SPIRITUAL/PHILOSOPHICAL ANSWER :: Since we've been married nearly 10 years, we've had endless conversations about our families of origin, our desired family model, studying biblical imperatives and stories, interviewing countless families on their work/family practices, and sacrifices we're willing to make. So, when we decided that I would continue working full-time there was a lot of thought that went into our family's philosophy. Here are some thoughts about childcare particularly.
- I'm willing to go part-time if we see that our kids need it and I'm overly struggling with work-parenting juggling act.
- Child-rearing is not the primary responsibility of the mother. We both carry this primary responsibility and believe we have equal calling from God to nurture and raise our children. [More about this in a future co-parenting post]
- We would not do a day care center for a bunch of reasons.
- We would only have childcare workers who share our vision for our family and would reinforce our values.
- We passionately believe that it takes a village to raise a child, so we actually WANT for additional voices, hands, and hearts caring for our children. We want for them to experience God and the world through others.
- We need help as parents. We both make better parents when we have breaks, different kinds of work, and others supporting our parenting. This job is way too important and difficult to do in a bubble.
PRACTICAL ANSWER ::
- Sundays are Daddy Days! While I'm working at church, Brian's taking that as a full day with the kiddos.
- 7 hours/week [Tuesday and Wednesday mornings] our kids are in our church's childcare. I LOVE this. My kids are playing down the hall from my office with my friends'/co-workers' kids in a safe environment, and they are cared for by women who love Jesus. To me it's a win-win.
- Brian's working part-time [approx. 25 hours/week], and his work hours are very, very flexible and he works almost exclusively from home.
- My work hours are also very flexible, with the exception of Sundays and some regular meetings. I can go into the office, meet with people, and work from home when I need to. I'm not confined to 9a-5p office hours.
- The rest of the week we figure out. Yes, it's a little chaotic and challenging at times, but it's a tension that we choose to live in.
What works for you? We have found this rhythm because of examples from others. I'd LOVE to hear so we can learn how to do this even better. After all, we are only 2 weeks into this new gig.
Here's a couple pics from last week when I brought my kids to work for a couple hours and they played in our church's infant room. It can work!
Mind you that Addise just finished eating lunch and now she's going after her brothers' food.He graciously obliged. No wonder they are the sizes they are!
Contentedly feeding herself while watching Baby Einstein's Animals.
I'm so glad to read that this is working well for you guys. We decided that I would stay at home, and that has definitely been the right answer for our family so far. I really appreciate reading your perspective...we thought through many of the same things.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, friend! As a Mama AND home daycare provider, I definitely see both the perspective of the parent and the daycare provider. Some thoughts from my own experience and what works for us…..clearly we have a different situation than most families. Since both Matt and I run our home daycare together, and are both equally putting in as much time/energy into our daycare, we view our daycare as an extended family of our daycare families. Our daycare kids are being raised by their own parents AND have husband/wife daycare providers while their parents are at work. Extended family. Like you said, it takes a village to raise a child, and this is obvious in our situation. And, bonus, our own kiddos are being raised full-time by both parents. Unique situation. Now, where it gets slightly complicated is when it comes to our religion and values. We are not secretive about our Christian faith with our daycare families, but most of our daycare families do not necessarily share our same beliefs and values. So while we may be the extended family to these kids during the day, they are learning different things while at home. It would be awesome if all of our daycare families were passionate Christ-followers, but at the same time, it is awesome that we are able to share our faith and values with the families through the work that we do. (But at the same time, frustrating when they bring bad language or inappropriate ideas into our home….) That being said, as a parent searching for daycare, I would FOR SURE choose a provider who shared the same faith and values as our family. Another issue that we have had to work through is how we handle our own free time or personal time. It is exhausting to run a home daycare full time AND have 3 littles of our own. We literally don’t have any down time during the day. We transition straight from “daycare provider mode” into “family mode”. There’s not even a drive home from work to reflect on our day! Matt and I have realized over the years that we MUST schedule in our own free time. It is absolutely imperative (for us, at least!) that we each have some regular personal free time away from the daycare and even away from our family to just be alone. To be honest, it is HARD to schedule this time into our regular schedules but we have realized that it is imperative to our emotional health, so we do it anyway. I love how much thought you and Brian have already put into the care of your children—both as how you’ll care for them as parents and also how you will handle childcare when you are working. Bravo for making it work with TWO littles after just having them home for 3 months. You go girl! Love you!
ReplyDeleteIt always is a tough choice, but when I was working, I put my son Christopher with a lady from our church. She has become like a grandmother to him, and now calls her Grandma Sandy. It's so cute, because he doesn't get to see her everyday like he used to, so when they do get together he wants to play with her! Staying at home makes financial resources tight- especially when there's no income coming from me. Though the budget is super tight, the experiences I get to share with my son and knowing that I'm the one raising him, and not someone else is awesome. Yes, he may frustrate me for a whole day- but at the end of the day he does something cute and he makes me laugh! I love him, and I'm so blessed that God has given me the opportunity to stay home with him. You guys are blessed with jobs that are flexible! I know that Roy wishes he could work from home from time to time to spend more time with our little guy- but we are lucky that Christopher and I can visit his work because it's family-friendly.
ReplyDeleteKathy, Betsy, and Sarah - each of you have such different family circumstances. I so appreciate you sharing them and encouraging us where we are. It's ALWAYS helpful to learn from others, even if their circumstances are so different from ours.
ReplyDeleteBets - I LOVE what you talked about with scheduling free time and the qualifications of finding a child care provider. I LOVE how you are instilling faith into your day care kids' lives.
Sarah - I LOVE your point about the intergenerational benefit of Christopher spending time with Grandma Sandy. We need lots of those out here since our families aren't local.
Great thoughts! Keep them coming!!
My husband is a farmer. So I am a farmer's wife. We both work from home (he, obviously on the farm, and I am a medical transcriptionist) and we both raise the kids - TOGETHER. We both love our kids and want to spend time with them, but also know that God placed us in our jobs and we need to be faithful to that too. Both of our schedules are flexible, but ultimately have timelines that need to be met. This is where sacrifice comes in. There are times you will find me typing with a toddler on my lap and two others fighting nearby or you will see their Dad making lunch or supper b/c I couldn't get to it. Our girls are in school now, but the boys are still home all day. Their dad is simply amazing about taking them with him to run errands, get parts fixed or take them in the tractor for a few hours each day. He knows that any time the boys are with him I can be getting my work done and preparing to take them when he gets back so he can to do things that are less than convenient with toddlers in tow. As long as we communicate a TON and are looking for ways to help each other out, it all gets done. We both make sacrifices and we both receive blessings as work from home parents. I can't leave out that one day a week (for my sanity!) the little kids go to grandma's house from 9-2. They have such a special relationship b/c of that and I get some free time to work on my to-do list w/o the "help" of the kids :) You guys have great flexible schedules too - AND the desire to make it work. You will do great. It is so great to raise your kids together.
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