I may have mentioned a time or two before that I hit the jackpot in the spouse department. Figuratively speaking, that is. For all of the wonderful qualities that Kyle brings to the table, he has neither a trust fund nor a career path that’s destined for CEO city.
That’s not to say he doesn’t have the potential or the ambition. In fact, he’s got both. But we’ve also got three kids.
When I was pregnant with Tacy, Kyle and I both underwent some professional developments that shook our confidence in the idea of a meritocracy: work hard, work smart, get ahead. Let’s just say it was akin to being dumped via text message while riding a Greyhound bus home from your father’s funeral, and it caused both of us to reevaluate how we spent our time, especially in light of the baby girl who was about to arrive.
Taking the Mommy Track isn’t unusual for women; ask Amy Keroes, who launched the fantastic site MommyTrack’d, devoted to helping all mothers balance the inherent insanity of caring for a home and young children whether they work for pay or not. For that matter, ask any of a number of parenting bloggers who have found that our hobby has become our business, replacing that which we studied for years and years to pursue. We wage war with each other over our choices to get on or off the track, but at least we talk about it openly.
The Daddy Track, on the other hand, is secretive and shameful. Dads who fulfill the stay-at-home role are often looked upon with undeserved suspicion, both by the neighborhood moms and by their traditional male breadwinner peers. Their potential, their ambition, even their masculinity are all unfairly questioned.
But dads who return to work with revised priorities and renewed boundaries walk a different tightrope: how to demonstrate genuine commitment to their work without sacrificing newly precious family time?
After Tacy was born, Kyle took no time off. He did, however, stay with me for the day that I was in labor and the four subsequent days I spent in the hospital. That was the extent of his paternity leave; the following Monday, he went back to work and called me from Weehawken at seven o’clock that night to tell me he was finally on his way back to our Upper East Side apartment after having been gone twelve hours – twelve hours that I’d spent alone with this squalling, inconsolable creature.
When I went back to work eight weeks later, Kyle asked his manager for a modified schedule – staggered from mine by two hours. It may have only made a small impact on the number of hours that Tacy was in day care, but it made a significant statement about Kyle’s desire for a balance between work and life – a balance that typically only women strive to achieve.
We work around our husbands’ schedules, even if we’re employed outside the home, because men are the breadwinners. They take visiting executives out for drinks and dinner, or they travel themselves. They’re on the fast track, and they like it that way. Truth be told, many women like it that way too.
But men who opt for the Daddy Track are few and far between, and there’s not much information about them, especially here in the US. Search for “paternity leave” and most of the results pertain to policies in the UK and Canada. Kyle took vacation time when both Tacy and CJ were born; he had no paternity leave.
Flex time for men is also rarely discussed openly. In 2004, the CPA Journal published results of a research study that investigated perceptions and consequences of flexible work arrangements (FWAs) for men. As much as we women gripe about the ways in which we feel pigeonholed, it seems our counterparts are equally trapped by expectations (if not more so):
“The research clearly indicates different attitudes toward men and women that choose a FWA. When asked about a hypothetical male and female audit manager on a FWA, comments indicated that FWAs carry a professional stigma four times higher for a male manager than a female manager.”
“…men and women believe equally in the importance of their careers, but males were more aware that FWAs cause peers to believe they are less committed to their career.”
“…participation in a FWA is perceived to have long-term consequences for men by slowing career advancement because of reduced time to network and the likelihood of losing out on high-profile assignments.”
In short, men who pursue flex time risk far more negative perceptions of their professional dedication than women who do the same.
I have no concrete anecdotal evidence that Kyle’s modified schedule was viewed negatively by his managers and peers, nor that it factored into promotion decisions. I do know that he often had difficulty extricating himself from the workplace at the appointed hour and that he signed Tacy out of day care later and later as time passed.
He also had only a short drive from his office to our apartment building, whereas his managers and most of his co-workers – who had families themselves – lived over an hour away. Yet they lingered at the office until early evening.
