Blog #3

I have had two children in my life. With my first child "Bronson" I worked full time while Bronson was cared for in a private in home daycare. It was difficult trying to get time off without jeopardizing my job to get Bronson to his checkups at the Doctors and then having to call in sick to stay home when Bronson was ill. There were times when I felt overwhelmed because I was the one who dropped Bronson off at the sitters then went to work, sometimes my lunch hour was spent running errands to pick up household items that we needed, and then it was back to work were I had to make sure that I got out of there on time in order to make it back to the babysitters before a certain time. With me being the primary contact person with the babysitter I had to make sure that she had diapers and wipes and other things that he needed while at her home and I also got to write that check to her every week and yes there were times that I felt like all I did was work to pay the sitter and was it all really worth it? Most often my husbands work kept him out later and on call so I was usually the one to arrive home first and start dinner and maybe a load of laundry along with feeding and bathing Bronson. With my second child Bailey I decided to be a stay at home mom but I still need to help support my family so I decided to do childcare out of my home as a way of supplementing my income. Now instead of working 40 hours a week I worked an average of 50 to 60 hours a week doing childcare which mean 3 times more the mouths to feed for breakfast and lunch, my house had to been cleaned thoroughly daily (where as with my first child I would do a thorough cleaning each weekend) When my daughter turned 2 I suddenly found myself a single parent which meant that when childcare ended at 6pm I still had to go out and do the shopping and worry about servicing the car along with paying all the bills doing all the household upkeep and repairs and the dreaded yard work. One valuable lesson that I learned about childcare is that many people assumed that just because I worked out of my home that I had more free time on my hands. When it came to needing someone to help out with a project within the community or my family MY name was always the first to come up because I was the one who was home all day. People didn't realize that although I was home I had a very difficult job of caring for not only my child but other peoples children. Running a simple errand meant packing up one very large diaper bag with different sizes of diapers and sippy cups extra outfits in case of an accident and loading several car seats into my car. I believe that the work that women do raising children and tending to a home is greatly under appreciated.