So, my daughter, who will be 3 in August, is going to start at a pre-school-themed day-care 3 days a week.  She starts tomorrow, and I'm anxious, all the way down to my bones.  I've researched and visited and made hundreds of phone calls, trying to find care that is actual "care", when we can't afford $1000 per month (and up, in some places in the Bay).

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We are planning to move within the next few months.  DS will be a bit less than two.  He will need to go to a new daycare near the new place, which will be much closer to where DH and I work.  I have no idea how to make this change in a good way.

During the height of the dot-com era here in the San Francisco Bay Area, many companies used to allow employees to bring their babies to work as a way to retain them. Once the local economy collapsed, many employers stripped the stock options and other perks, including this one, from their budgets.

Most recently, blogger Carla Moquin over at MomsRising raised the issue, saying that company productivity would increase if workers were allowed to bring their babies to work.

The impact on the work environment has been profound in these companies with structured baby programs. Babies improved morale--not just for the parents, who were obviously deeply grateful for the opportunity to keep their children with them--but for the office in general. Higher morale meant happier, more loyal, and often more productive employees. People started talking about their personal lives more and developed closer relationships with their coworkers, which led to increased cooperation and teamwork. In many companies, managers noticed that people were actually nicer to each other as a result of the babies being around. People--including many who really didn't want the baby program in the first place--discovered that a smile or hug from a baby was deeply rejuvenating if they were having a bad day, and they talked about needing their daily "baby fix..."

Babies-at-work programs obviously have many benefits for parents and babies, including easier breastfeeding, deeper bonding, lower day care costs, better financial stability, and increased social and intellectual stimulation for new mothers and babies. A "side effect" of babies in the workplace that could truly transform our society, though, is how regular interaction with babies (which was actually the "norm" in human history prior to the Industrial Revolution) rekindles awareness of our humanity in the workplace. It is likely that many more organizations will adopt baby programs, given the proven success of these programs in a wide range of companies, the extensive benefits of these programs, and the nominal financial costs for a business.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for family-friendly practices in the workforce. But, initially, I had a lot of questions about this arrangement. A new parent should be home resting and bonding with the baby, not stretching herself thin, commuting, trying to get work done AND caring for the baby. Why can't these companies let the parents take paid family leave? Or, let them work from home so that the baby can nap in its familiar surroundings?

Then again, it depends on what one does for a living. Not everyone has a job, in which working from home is possible. Take, for example, someone in retail or a waitress. As one of the posters mentioned in Moquin's piece, she works around heavy machinery and it would be unsafe to bring her baby to work. She wanted to know what MomsRising could do to make industrial jobs more family-friendly.

But the responses to Moquin's piece were overwhelmingly in favor of the arrangement. Dozens of moms piped up how it had worked for them with the caveat that is can be challenging, too.

Because care givers from nursing home assistants to babysitters are in such high demand, I have often wondered why they are paid so little and under-appreciated in this country. Here is a provocative letter from a professional care giver posted on Berkeley Parents Network:

People's attitudes toward certain professions.
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I work in child care and find that people are often politely condescending to me until they realize that I am 'like them' - meaning that I am well educated, have a reasonably high family income, etc. Can I ask why? I know that there are a lot of people on BPN who use childcare and I am just curious why childcare workers are looked down upon.

I've chosen the profession because a) I love kids, b) I can take my kids to work with me, and c) I can make a (very) little money. My income isn't pertinent to our bottom line which allowed me to choose something I LOVE. Kids are awesome and I love to spend time with them. The whole experience also makes me a better mom. But, the parents...ooh, my. All are politely friendly (and usually ask within a few weeks of meeting me to be their personal nanny...even tell me that I can bring my kids with me and they will pay me a dollar more an hour than I am already making). Sometimes they make some vaguely condescending remarks. But, those that engage in a longer conversation with me usually ask 'why do you work here?' Even my own sister says that she pays her cleaning lady better than she pays her babysitters.

I realize that part of it is ego, but part of it is curiosity. I have always been appreciative of my caregivers contribution to my sanity and lifestyle. I am still on friendly with my old nannys (sic) (I like them as much as my friends and appreciate them as much). Can someone enlighten me as to why childcare has such a bad rap?
-anon

I do think it is an elitist attitude certain “white collar” workers have towards manual laborers, which is what caring for children feels like with the diaper-changing, dressing, clean-up, etc.. Also, we (unfairly) don’t view children as smart, thus feel that occupying them is a waste of a good mind. This is my guess.

Do you think we will ever compensate our care givers what they deserve? Why do you think we take care givers for granted?

It's as if she had written the Motherhood Manifesto herself. Sen. Hillary Clinton offered a comprehensive family leave and flextime policy to families, including money to let low-income parents stay home with their children, according to details sent to MotherTalkers by the Clinton campaign.

To give all parents more time with their children, Hillary is proposing:

--Having all states give family leave by 2016. By “family leave,” she means time off for workers to care for their parents, children, spouses, or immediate family. To achieve this goal, she is committing $1 billion a year in start-up costs and matching funds for states to implement family leave through disability, unemployment insurance, business tax credits, “At Home Infant Care” and similar programs.

--Expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to give employees at companies with 25 or more workers 12 weeks of job-protected leave. The change from 50 employees (current law) to 25 would benefit 13 million workers at small companies.

--Guaranteeing at least 7 sick days per year -- up from the typical 5 days allotted by most employers.

--Promoting workplaces with flextime and telecommuting policies by providing grants and highlighting businesses that offer such perks. She will also require federal agencies to set specific telecommuting goals for their workers and allot up to $50 million annually in state and local telecommuting initiatives.

--Ensuring higher quality childcare by helping states improve and enforce licensing and safety standards of childcare centers, supporting public and private partnerships to increase the supply of affordable, high-quality childcare to working families and expanding the Child Care Development Block Grant to allow "qualifying low-income" families to stay home with their children. Currently, the block grants can be used only by parents who work outside the home.

--Making it illegal for businesses to discriminate against families for pregnancy or care-taking duties.

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?