Tell me about your family.
I live in a suburb of Los Angeles near the Angeles National Forest, with my husband, our ten year old daughter, and our cat. My husband and I are both designers. We both grew up in Southern California, and have lived in many different cities together, including Paris, where we lived for five years, and where our daughter was born.
Who are you other than a mom? What do you do for work, what do you do for pleasure?
I am a strong willed, sensitive, caring, creative person. I have always felt internally I straddle the line between designer and artist, with there being very little time, if any for the artist part of me to find time for expression since becoming a mother. This is a hard battle, between being a Mom, and doing all the things that have to be done at home etc, and working, even if my work allows me flexibility, the artist part of me craves to be given time and mental space that is just really hard to come by.
I work for myself as an interior designer, and have for the last thirteen years. My husband and I co-founded Weekends Studio together, and initially did interiors work together, but he has moved on to do other work over the last several years. Mostly I design restaurants in Los Angeles, and sometimes Paris too, where I have a partner I work on projects with over there. I don’t have much free time, but I try to find pleasure in things close to home as much as possible. I enjoy making things, for myself, for my daughter, and with her. I love and need to garden, enjoy reading, and working on personal projects.
Do you currently have childcare? If so, what does it look like?
Honestly, I have never had regular childcare, for many reasons. Affordability and energy to find someone who was a good fit for us were two of the main reasons. I also became chronically ill when my daughter turned two, it made everything a lot more difficult, especially the energy to find affordable childcare.
My daughter is ten now and so with her being in school most of the day it is a lot easier than when she was a baby/toddler when sometimes I had to work in the evenings when she was asleep.
My daughter has been to many meetings over the years. One vivid memory I have is when she was nearly two and I was working on a restaurant in LA, Botanica, it was rainy, and she was sick. I needed to check on the jobsite, so I strapped her into the baby carrier, and had to climb under some scaffolding to get to the back area where I had to check on some things. I wish I had a photo of that experience.
Now however, I have great neighbors, one who is like family and is up for watching my daughter on occasion if my husband and I go out, plus friends who can help pick her up from school occasionally when needed.
What about it is working, and what isn’t?
Sometimes it becomes hard when my husband is out of town, and I have meetings that I have to leave for very early before school starts, etc and have to juggle many different people picking up or taking my daughter to school. Or times when I have more work than usual and have to drop off, pick up, cook dinner, make all the meals, all the things... it becomes quite a lot. My daughter is older and can do more for herself, but there are plenty of things she does still need and when I am overloaded with work it is a challenge to get it done when she is home.
How did you handle childcare before she was 5?
When my daughter was very young, I only took on projects that still allowed me time to take care of her. I worked at night often, after she went to bed. I didn’t have any babysitters, and both my parents and in-laws live an hour and a half away, so it was rare they came to help. I am grateful that my husband’s work could keep us afloat so that I was able to be here for our daughter, and take care of her myself. That is something that has meant a lot to me. It has been really intensely hard work, but very meaningful and important to me.
What childcare model did you grow up with?
From when I was born until I was six, my Grandmother took care of me all day during the week while my parents were working. She was wonderful, but had so many people to look after, from my crazy uncles, to dealing with my Grandfather, and sometimes watching my cousins, it was kind of a circus at times. Most of my early memories are of being at my Grandmother’s house, not as many of being at home with my parents during those years. My parents are wonderful and had no other options, but it was hard for me. This experience really made it so important to me that I get to be with my daughter, and be the one to take care of her, and spend time with her. Once I was six we moved too far away from my Grandparents, and so my parents paid neighbors to watch me. One of them had three kids, and would take care of me after school and all day in the summers too. Those were some of the best years of my childhood. Being sort of an only child, my half brother is much older than me, and was not around much, it felt great to be part of a family with siblings. This kind of childcare I think is a great one, it isn’t easy to come by of course, but I feel lucky to have had such a great family looking after me for those few years. Then we moved to a new neighborhood and I became a latch key kid, which was not so fun. Something that also informs why I really want to continue working from home and being here for my daughter.
Have you looked to other mothers as a guide when making these decisions?
There are definitely plenty of Mothers I admire, but I can’t say I can think of anyone who I look to when making decisions on childcare. Everyone’s lives have different factors. Dealing with my own chronic illness from when my daughter was about two years old, I feel like I have been in this whole other boat than most people. It definitely adds a lot of factors into making decisions.
My daughter was born in Paris. Many of my friends there had kids before me, and the system there has a lot of support for parents, even before the child is born. It isn’t a perfect system, but it does make things far easier for parents than here in the US. Free healthcare, practically free daycare, subsidized babysitting. I moved back to the US when my daughter was nine months old, so I didn’t really take advantage of most of it beyond the great prenatal care and giving birth there. Moving back to LA, I didn’t have friends with kids here yet, so that was difficult. I didn’t really have Mom friends here for a while. I did look to friends in Paris for advice on things, but the situations were so different that it didn’t really help my situation.
What would your ideal work & childcare arrangement look like?
Based on my personal childhood experience, ideally when my daughter was younger I would have liked to have a friend or neighbor, someone I knew and trusted who had one or more kids, who I could take turns with watching each other’s kids together. Even for just 2-3 hours, or even just a couple days a week. That would allow some time for myself to work or do whatever I needed to get done, and time for the kids to be around other kids in a different setting than a park, playground, or daycare.
What’s one thing you’d definitely get done if you had just one more hour of childcare?
Taking a solid hour for myself, whether to work on a personal project, actually exercise, do some gardening, or just relax because I need to.