We are fortunate to have stable full time child care in a facility where our child is safe and loved and grows so much. And still. We have 0 margin for delays between drop off and getting to work then coming back for pick up. Recently a supervisor encouraged me to take a lunch break for self care. I laughed because maintaining not my job and my childcare has to count as self care for now.
Last year we moved to a smaller city and out of the 5 preschools we applied to we were offered 2 full-day spaces. That is 8:30am-3:00pm. It's a wonderful school with a caring community where our child is thriving. We are very grateful. And, my work as a self-employed parent has absolutely changed. I only have so many hours in the school day and outside of our regular preschool childcare, we don't have a babysitter or family nearby. So while yes, it's a wonderful gift to have consistent and reliable preschool, the hours outside of school time are not accounted for (neither are the sick days, holidays, conference days, etc). It's a small margin for error and time management which means I can only take on so many projects which limits the growth of my business in one way or another. Some stretches of time feel manageable and like we are crushing it, and others feel like we are drowning because life outside of parenting can be nonexistent.
This is so familiar, Emmy! As a self-employed parent myself, I get so excited on the days we have a few extra hours of after-school care. More time, more projects, right? But the sick days, and weeks, always follow, and that makes predicting work/time availability really hard.
We are fortunate to have stable full time child care in a facility where our child is safe and loved and grows so much. And still. We have 0 margin for delays between drop off and getting to work then coming back for pick up. Recently a supervisor encouraged me to take a lunch break for self care. I laughed because maintaining not my job and my childcare has to count as self care for now.
Thank you, Amanda. Zero margins for delays, sick days, etc. seems to be a common theme for so many parents.
^^remove the not—typo.
Last year we moved to a smaller city and out of the 5 preschools we applied to we were offered 2 full-day spaces. That is 8:30am-3:00pm. It's a wonderful school with a caring community where our child is thriving. We are very grateful. And, my work as a self-employed parent has absolutely changed. I only have so many hours in the school day and outside of our regular preschool childcare, we don't have a babysitter or family nearby. So while yes, it's a wonderful gift to have consistent and reliable preschool, the hours outside of school time are not accounted for (neither are the sick days, holidays, conference days, etc). It's a small margin for error and time management which means I can only take on so many projects which limits the growth of my business in one way or another. Some stretches of time feel manageable and like we are crushing it, and others feel like we are drowning because life outside of parenting can be nonexistent.
This is so familiar, Emmy! As a self-employed parent myself, I get so excited on the days we have a few extra hours of after-school care. More time, more projects, right? But the sick days, and weeks, always follow, and that makes predicting work/time availability really hard.