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| A photo of my daughter during healthier times |
As I have
mentioned in prior posts, our daughter began pre-school in the fall after
spending three nearly idyllic years in the safety and security of our home with
a nanny. Although I made the transition
to school reluctantly, I can tell that having her in pre-school has been monumental
from a developmental perspective. I also believe that she started at the right
time for her and for us. That being
said, we live in a world of scarce resources. While our help cometh from the
Lord our bills are paid by our salaries as opposed to a family nest egg. For
that reason, this phase of life has caused us to experience some growing pains.
Unlike some
families, we discharged our nanny after the toddler began pre-school. So, rely
on pre-school as our primary childcare. And unlike the nanny, pre-school
doesn’t accept sick children because they might infect the other children,
which is somewhat ironic because our daughter never got sick until she began
going to school… In any event, when our toddler is sick during the week Andre
and I evaluate our schedules to see who will stay home with her. That has been
a huge adjustment.
When a child gets sick, a working mom misses work
Not many working
moms have the luxury of having emergency in-home childcare. When their children
get sick, either the mom or the dad has to miss work. Having to miss work has
caused us to experience some challenges...
Before having a
child, I used “Paid Time Off” to travel, take in a mental health day or rest
when I was sick. Now, I am conscious to
save some of those days for the unpredictable, but foreseeable days when my
daughter is under the weather. I also
try to work from home whenever these situations arise because I have a decent
amount of “free time” on those days. On her sick days my daughter’s favorite
activity tends to be napping. So, I am
able to be pretty productive.
Without In-home Childcare we Rely on Medication More Often
Still, having our
work schedule interrupted has made us more frequent users of medication than we
had been before, in part because our need to have her recover more quickly is
more acute. Before she started pre-school, we were very infrequent users of Acetaminophen as a fever reducer. Based on what we
read, our conversations with our pediatrician as well as our personal beliefs we
were previously motivated us to adopt an almost hippie-like approach to
medicine. We believed that if given time, the body would heal itself. And once
it did, our daughter would be rewarded with a stronger immune system.
Now that we don’t
have the luxury of keeping her home without penalty, we have been more anxious
about getting her well than we otherwise would have been. When you have a nanny,
illnesses can run their natural course. When you have to miss work every time
your child is sick, you search for a more speedy recovery. For us, that has
resulted in our administering medication earlier and more frequently than we
had historically. And that makes us incredibly guilty…
Are we the only
parents falling into the “medication trap”???
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