Monday, June 29, 2009

take my child to work day (pretty please)

busking plus one
gold star to the busker with the big guitar who is fulfilling his partner's wish

If only!
I haven't tried asking but I think it would be a big no.

Please take my child(ren) to work day was started (hopefully in semi-seriousness) to draw some attention to the plight of SAH-parents everywhere who don't have the perk of a day/night/minute off in 365 days. OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration but most of the time 24.7.365 sums up life as a mum at home. Wee Guy is in school now (well, he was last week before the summer 'holidays' started - note how holiday is in quotation marks) and yes, he has a day of daycare so I technically get a few hours 'leisure time' (again note the quotation marks) but if he's sick, off colour or just plain being non-sociable that day it isn't daddy who fills in. And it's daddy who earns the salary so this is The Wisest Choice.

But I have noticed a distinct lack of credible time off, career advancement, regular breaks scheduled in my latest employment choice hence making the most of alternate or surrogate parenting arrangements which get me some head space.

Take Your Kids To Work Day is something that all at-home parents do every day of the year (unless I somehow lost the memo reminding me that being a stay-at-home parent is not really work). So maybe today should be renamed Please Don't Leave My Kids At Home With Me Today day or possibly even Please Stay At Home With My Kids While I Get To Leave The House In Less Than 15 Minutes And Whoop It Up Without Them day?

There must be a Hallmark card for that somewhere ...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love that photo. :)

Now that I am facing at home motherhood myself I'm beginning to understand more clearly. As much as I wasn't particularly looking forward to returning to work, facing down the days with no break in sight is intimidating. Answering the question of just what I do is intimidating.

And the idea of leaving the house in under 15 minutes made me smile. I think I used to be able to just grab my keys and go, once upon a time.

pomomama said...

I love that photo too - wish I had taken more. It was difficult to capture how much fun the kid in the carrier was having being with daddy.As he played the bass he boogied and the little one just bumped around in glee. Gorgeous sight!

At home motherhood isn't as grim as I bang on about sometimes but the sheer relentlessness of it has peaked in this last year. SAH-parents with no other family around have a really raw deal - there's simply no one to drop kid off with for an unplanned hour.

I'm slowly starting to realise that a lot of mummy bloggers (yourself excluded!) who wax lyrically about what a smashing time they had doing x,y,z cutesy activity with their kid(s) are in reality only doing it part time - they have grandparent/aunty back up close at hand or use a lot of daycare. Slow realisation that I don't need to feel so guilty about being occasionally/frequently grumpy!!

Me? I'm hanging on till September when I will once again be able to flit the house in under 2 minutes :))

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