So next week I'm headed back to work. The very place that reported THIS bit of news last week. GRRRRRREAT!!!
... And here we've had to hire a new babysitter. Someone who is legally able to take only two children, and had two spaces available. Someone, who as Ittybit puts it, "isn't Lori."
I know what she means. I feel it myself. She's probably perfectly fine, we just don't know her yet. Going back to work with such an unknown person taking care of the most important people in my life ... well I don't have to tell you what it feels like. If you've ever done it you know.
And now with this death in my head -- on the first day of daycare no less -- I can't imagine I'll be getting much work done.
Not that any babysitter -- or any mother, for that matter -- could prevent the death of an infant to SIDS. However, we'd always be thinking we could have done something should such a nightmare happen to us.
Even if that senario is rare, what's not rare in these early months when life seems so precarious, we are trudging back to work to make ends meet or to keep our jobs secure.
When I talk to people around the world who are given leave for 12 months to make sure the Next Generation gets a good start, I become enraged at the backward thinking that some say has made us a superpower ... Corporations over people.
I'll tell you what ... I for one would like our government to pay women to stay home with their infants for a year if they choose to do so. I'd gladly trade all the bullets we've used in Bagdad for that.
Who needs superpowers anyway? Isn't there some saying ... the bigger you are the harder you fall?
Seriously, if a superpower can't get you decent health care or family leave than how super can it be?
7 comments:
Our family leave is paltry and pitiful. We only need to look North to see what the possibilities are.
For a country so entranced with the words 'family values,' our leaders do little else than pay lip service to us parents.
Amen amen amen!
For my own situation, I'm going to be in a financial crunch just to take 6 weeks maternity leave when my baby is born in three months. I am lucky to have the same babysitter that Gabe has gone to for going on three years now, but it's still an uncertainty. It's still scary. They're still my babies.
I had some yahoo I work with (who will never be faced with the insecurity of choosing job security and income stability or family since he's a man) say that our short term disability leave is competitive to other comanies in the area.
Not really, because of what I've learned from my friends who have small babies, but also so what if it's comparable? Comparing a piece of poo to another piece of poo still gets you a handful of shit. Comparable does not equal good. And it's appalling that in a country that claims to be so forward thinking and family friendly is really just about money money money and big business over the individuals in nearly every way. /soapbox.
Good questions that we all, sadly, know the answers too. After all, look at our "head" of state!
I'm sitting at my desk at this very moment pumping. It's just not right that I'm here hooked up to my electronic baby instead of my soft, cuddly, real one!
amen, siobhan. my husband and i always said we were better suited for a european lifestyle (or canadian, or swedish, whatever), but never have we been more sure of that fact since our babe arrived. i hope this first week goes well for all of you.
I really understand you... It's a shame you cannot have more maternity leave!
Here in France we have 16 weeks of paid maternity leave but we can also take a one year parental leave which can be renewed twice, not paid but with a little financial help.
But we're complaining as well to have more, like the swedish moms have! Never happy...
Courage for your return to work.
Either pay the mom OR the dad to stay home. I'm all for increasing the number of hands-on fathers in this country. Given the fact that men still hold much of the power, the only way for Corporate America to appreciate what it takes to stay home with/insure/educate/protect children would be if more men knew what it was like from personal experience.
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