Convo #11: Olivia Dunn

How the writer, professor and mother of one approaches care

Tell me about your family. Where do you live? How many kids do you have? 

Our family lives in Albany, NY, the little capital city I grew up in (and thought I would never return to). The good news is I love it here! My family is: me, my husband Jimmy, and our daughter Rosalind, who is three. There’s also our small goblin of a dog Piper, who is hell bent on not being ignored. 

Who are you other than a mom? What do you do for work, what do you do for pleasure? 

I’m a writer—I write Mom Blog here on Substack, a pandemic project that turned into a lifeline for me. Every two weeks I publish a personal essay on some parenting or parenting-adjacent theme. It is so fun to have that as part of my writing practice and it’s been incredible to meet other moms (and not-moms) locally and far-flung through the blog! I’m also working on a memoir about growing up here in Albany, and what it means to belong (or not) in a place. 

I’ve taught first-year writing at Skidmore College for the past eight years, which I love, especially right now because it’s summer break. I’m kidding, kind of. I really do love my job—I love teaching and I’m grateful that I work at an artsy school because I’m encouraged to incorporate creative writing assignments into my syllabus. My students are eager and receptive and crazy talented at all different things.

In the rest of my time, I am someone who is always trying to organize going to yoga class on the group chat, and only sometimes succeeding; I’m an occasional lap-swimmer, and a frequent dog walker. This summer my unpaid internship is dealing with the vegetables in our CSA.

Do you currently have regular childcare? If so, what does it look like? 

Yes, thank every deity imaginable. Right now we have two modes of childcare: first, Rosalind’s amazing daycare which is about 2 blocks from our house. The proximity is huge for us, because it means our family only needs one car (in an otherwise pretty car-centric metropolitan area). Rosalind goes half days, which is almost enough, but not really enough. For example, we were relying on her napping every day to cover the period of time between when my husband picks her up and I get home from work. Ha ha. When September rolls around, we are incredibly lucky that the city of Albany has a universal 3PK program. She will be there from 9am-3:30pm for free. Free! Thank you, city!

We also have a wonderful sitter who comes about once a week in the afternoon so I can have a whole workday once in a while, or go to our departmental meetings, or just sort of haplessly wander around the mall and try on some clearance shoes at DSW… you know, self-care.

What about it is working, and what isn’t? 

What’s working is that we feel really comfortable with the childcare providers, both at her school and at home with our sitter. Rosalind is pretty excited about both. What’s not working is that even though I have such a flexible schedule (during the semester I only go up to campus 2-3x a week) I still technically work full time. I end up doing a lot of the work I could be doing in the afternoons at night, which is exhausting. My husband also picks up the slack because of his job flexibility—he works from home, and if he needs to say he’s going to the post office or something, he can come take over nap time, or give me a break if things are melting down. Half-day daycare is definitely not enough, but it’s what we’ve been able to afford.

How much is it costing you every month?

Last year during the year, for the half days plus some early drop offs plus our sitter, we were paying around a thousand dollars a month. This summer it’s down to $500 because of the camp pricing (no camp on Mondays). 

What childcare model did you grow up with? Did this inform your own decisions around childcare? 

This is a great question. My parents had opposing schedules—my mom worked during the day and my dad evenings, as a musician, and later as a music store owner, so he’d have me most mornings. I’d listen to him practicing scales and Bach etudes and jazz standards. My mother had me in the evenings and we’d eat together, sometimes both reading a book at the dinner table. This all seemed normal, even fun, to me as a kid, but I can see now how exhausting it must have been to parent like that, because we’ve also done it that way!

My mother is also an artist and I remember the times she’d hire one of my friend’s older sisters to walk me home after school and play with me so she could paint in the basement. That’s definitely a core memory: the mother descends to the basement… the reek of turpentine floats up the stairs… Paul Simon hums from the portable tape deck… I played alone a lot as an only child, so that big-sister babysitter time was really special. I am very grateful to both of my parents for showing me it’s possible to make your way as an artist, even without a lot of resources. 

Have you looked to other mothers as a guide when making these decisions? Who? 

Yes. I am incredibly lucky to have a large community of parents here who have supported me and helped me figure things out. I have my own family here, I have friends I’ve known my whole life, and I have newer friends I’ve made who are on similar parenting journeys. Having friends with children around the same age is an incredible safety-net for childcare emergencies, which we all know crop up all the time. My own parents aren’t able to fill that emergency babysitting role, which is something I mourn, but I’m lucky to have friends who can step up and do that.

I’ll shout out, specifically, my friend Caroline (who was also featured on this blog) for basically solving all my problems—when Rosalind was born we went right to the pediatrician she recommended, we go to the same daycare her son did, and we have the same babysitter. (Thank you, Caroline!) She also introduced me to the genius concept of the post-bedtime babysitter: to get out for a date night about once a month we’ll have a friend over, hand them the TV remote and the baby monitor, pour them a glass of wine, and bounce. If the friend also has kids, you can reciprocate; for our non-parent friends, we order them takeout. As long as your kid is a good sleeper, you’re golden. Rosalind is none the wiser. 

What would your ideal work & childcare arrangement look like?

I’m ready for full socialism. If that fails, I’m down for some other utopian attempt—I don’t want to live on some remote mountain-top and I can’t be trusted to farm, but if we could have a nice, air-conditioned commune here in town, sans religion, I would sign up. In my opinion the infancy stage should not be weathered alone in a nuclear family (we did ours starting March of 2020, so it really was… alone). Whatever it would take to give parents a sense of ease and safety—whatever it would take to feel like caring for children was, in fact, the primary concern of our society—that’s what I want.

What's one thing you'd definitely get done if you had just one more hour of childcare? 

True answer: all those horrible little chores that drive me insane on my to-do list, like donating old clothes, fixing our broken ceiling fan, and finally putting a curtain on our kitchen door. Dream answer: finish my book.