Family Friendly
One of my biggest regrets as a mother was not being able to be a stay-at-home Mom. I craved that time. For me, the best thing ever was to be in the house, cooking and cleaning, taking my boys to the park, chasing worms and butterflies. I lived for those moments.
Clearly I found, that was not in the cards. I had to work to survive – as with many Moms – and the dream of being a full time, stay at home Mom was not to be. I did, however, have a couple of glimpses into being with my babies more. I had one employer who let me bring my newborn to work with me – until he was wanting to crawl and escape the playpen in my office. It was an epic fail – trying to work and care for an infant was not successful – either for the baby or my boss. So that quickly ended. And then the inevitable – handing him over to a day care provider – which was truly heartbreaking for me.
I later tried doing home day care so that I could be home with my boys. I quickly found that I was spending more time with other people’s children than with my own. My 3 year old actually asked to go back to his day care center – pointing out to me this just wasn’t working either. My attempts to be at home were a huge bust. And asking for flexibility in the workforce was met with a resounding ‘no’…
So here I am, many decades later, with staff having children of their own. Growing and raising families and now ‘on the other side of the table’ I see that my old employers were not being mean, they just hadn’t any ideas of how to make this work. Luckily today we have technology to allow people to work at home and to be more present with their families while still being ‘present’ at work.
For example one staff who’s been a ‘stay-at-home’ Dad, raising his son and working simultaneously. Is he able to sit at his desk 8 hours/day and still raise a toddler? Of course not, but by working flex hours and rearranging his duties, it’s been possible. And the benefits to his child are unending. We now have another staff who just had a baby and will need flex time as well – and while we are not a big enough company to have day care centers and paid maternity time – we can give the priceless – flexible time to be a more present parent.
We cannot all be home with our children – I wish everyone could. However as a business owner I can now offer as much flexibility as possible to help bridge that gap – be creative – and encourage other small business owners to do the same for their staffs – for Moms and for Dads – and leave a lasting legacy of closer families.
Empire Interpreting 