There’s no right or wrong where it comes to a family’s priorities in balancing work and life, but there are always trade-offs. Choose to work a modified schedule and skip the beer with the boss after work, and it’s inevitable that someone else will get a plum assignment or promotion instead of you. Choose to put in twelve-hour days and travel frequently, and it’s inevitable that you’ll miss school events, big games, or even just bedtime. Perhaps more dads would like to choose the former, but they feel trapped by professional and personal expectations and financial obligations.
The Daddy Track works for us. I’m really thankful that Kyle’s got the desire and the courage to pursue it.
Are you or your spouse/partner on the Daddy Track? What made your family choose that path over the traditional one?
Great topic. Something I’ve thought a lot about because my husband and I have made some pretty different choices than my sisters and their husbands, and sometimes I feel like they don’t see my husband as fulfilling his ‘manyly duties’ the way he ’should.’
But we have been really lucky to have support and understanding from my husband’s boss and co-workers.(He’s a manager of a small business in the outdoor retail industry.) He took 2-4 weeks off after the births of our 3 boys — not coming out of his vacation time. When they need him to fly off to a conference or meeting, they always ask whether it will work for me and the kids.
To my knowledge, no one has given him a hard time for scheduling around the kids schedules or even mine. I feel really lucky, because I think this kind of business environment is not common. I wonder if it would be different if there were more people in his company that had kids and they had to do it for everyone. Right now, he’s really the only one with little kids (out of about 30 employees) so there aren’t any policies, they’re sort of taking it as it comes and we’ve really lucked out so far.
What a great work situation! I love that your husband is comfortable with his choices too.
You’re right about the “secret and shameful” part. My husband became a stay-at-home-dad two years ago when the family business folded. Even though he is *awesome* in that role, he still feels as though he isn’t a contributing member of the family because he doesn’t bring home a paycheck. Drives me straight up a wall.
Ref Chris Bird’s comment below, I think she’s onto something. No matter how valuable their domestic contributions are, many men feel as if they aren’t meeting expectations (irrational and/or imaginary as they may be).
SUCH a necessary discussion, Julie. My own Kyle isn’t formally a stay-at-home dad – but we recently went through a few months in which he kinda pretended to be while his work situation took a downturn. And yeah, secret and shameful were feelings to be struggled with – not least because there was no forum for him.
Thanks for calling that out.
Especially hard when it’s not a choice per se, but a by-product of employment ups and downs.
In a few years, I’ll be a lawyer working ungodly hours – and my husband will be a teacher with short hours and summers off. And he stayed home originally when I went straight back to work 5 weeks after my cesarean – it just made more sense at the time because I was the bread winner (still am.) The second time I got a 12 week maternity leave and he had to go straight back to work just a few days after my VBAC.
In our house, part of our feminist stance on everything is that childcare is absolutely split 50/50 – so any time the kids need us, it’s our equal responsibility to take care of them. But when the majority of the care has to fall on one person, it usually falls on him. It’s just the nature of my job and my school schedule. Frankly, I get jealous of the extra time he gets to spend with the kids, but it is what it is. The career he’s destined for is more family friendly than the one I’m destined for. I don’t think his career will suffer because he’s more of a “Mr. Mom” type – in fact, I think it will help given the field he’ll be in.
But he never planned on being a teacher before we had kids. He decided that teaching was for him AFTER we had kids because he wanted to make it a priority to have a career that would provide a positive work/life balance. I guess it comes down to the choices we make.
I like your philosophy re 50/50 – responsibility is shared equally even though circumstances are such that the majority of the duties fall on the person primarily available (whomever that may be at the time). We operate similarly.
We had the opposite until Douglas was 4 and my exec. job ended. Dave worked from home as a computer consultant and I had the 9 to 6 or 7 pm job with frequent travel. When it ended I was a bit burnt so took the consultant route for the past 5 years. Now in this slowed down economy, we’re both looking at returning to full time for someone else — our consulting gigs are FT just not consistent revenue. Luckily we only have the one child and he’ll be entering 4th grade in the fall so it will be a bit easier for one or both of us to be back in the fast lane.
