Yesterday, I saw a post on Facebook about the lottery for full day kindergarten in my town. And suddenly, all the fear I'd felt a year ago came flooding back....
What if my kid doesn't get into full day kindergarten? (Which only goes till 2:30pm by the way--it's just short of criminal to call that "full day".)
What will I do with her for those three extra hours when afterschool doesn't start till 2:45?
What will I dooooo??????
Fortunately, we got a spot in the lottery. Most people did. If I had moved to our town in February with a pre-K kid, I would have been out of luck for the next year because there were no spots left by then. Oh, and if I didn't already have my kids enrolled in the afterschool program the year before, I would have no chance of getting in.
Sometimes it frustrates me that the school systems (at least, outside of big cities) are not set up for working parents. Most moms I know work, yet we all have to scramble. Holidays are always rough. And what about that stupid week between school and camp?
I keep telling myself that someday things will change. The powers that be will realize that with so many women in the workforce, there needs to be good childcare options. But I'm giving up hope. Women have been in a workforce for a long time, and it doesn't seem like there's any movement to help us, at least where I am.
I'm really glad women are coming forward in the media to discuss their experiences with sexual harassment lately and I hope some progress is made because of it. But now maybe we can discuss the sexual oppression women face when society makes it so challenging to go back to work after having a child.
1) "Most moms I know work, yet we all have to scramble." What about the dads?
ReplyDelete2) In a 2-income household in which one of those incomes is that of a physician, are there really no other options than the school (which, as you mentioned, was a viable option for most people anyway)?
I am 100% for more available practical solutions. But I think that a) the burden needs to be more clearly defined (ie, it's not the physician families who really shoulder it, most of the time - it's single parents with less financially rewarding jobs) and b) the burden needs to be on BOTH PARENTS. Your language in this post just (to me) reinforced old and tired norms.
I am sorry it is tired to you, but to me it is reality. Where I live, 100% of the parents who decided to stay home and not go back to work after having a child were the mothers, which is why I intentionally used that language. Maybe it’s different in other places but this is my experience and I doubt it’s unique. The only case I know of where the dad is staying home with the kids is one where the dad got laid off around when I get were born coincidentally. We can pretend that the responsibility is shared equally and maybe it should be, but it’s just not in most cases.
DeleteInterestingly I'm wondering if my feelings come in part because I work in the field of pediatrics, specifically pediatric endocrinology. Most of the people I trained under were women and I saw them with supportive partners that would have been just as responsible for figuring out this kind of solution as the woman. In fact, our one male faculty member with young kids was married to an ophthalmologist who had longer hours, so I saw these kinds of concerns fall on him! Currently I work in a division with all female providers. Of the 5 of us, I'm actually the only one with young kids and a spouse who has a less flexible/more demanding career which does put me in the hot seat technically . . . but since we are both physicians and need reliable care we ended up hiring a nanny 4 years ago and haven't looked back. (NOT saying that is feasible or desirable for everyone). But I didn't feel like hiring the nanny or figuring that out was MY problem. I felt like it was ours. I guess to me in this post, the fact that this is still considered a mommy issue was glossed over and just tossed around casually and I think it deserves a pause all of its own. I hope this makes more sense. I didn't mean it to come off as unsupportive as it may have sounded!!
DeleteIt will get better when people realize this is an issue for working parents, not just working mothers.
ReplyDeleteyou said this much more nicely than I did above :) But same idea!
DeleteWhile it's true that the responsibility for childcare *should* fall on both parents in a two-parent family, it's also true that the burden of childcare falls disproportionately on women. When there is a lack of affordable childcare, it's generally not men who stay home, work part time, or make career sacrifices to deal with it. It is almost always the female partner in a heterosexual relationship who takes that hit. That's what makes it a women's issue. It *should* be an issue for all working parents, but right now it's now. That's one of the things that needs to change, yes, but right now it's women who are mostly impacted.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same scramble and responsibility as a working mother in my first marriage as I did when I became a single mom. The kids are older now, and can be left alone. It is easier (but oh the carpooling!!). And there is a different framework in my second marriage making it easier for me to ask for help - when society models women doing everything, well you try to do everything. As Amber Tamblyn said in an op-ed in the NYTimes this week, we aren't at a watershed moment, it's a flash flood point (referring to your discussion of harassment). The beginning, starting with the super rich. I look forward to watching more and maybe as it trickles down things will change in order to support women more at all levels of society.
ReplyDeleteTook me a while to mount a response, but in all honestly every single cis-parenting couples I know (man and woman), the burden of most childcare falls on the woman. Talk about washed up, played out tropes! I have been listening to my mother more and more as she tells me to make a list for my hubby and just let him do it in his way, on his timeline; she and my father have been married for almost 40 years. She says it never gets better (meaning my dad still works at his slow as a snail pace) BUT she is less bitter because she's not doing it all on her own. It is so hard for me as a Type A get-it-done-mama. But it's either let hubby do his share or I lose my dag-on mind. I'm all about self preservation! I can't balance being a wife, mother, and Pediatrician if hubby isn't balancing husband, father, and Professor. We each do things differently. So if he waits until the last possible day to purchase the new baby items, that's just how it'll be. Sending hugs - SCHOOL LOTTERIES SUCK!!!
ReplyDelete