Well, we've just passed Columbus Day, and I was struck by this article about how few businesses observe this Federal Holiday.  Separate from how you feel about Columbus himself (another blog altogether), un-celebrated holidays pose a problem for working parents.

Note: This is a topic I feel strongly about, too: Where are the male caregivers? My son's preschool finally has a male teacher's aide, which I think sets a good example for our boys. -Elisa

I nominated my son's preschool teacher for the Delaware Governor's Award for Excellence in Early Childhood Education and got to attend the awards banquet this week (she did not win, although she certainly deserved to!).

Although I'm grateful that I live in a state where preschool teachers and daycare providers are recognized by the governor (and given cash prizes), I was bothered by something during the proceedings. Every speaker (all of them female, including the governor) talked about how grateful they were to the people in the room because they make it possible for women to work - no mention of men at all. Pretty much all of them also said that they felt like crummy mothers for working, but that their wonderful childcare provider/preschool teacher made it OK.

Am I crazy because this bothers me? Don't these people make it possible for men to work too? And shouldn't these women also feel relieved that the teachers are wonderful so they don't have to feel "guilty" about doing something that supports their family, (perhaps) does some good in the world, and is just generally what they feel called to do?

A new study finds that traditional gender roles between mothers and fathers remain the same when it comes to caring for sick children, even in dual-earner families.  Research from the University of Cinncinati's David Maume found that in the case of urgent child care, women are much more likely to leave their jobs to care for the children.  The research involved random telephone surveys.

Maume says that in spite of conventional wisdom that, over the years, men are getting more involved in taking care of their children, this study suggests that men's commitment to their work remains a priority over their families.

Maume found that 77.7 percent of working mothers take time off to provide urgent child care, while only 26.5 percent of fathers do.

Maume states:

"Looking first at the effects of the controls, then the job-related factors and then the demographic and familial predictors, the pattern of results increasingly suggests that urgent child care is viewed as a parenting problem and that families remain persistently traditional in solving this problem."

There have been quite a few posts on local message boards in my neck of the woods lately, posts that we'll call "I Saw Your Nanny" posts.  Basically, these posts are written by strangers who anonymously report sightings of nannies treating the children in their care, well, not so great.

If you want to look at some of these postings, one such blog that posts them is "I Saw Your Nanny at blogspot." I warn you though, be careful if you decide to go to this website because there is some slightly disturbing stuff on there.

The reports have a few components. First up, there is usually a physical description of the nanny. Including her race. And then a description of the children.  Including their race. And then, they launch into the transgressions committed by the nanny.

Responses to such posts seem to fall into a few categories. Some commenters scold the nanny and hypothesize about what must be going on at home. Others thank the original poster for being so kind-hearted as to go post this information on an anonymous website. Some scold the original poster for not intervening at the scene of the alleged transgression.  And then, of course, other posters say, "This is why I would never leave my child in the care of another," chastising the parents.

Granny Nannies, From the New York Times Thursday Style section:

Angela Kim spends two days a week baby-sitting for her 2-year-old grandson, Noah, while her daughter, Andrea, a doctor, works nine-hour hospital shifts.

Only Mrs. Kim, 57, lives in Houston and her daughter and grandson live in Dallas — 250 miles away....Mrs. Kim fills her grandson’s next two days with brown rice, seaweed and Konglish, a mix of Korean and English.

On Wednesday night, Mrs. Kim does the trip in reverse, catching a 7:30 p.m. flight to the Houston airport, where her husband picks her up....

"She was desperate," she (Mrs. Kim) said. "As a mother, I thought, ‘She needs my help more than any other time of her life, and this is something I can do for her.’ "

Another grandmother in the story moved to the Bay Area from Seattle taking a year-long leave of absence to babysit for her daughter, prompted by feelings of reluctance towards hiring a nanny or using a daycare:

Mrs. Chen’s daughter and son-in-law were reluctant to hire a nanny, feeling uncomfortable with strangers raising their son. They said they also worry about day care, expressing a widely shared parental anxiety that was only heightened by a National Institutes of Health study published this year that found some evidence of increased behavior problems among sixth graders the more time they had spent in professional day care.