FT for an outside employer certainly provides stability and benefits; I’m not sure if we could be as brave as you two and go straight consulting, even in a roaring economy!
I’m a stay at home dad, and I love what you said about dads who fulfill the stay-at-home role. Undeserved suspicion indeed.
But in lots of ways being a SAHD is easier than going back to the workplace and having to defend why I want to take off for doctor’s appointments/school functions/sick days/whatever. That is really tough for either parent to do.
As for the suspicious neighborhood moms, yeah, that one’s the hardest for me to deal with – particularly since they’re now my main source for friends. Oh well.
Those workplace challenges – that’s why I was the one to take off for appts and sick days. At least with a mom, such requests are expected by management. Sad but true.
My husband works four 10-hour days instead of 5 8-hour days and it makes a TON of difference in our family life. Those extra two hours at the end of the day don’t seem like much until they’re put together in a nice neat pile of hours – an entire day. We get to do family things during the week, instead of on Saturday, when everyone is cramming their family time in. And when I was taking college courses, HE got to take care of the kids during one of my day classes, instead of sending them to a babysitter.
Love that flex schedule. Especially since many professionals end up working 10 hour days anyway.
My husband is also a teacher, a profession more tolerant of what one might consider typical family values, but less flexible (for obvious reasons – especially for an elementary school’s special ed classroom like his) with the odd hour off for his own kids’ stuff or vacation times other than the enviable summer break.
I see your point about the difficulties of the Daddy Track, but also see it as a mirror to what women already go through. And even though the plight of the family focused dad does not get as much attention, he still earns more than his female counterpart.
I guess it’s about the parent track, regardless of the parent’s gender. Something’s always got to give.
Thanks for this thought provoking post.
Absolutely – we moms face similar struggles. But at least we have forums in which to discuss them, and I believe we face far less scrutiny than men when we pursue that balance.
It is a shame, but it is true, even here in Canada where we like to think we are sooooooo progressive. My husband was in real estate. He stayed home when I had my 2nd son for 5 months, working sporadically. And then then another year working 3 days a week (home with our two boys for the other 2 days). He loved the time but he hated what it did to his career. Other agents who were licensed at the same time as him had moved ahead of him. He just couldn’t put in those kind of hours. When he did go back full time he found that when he would be working with buyers, and he would always tell them upfront that he had a young family and that family was important to him. That he required 4 hours notice for appointments, that kind of thing. They would be all supportive initially and then when they would call him while he was at hockey practice, or while I was out and they would say things like “if you are not committed to us, maybe we should find another agent…” So much for supportive. He had enough, and got out of that profession. He is much happier now.
Cheers to your husband for setting those boundaries and standing by them. There are always trade-offs, and there’s more to supporting a family than a bi-weekly paycheck.
This is a very important topic & one that I am REALLY struggling with right now. My husband has been a SAHD for 2 1/2 years after losing his job as a pharma sales rep while I was on maternity leave with our 2nd child. What a blessing it was at the time. I was able to come back to the job that I LOVE and have him at home raising our children. He’s neither driven or ambitious but he is passionate about playing music and he’s been able to explore that and do well as a local music professional. (and be a fantastic dad to our 2 kids)
The trouble is- I am losing my job in 2 months- yikes! We’ve known it was coming for a year. We decided not to relocate with my company where I had a BIG job opportunity. We ultimately chose (with a lot of his influence) to stay local to be closer to family (mostly his). Anyway- time is ticking and I feel like the pressure is 100% on me to find a new job. He doesn’t think he will have an easy time getting back into the workforce so he’s expecting me to do all the heavy lifting. The other night I was so stressed out & exasperated about everything that I broke down and said I just wanted to be cared for for a change. I didn’t want the obligations that come with supporting a family & having a career. I wanted to be a very hands-on & involved mom while the kids were still young.
