming three days a week, a bike day, a field trip day, and loads of outdoor time. There are tons of kids and it’s very much geared toward education.
That being said, if I didn’t have to work outside the home, I’d keep him home with me. He’s six now and is more than capable of entertaining himself for several hours at a time. Even when he was younger, he was good at entertaining himself. He’s an only child and it shows…he’s got an amazing imagination.
My only advice would be to go with your gut. Your “mom intuition” is stronger than you realize. You know your kid better than anyone else and you know what’s good for her.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Aliza,
I think you are sooo awesome to be intune with your daughter and you. I’d say follow your heart
June 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Aliza,
She is sooooooooooooooo cute!!!