The 36-Hour Day
with Lylah M. Alphonse
I'm a full-time editor, a part-time writer, and a mom and stepmom to five amazing kids, ages 1 to 14. For me it's not about finding balance, it's about the daily juggle-- my career, my commute, freelance work, homework, housework, married life, social life, and parenting-- and finding the time to get it all done.
To learn more about Lylah, check out her Work It, Mom! profile and read her blog at writeeditrepeat.blogspot.com.
Babies in the office? There are better ways to help new moms
Categories: Hacking Life, Making Time, Parenting, The Juggle, Uncategorized
I’ve been working from home a bit more lately, and while I love the flexibility, I get the feeling that some of my coworkers aren’t too keen on how often I’m away from the building.
Of course, all of my work gets done — and more, really, since I’m much more productive when I’m telecommuting. Working from home when I need to is something I had to negotiate for myself, it’s not something my employer urges people to do. But the alternative was bringing my kids to the office with me, and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s not a good option — not for me, not for my kids, and not for my company.
My youngest children are 5 and 3 years old now, but for the first two years of my 5-year-old’s life, she commuted to and from my office nearly every day after my maternity leave was over. But she rarely spent more than a couple of minutes at the office. My husband worked in the same building; my shift ended at 5, his shift started at 5, and we usually met in the parking lot and just switched cars.
When our youngest was born, my husband switched to a day shift just as my maternity leave came to an end, and we had to deal with daycare for the first time. Would I have preferred to take my then 6-month-old son with me to the office, to save on daycare costs or to make breastfeeding easier? Absolutely not. Even at 6 months, my son was active. And, frankly, hilarious and a lot of fun. I would never have been able to get anything done at the office with him there — and neither would any of my coworkers.
BabiesAtWork.org points out that there are many benefits to allowing parents to bring their babies to work with them — at least until the child is 6 to 8 months old or crawling. Those include lower stress levels for parents, better bonding and breastfeeding experiences, lower daycare costs, better financial stability, greater paternal involvment, and less incidents of post-partum depression.
But I think there are several other options companies could consider before implementing a babies-at-work program. On-site daycare, subsidized daycare at a nearby center, paid maternity leave, and, most of all, allowing schedule flexibility and telecommuting would have similar benefits for families while causing far less disruption in the workplace.
Parents, what do you think? When your babies were brand-new, did you wish you could bring them to the office with you?
I think they started a program in many places where you could bring a child in up to about 4 months old, IF the child was a quiet baby. I could see where this would work for some moms, considering that a quiet wee infant doesn’t do much other than sleep and eat. Yes, it would still take some time out of the mom’s day, but the theory was that she’d more than make up for it in morale and motivation.
I’ve never been a mom of just one child, nor of a wee little infant. So I can’t really speak from personal experience about infants in the office. But I know from having a nanny and a home office that when my kids and I are under the same roof, I spend more time focusing on my kids, even when I’m theoretically on the clock. I think this would be true even if they were tiny and quiet. I am not sure the same would be true for all moms. I would rather “baby in the office” be kept as an option and conditioned on a certain level of productivity.
I hear a lot about on-site daycare, and I always wonder. How much weight to parents put on the location of the daycare? I visited a couple of daycares when transitioning from my nanny. One was “on site” for a big office complex. The other was stand-alone, but nearby. Both sounded terrific online (and were priced the same), but the “on site” one was just horrible (in my opinion). I literally could not imagine my kids surviving in that place. Yet it was full of kids. So maybe I’m weird, but to me, I would rather drive a little to put my kids in a nicer place (especially if breastfeeding wasn’t an issue). My sister has her 3-month-old in an off-site center and still manages to go there and breastfeed her every day at lunch. So like I said, I wonder. Is on-site care that big of a benefit?
SKL | March 25th, 2010 at 1:13 am
Amelie was occasionally here with me when she was wee, and indeed, will spend a little time in the office at the end of the day (10 - 15 minutes) now - but did I want her here when I came off of maternity leave? HELL NO.
Never mind the fact that the tenor of my day can (and has) change in an instant and babies in EOCs are not smiled upon…it’s too distracting in general.
In the end though, I suppose it’s all about what you do, what your company’s philosophy is and how well you can manage it.
Phe | March 25th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Some days longed to bring her with me, especially as it became clear that pumping wasn’t going to work for me and we had a horrible time finding the right formula, but it wouldn’t have worked in our cubicle environment.
I have actually found it easier to take my daughter in now that she is older. I have placed her on a computer to play some video games if needed and get real work done. I try not to do for too long or too often but in a crunch time we’ve been there for up to 2 hours after the backup daycare closed.