My husband pointed out that if the shoe were on the other foot (if he was losing his job & was the bread winner) that we would never have this conversation (it’s a conversation that happens more often then maybe I’m willing to admit) – he’s totally right. There is a TOTAL double-standard- even from the closest people to these stay-at-home dads.
I think what we’ll end up finding out, much like the “mommy-wars” that have gone on for years, is that no situation is perfect for everyone- moms and dads alike and each family has to decide what’s best for them.
I’m just looking for a little reprieve. (sorry- it’s a bit rambly but I have a lot on my mind!)
What a stressful situation you guys are facing. But you’ve both got such a sense of your priorities and your respective strengths – not many couples have that advantage – that you’ll know what works for your family and have the courage to pursue it.
Ack, my comment got lost! Oh well…the short version is, I love what you say about dads who do the stay-at-home thing. Undeserved suspicion indeed! I’m a SAHD and it can be hard – particularly the suspicious neighborhood moms, since they’re now my primary pool of potential friends!
But it’s still easier (most days) to just say “I stay at home” than it would be to try and explain why I need time off for school plays/sports/sick days/etc. There are very few jobs where that’s easy to explain, for either parent. I really respect people who stand up for their families and take that time off regardless.
(I guess this wasn’t really the short version after all)
And now I’m accidentally a double poster…ack…oh no, this makes it 3! STOP ME NOW!
I am over joyed to know that another family out there has chosen to have a SHD instead of SHM. My husband and I are just now choseing to have children and have discussed the “trying to fit 24 hours of love in to a 3 hour time span” that time inbetween pick up from day care and bed time. He is disabled but would be returning to the work force in a year or so and I love my job and am not sure I can fill the SHM shoes as we joke but it is very true, I am more of a father figure, and he is very much so more of a mother figure attitude and behavior wise. We also decided to have him stay home and we are thinking of in the future exploring the home schooling aspect, he would also be useing the at home time to do some online schooling at his own pace as children do require alot of time, time well spent though. He does, even though he has not been in the active work force for 3 years, feel he is looked down upon by many men both in the world around and in his own family for this choice. SHDs need a good place to go, both play date wise and blog wise to share and grow more comfortable with their professions as DADS.
Great post!
There are some amazing dad blogs and dad sites out there. Email me if you want URLs!
This is really an interesting topic. When you take into account that so many businesses are jettisoning workers and more of them will be looking for the die-hard workaholics to stay afloat with skeleton crews, it seems as if the economy is going to be the great equalizer in the gender gap (for good or bad). It’s always been my assumption that men get ahead because of a bias that includes the perception that women – even if they never have children – take more time away from careers to care for their families. I’m wondering how this plays out when single men find themselves having to care for an elderly parent.
Lots of food for thought.
Interesting point re the equalizing effect of this economy. That might make for a whole separate post altogether…
Oh gosh I could go on and on about this. Nate was not cut out to be a SAHD although he did it pretty darn well for more than a year. I think in part it’s because of the societal pressure to be “more than just a dad,” and it takes its toll. Whether he realized it or not. But I did.
Just like not all women are cut out to be SAHMs, not all dads are cut out to be SAHDs. But everyone can be an engaged parent, like you both are.
It’s hard out there for a SAHD, thanks to society’s gender stereotypes that run deep.
I thought that co-parenting was a myth, but in the last year, particularly thanks to a pretty great schedule, my husband is as active as I am (for the most part). It’s amazing how he still gets people asking him why he’s not working when he has the kids at the pool. Apparently dads don’t parent on their days off. Or something.
Co-parenting – not a myth. Schedule does help facilitate though.
Seeing as Bryan was a SAHD for 2 years – you know I have TONS to say on this subject. But I will save it for over beers at your house, and just nod enthusiastically for now.
Bryan is one of those dads with whom Kyle loves to hang out because their philosophies are so similar. Me too, of course.
