My wife will start going into the office to work twice a week. It’s her choice as the default work arrangement at her bank is still full-time work from home. But she prefers being in the office when her workload picks up. The LAN connection is faster so it’s easier to access large documents as it can be frustrating trying to open them at home only to cause the laptop to hang. It’s also easier to conduct conference calls and face-to-face meetings to facilitate co-operation. More importantly, she can catch up with her colleagues socially at work, during lunch and after work. She can even schedule in a gym session to have a work-out and exercise on the days she is in the office.
For my wife to be able to maintain this flexible work arrangement, I need to be on full-time work from home to take care of our boy with the helper. As he grows up, gets more active and requires ever increasing amounts of attention, this is proving to be a bigger challenge with each week. I have also been informed that I may be heading into the office every alternate week from next month onwards. So I will only be on a 50% work from home arrangement after that. And that’s not enough because on the full week I’m in the office working, I don’t think she can handle our boy with the helper at home with her workload. Plus she would still want to go into the office to work then. It’s possible to scrape by through overloading the helper but it will go out of balance eventually.
So we are considering 2 options. Option 1 – we put our boy at my parents-in-law’s place for half a day to a full day with the helper there to assist. It’s less than 10 mins drive and has more space for him to run around. There’s more flexibility in terms of drop-off & pick-up, less financial costs and he will be looked after by family. Option 2 – we put our boy at an infant care centre in the area for half a day to a full day. It’s about 10 mins drive and is even more catered to his development. But there’s less flexibility in terms of drop-off & pick-up, more financial costs and he will be looked after by strangers.
We weighed the pros and cons of both options yesterday evening during dinner outside after visiting the infant care centre. It’s a tough call because the benefits and costs are so even when you look at it from a short-term perspective. After all, our boy will be headed to child care in less than 6 months’ time so whatever arrangement we arrive at now has to hold until then and transition him into it. We could keep him with us at home, try to make it work and not use either option. But things will just get more difficult as we are already struggling to maintain the balance at home. Something has to give and I don’t want the cracks in our relationships that are starting to surface just from trying to manage everything become fractures that will take longer to heal.
Can you share if you have considered staying home to look after your child?
Nope, both my wife and I want to have our own careers in addition to having a family. Don’t think we want to stay home full-time to look after our child.
Personally, I would go with the parents. Besides the financial savings, both your kid and parents will probably bond, which is good for both parties. I would just be sure to give them a break whenever they need it.
I’m doubtful there is much development benefit in going with infant care, and I feel its better that they experience love at home.
Infant care is also a big adjustment for kids, and they may not react well. It will last for a few weeks usually. Both my kid and I were traumatised by his first few weeks of childcare, but it did work out.
Just my two cents. All the best!
Our parents are looking forwarding to bonding with the kid more. Just not sure whether they are prepared for when he inevitably gets on their nerves and annoys them. That’s where the break is important I guess as you have mentioned. I can see how infant care would already be a big adjustment for our kid since he has been with us a lot at home since being born. Just can’t imagine how much worse the child care adjustment would be.
I would go with the parents option, IF the parents are alright with taking on this responsibility. You have to ask them upfront if they want to do this and listen for any indications that they may not really want to do this and are not communicating truthfully for them (it shows up in their way of being or the way they communicate around this topic). The last thing you want is resentment from them where if they resent doing this, it will show up in your relationship and in their relationship with your son, and worse still, if they can’t let the resentment go (many of us have difficulties to drop it), this past will keep occurring in the future of the relationship. I know this from my own personal experience seeing the fights my sister had with my Mum when my niece was at your boy’s age, though it was the reverse (Mum not wanting to do it yet communicating otherwise and got upset when my sister sent my niece to infant care).
It’s so tough managing parents once you have a kid. As you said, it really depends on whether they want to do it. While they enjoy the company of our kid in doses, I doubt they will like it when he’s there every morning on weekdays. Especially when he starts acting up and being difficult. Not sure how they will react then. We are trying to get them to come over more often to get them used to it. But they have their own lives and plans after all as retirees and it’s unfair for us to demand otherwise.
I will lean towards the infant care option. You get professional caregiver’s service. Also, it is easier to transit the child at a younger age to infant care than at a 18 months old to a child care setting.
With parents, there is bound to be conflicts on the way to manage the kid, and it’s not going to be easy to persuade them to do it the way you think it’s best.
The tough part is finding a good infant care place. Because we left it so late, we don’t have many decent options left. I agree with you about an easier transition from infant care to child care. And we already have disagreements with our parents about how to raise the kid even at such a young age. We are still delaying on the decision but will have to choose soon.