When I was growing up there were fewer backup options so there were days that we spent the whole day in someone’s office. Usually if we were too ill to go to school but were not too ill to be mobile we’d go to work with mom. When visiting my father over summer we were often in the office with either my dad or my stepmother. We even made summer friends with other kids that were visiting parents over the summer. I actually have fond memories of my parents offices.
I don’t recall knowing about anyone being upset by it, but, I was a kid. And since it wasn’t an every day occurence it probably was tolerated more even if it wasn’t exactly wanted.
Mich | March 25th, 2010 at 11:17 am
I feel like noting something on the daycare location. I think that daycare matters, but it doesn’t matter over everything else to me. I ended up driving 30 minutes across town to go to a daycare that we felt comfortable in but it was hell after a bit because it was an extra 15 minutes on the train; when a “good day” the train ride is 45 minutes, and you have exactly one hour between the end of shift and the end of daycare, well that stretches it.
Where we live, there are VERY few standalone options in the downtown area so most people have a choice of on-site, or far away. If your commute was long, such that you couldn’t have your child in a place near your home and get there in time at the end of the day you might leap at an on-site, even if it is rough. Or you might take it while trying to get through the wait-list at the standalones.
Mich | March 25th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Mich, you remind me of when I was a kid. My parents went into the TV repair business and we would walk to their little storefront after school (including morning KG), and hang there during the summer. There was a tiny little space out back (for the garbage cans mainly); other than that, we played in my parents’ work spaces, under the desks, wherever. I suspect it wasn’t a terrific arrangement for my parents (there were 4 of us; I remember when the customers asked our ages and we’d say “2, 4, 6, 8″). Ah, memories.
SKL | March 25th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I think bringing a baby to work COULD be a solution in a small business where not too many people are likely to be using the option at any given time, and where clients/vendors would not be likely to be put off by it. For instance, i worked in a freestanding birth center for several years and it would have been seen as somewhat strange NOT to have my baby at work with me. In a larger, more formal or more “corporate” office, though, it seems a bit like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, doesn’t it? I like the option of flexible work hours with some telecommuting thrown in. I can get a lot more done while working in my own home with kids around than I could ever get done bringing my kids into an office.
Meagan Francis | March 25th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I am lucky enough to be able to work from home on a daily basis as I telecommute. I kept my son at home until he was 4 months and my daughter until she was 5 months. I would have loved to be with them for longer as babies but my own personal rule was that when I had to chose at any given moment between having to give attention to my child or attention to work, it was time for my babies to go to daycare. It was very important to me not to have to be torn, and neglect one or the other. My children mean the world to me and my job is what gives us the means to live our lives.
Misha | March 25th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
In my mind, bringing a baby to work (in the vast majority of work environments) feels an awful lot like child neglect. My daughter is home with a nanny while I’m at work, and I have very clear expectations of what our nanny should and should not be doing while she is watching my daughter. If I found out that she was spending her day reading to herself and/or writing at a desk, talking on the phone, and checking and sending e-mails (basically, the things I do at work) I would not be at all pleased and would probably fire her. So, why would I accept that level of childcare for my daughter just because I was the one providing it, and in an office rather than our home no less? No, I expect whoever is taking care of my daughter to be fully engaged with her, playing with her, teaching her things, singing and dancing with her, running around at the playground, visiting with friends, making and eating meals together, reading children’s books, doing arts and crafts, etc. I’d love to be the one doing that more of the time, but when I’m working, I’m happy to know that someone else is doing that and not that she is simply going without just to simply be close to me.
Jesse | March 26th, 2010 at 10:28 am
While I don’t have kids yet, I have been on the employer side of this situation a few times (I work in HR). In my current office, we allow some level of telework, which I think is great. As you’ve experienced, there is some envy among others who work from the office M-F. It takes a real culture shift to get beyond that. If top mgmt doesn’t buy in it usually won’t work.
The best situation that I’ve seen is also one that you’ve mentioned above. There was a place I worked where we provided reduced-cost day care onsite. Moms, Dads, and Grandparents who worked with us got to spend lunches with their little ones and they were also close by in case there was an emergency. Employee productivity was up, moral was up, it was definitely a win-win.
TheOccasionalPrincess | March 26th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I was on “Fox & Friends” this morning (Fox News Channel) discussing this issue with Karel Ares, the executive director of Prevention First. Here’s the link! http://bit.ly/92wpop
Lylah | March 26th, 2010 at 10:57 am
i feel you. it’s so dumb when coworkers get mad about every thing some one else is doing that they aren’t doing or can’t do. grow up children. im glad you found something that works for you.
seeking moms | March 26th, 2010 at 11:43 am
We have on-site daycare, but she is still “kicked out” just like any other daycare when she has a sniffle, temp or diarehra so it’s really not any better just closer.
Andrea | March 31st, 2010 at 2:35 pm