I’ve always aimed to teach philosophy, and my teaching aspiration coupled with my wife’s legal aspiration just naturally led to me taking on the primary parenting role in the household. Long before we had kids, years before, we decided on this eventual division of duties. It’s not hard and fast; it’s more an attitude: if the girl is hungry dad is going to make dinner; if it’s time for school dad is taking her; if there is co-oping to be done dad is doing it; if there’s a story time to go to dad is going. My wife’s involvement is as her schedule allows.
Can’t say that I’ve felt much suspicion or resistance to me being an at-home dad. A little peer-pressure in the form of an assumption that by staying home I’d just given up on ever finishing my dissertation like a good grad student would. But I had no trouble taking leave or even returning to school in the last year. Any obstacles I have are my own, my desire to hang out with my kids instead of reading Aquinas.
Sounds similar to TFB’s philosophy (in her comment above) and ours too.
Speaking generally, it will always be part of most men’s makeup to have the drive to provide, whether SAHD or not. I don’t believe it is societal, I believe it is genetic and has been since our hunter/gatherer days. I don’t think it’s fair that those men who don’t fit that norm but rather have the drive to nurture will be placed under higher scrutiny, but I do believe they are the exception. I think that’s why it’s so much harder for those that do stay home to come out and become part of a like community. My husband is currently a SAHD, not by choice but by necessity. After undergoing treatment for Lymphoma, he isn’t allowed to return to work by the FAA as a pilot for another 6-9 months. So, I’m working (from home) while he struggles with domesticity and toddlerhood. He’s having a difficult time with it. We both are. I’ve got him interested in some Denver Dad groups, but every one we have found is very poorly attended. Not very encouraging.
Were you watching the Today Show too this morning, by any chance? Man did their ham-handed, stereotype-reinforcing portrayal of stay at home fatherhood pissed me off. It’s like they were mentioning the problems stay-at-home-dads face just so that they could reinforce the negative social stigmas that create them.
Anyway, this was a nice antidote.
I’m definitely on the daddy track, and I certainly don’t care who knows it. I’ve felt the pressure to put more time in at work from my co-workers and managers or at least I did at my last job. It’s the primary reason that job is no longer my current job. As you say, it’s about being confident in your choices and standing up for yourself when people challenge those choices.
It’s also important that those of us in two parent homes make sure that each parent has a clear understanding of what roles each parent is going to play. My wife knew long ago that I was going to be heavily involved. There is no struggle between the two us over who the better parent is; we’re both equally mediocre (but improving!). We know that each of us can do every task. It makes balance a lot easier to achieve.
As for the “neighborhood” moms, well I’ve never felt any negative energy or comments when I was a student/SAHD or even now when I’m out and about with my kids. I do wonder if they feel threatened about a man honing in or their territory, or wish their husband was as involved. In truth, all I’ve ever noticed is the positive comments that highlight the fact that I’m a man doing something unusual. I hope someday soon it won’t even be noteworthy.
My opinion is that the workplace won’t change to become more family friendly until more men start asking for those changes, too.
I guess my husband and I don’t really view it as having taken the “mommy track” and the “daddy track”. We just both looked at our jobs and the little baby we had, and made the adjustments to make it work. As far as I can tell, neither of us has suffered for our decision. But we aren’t super high flyers careerwise, either. I’m a middle manager at a biotech company and he’s a software engineer. Good, solid careers, but we’ve both always been able to keep the workload reasonable, even before the baby arrived.
We have also always split the household duties pretty evenly. It just seemed obvious to us that this is how it should be. When we added parenting duties, those got split, too. Well, except he couldn’t breastfeed.
I don’t mean to imply that it is easy for either of us or that we don’t have problems. But I think we’re both happy with the arrangement we have. And I do sometimes wonder when I’m watching the latest incarnation of the WOHM vs SAHM vs WAHM “wars” where the dads are in all of this. I freely admit that one of the main reasons I am a very happy WOHM is that my partner is truly an equal on the home front. So when problems come up, they are OUR problems, not just MY problems.
OK, I have to post again. A while back the Colbert Report did a great report on the dads’ group I belonged to in Austin…too bad they did it after I left Austin!
http://bit.ly/23YKCd
My husband works non-traditional hours. He earns a shift differential and he gets lots more time with the kids. He says they would have to double his pay to make him go back to a traditional schedule. But he lucked into that position – if he had sought it, I’m not sure he would have got it.
The husband chose the daddy track in some respects with a flex schedule. We share days off for a sick kid, he took time off after M was born, and while she was at her old daycare, he left work earlier than all of his coworkers so she spent a little less time in daycare.
My company has better time off, so i tend to take on a little more than he does. We both made choices about not going all out for promotions right now because it would mean less time with the kid. We also made a choice to stop with one because what we would have to do financially (meaning give up time with the kid for one of us to be the sole provider) just wouldn’t be worth it.
We’ve both been very lucky to have most of our managers understand that family needs have a place in having a productive staff. We’ve also had a few duds. Fortunately, so far, it has worked out.
In our family the daddy track means living here in Mayberry where the quality of life is so much better for us than it would be in a major city — where the daddy would probably have more prestigious and lucrative career opportunities. He chafes at it sometimes, but even though he has had the chance to move on to bigger and better things, we’ve decided that staying here is ultimately the best choice for the whole family.
I just want someone to talk about single parents in this whole debate. Because I am one, and I don’t feel up to writing that post myself.
Miss Grace, I am in complete awe of single parents. I have no idea how I would make my life work without my husband and what he does at home. I suspect it would involve spending a lot of money on help, which of course is something most single parents can’t do because money is tight without that second income. This fear is part of what drove me to make sure we got good life insurance policies purchased.
I think we need better support for working families of all types in this country. There are some policy changes that would make a big difference- better maternity leave, incentives to encourage employers to offer part time and flex time, better sick leave policies…. The problem is, most of us who are living with the current mess don’t have the time or energy to advocate to get it fixed. And there are plenty of people out there who will tell me “well, you chose to have kids” and/or “you chose to work” anytime I mention a policy that I think should be changed.
My husband took a much longer leave (mostly unpaid) for our first child than I did, and thankfully, the moms group that I’d joined completely welcomed him. So, he had company and group park dates. It would have been a lot harder if he’d be on his own, as I think it’s harder for the dads to be invited into things.
My husband is a great father.
In fact, I am continually awed and amazed by just how wonderful a father he is.
But if he had to be a SAHD I think his head would pop off and roll down our driveway.
That said, when we adopted the Jumbster, he was home for 2 months and loved every minute of it.
But he also loved going back to work.
Interesting discussion chicklet. I love it.
Great topic! When my first daughter was born nearly 6 years ago, my husband and I both reduced our schedules to work part-time. I work 25/hrs a week – 2 full days in the office and then 2-4 hours at home on the other 3 days. On the days I go to the office, he is home as a full-time dad. On the days I’m home, he works – often 10-12 hour days to “make up” for being “off” those 2 days.
We’re fortunate that we both work for progressive companies that allow us to do this. It’s worked very well for us. He loves his “daddy days” and I love being out of the house two days a week.
We’ve definitely sacrificed for this arrangement: income of course, but also promotions and as you said, “plum” assignments, but neither of us would change things for the world.
I wish more companies allowed employees flex schedules, job shares and other arrangements to allow people better balance in their lives. Hopefully, dialogues like this will help make that happen.
We’re headed for the Mommy Track, actually, but only because I make less money. The deal was whoever made less money would stay at home and the breadwinner would keep working. He makes more, so we’re more able to support a stay-at-home parent. It’s that simple.
That said, we are very lucky in that Donald’s company is so flexible. He’ll be away from work for the first week or 10 days, depending on what works best for us at the time, and then he’ll spend the next several weeks working from home. He probably won’t go back to work until the baby is nearly 6 weeks old, which is still young, but is also alot more time than most fathers around here get to spend with their newborn.
If we could afford the Daddy Track, I know my husband would do it in a heartbeat. I wish we could, not because I want to work over staying at home, but because I know it would mean the world to him.
Just before our first son was born my husband and I took major professional leaps. I left a lucrative law career to stay home with the kids and he quit his 9-5 to pursue the small business we’d been cultivating on the side, full time from the house. He also went back to school for his engineering degree.
Two and a half years and two and a half babies later, I’m really glad we made those (very difficult) decisions. We’ve had to make some MAJOR cutbacks and have even dipped into our savings a couple times, but we’re both here as part of the kids daily lives. It’s been a lot of trade-offs… no true ‘time off’ (he had to be in school for exams the night our first son was born and had projects with deadlines he was working on the night the second one was born), and he almost always works 7 days a week – BUT, he gets up with the kids in the morning and plays until 9am, he eats lunch with us every day, and dinner every night that he’s not in classes. The burden’s been tough on me too as I do a lot of work for the business and since he works 7 days a week, I don’t get a break from the kids… BUT… I wouldn’t trade it. I love that he’s just down the hallway and always there for a hug or a kiss or to mend a scraped knee
And I love that I’m not sitting in a courtroom lamenting the fact that my babies are being raised by daycare workers because I can’t get out of the office before 8pm.
sorry for the novel
Caregivers are “raising your children.” Hm.
It’s the third time I’ve seen that phrase used today and it’s starting to grate on me. Although I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.
My sitter is helping us raise our children, absolutely, but until she’s the final arbiter of morality, values, religious ideals, behavioral mores, she’s just that – helping. And thank goodness she is. She’s awesome, and my children are lucky to have one more person in their lives who really, truly loves them.
Yeah, this is one of my hot buttons, too. I’ve had to train myself to ignore these comments. As you say, most people who say this don’t really mean any offense. I think that it is part of their reasoning/justification for the decisions they have made in their lives, and they forget that it will sound pretty judgmental to people who have made other decisions.
Of course, I also know people who genuinely believe that I am letting “strangers” raise my child. I have never thought of day care that way. Day care is a place my husband and I carefully selected to care for our daughter while we are at work. We worked to find a place with caring workers and excellent activities for the kids. We checked that their policies fit with our beliefs. Sure, the day care workers spend quite a bit of time with our daughter- but so do we. I don’t expect day care to “raise” my daughter. That is our jobs as parents.
I will, however, cop to the fact that they taught her how to blow her nose by herself.
I think my comment was taken out of context and/or misunderstood… or maybe even (maybe…) poorly worded on behalf
All I’m saying is that in my particular situation, had I stayed in my previous job, daycare workers WOULD be raising my children because I worked such long hours and my husband works so many hours now. I left in the morning usually before they get up and didn’t generally return until well after they would be in bed. I also worked most Saturdays and many Sundays. I’m not saying at ALL that people who take advantage of daycare are using other people to raise their kids, I’m just talking about what would have happened in my personal situation.
I think daycare is a fantastic resource and wish I could afford to put my kids into it for a few hours a day/few days a week. If the right job came up I would absolutely use daycare or possibly an in-home caregiver. But for me, at this time, it’s not an option. Also, I was a nanny through college and law school and know that, generally speaking, nannies and babysitters are (hopefully) loving counterparts to the raising process but they do NOT take the place of parents or good parenting.
Hope that makes sense and I didn’t just muddle things up more…
No offense taken, MommyNamedApril. I think every family has to find the way that works for them based on their own circumstances, and it seems you agree.
I remember some parents – both moms and dads – raising this issue with me when I was writing one of my books. (Can’t remember which one). What made them furious was that there was such a huge gap between the family-friendly policies that were written on paper and how those policies played out in the real world if any employee (dads included) actually tried to take advantage of them. You were immediately perceived as being less committed to the company, less career-minded, off the career track. And yet these same companies offered wellness workshops that taught their employees the importance of work-life balance. Talk about the ultimate corporate head game.
Other parents aren’t the enemy. A society that is anything but child and family friendly is where people should be directing their rage.