Mother and Employee

I think I mentioned before that I started work this year. I am working for two organizations in small roles. One is a group called Play Matters. They are a group of women who have been connected to the early childhood education field for a long time in a variety of capacities. They decided they wanted to create a non-profit that would provide grants to early childhood programs to support play in the classroom. There is a danger of children losing the opportunity to explore and discover within their play because of federal and state policies that are over testing and over instructing their environments. Most early childhood professionals and research show that play is the "work" that young children do and they learn with enthusiasm and depth that cannot happen with direct instruction from a teacher. Current brain research has proven this as well. Why do our policies lag so far behind?

SO...I am their administrative coordinator and I get to be in contact with the grantees and hear about all their great projects. It has been a fun job as I can do it from home with my own schedule when it works for me. The other position I have is as a coach for a federal grant that is promoting a specific literacy curriculum in order to address the need for students to be prepared for kindergarten. This is a product of the over-assessing policies of our No Child Left Behind Act. It is fascinating to be participating in both. As a coach, I spend a couple hours a week with the teachers to observe and provide feedback regarding the use of a specific curriculum. I'm not a big proponent of cookie cutter curriculums so this is a challenge. Because the grant focuses on low-income families and most of those in this country are families of color, we are challenged to also address the inequities that are setting these children up for failure to begin with. It's painful to watch someone assess the "intelligence" of a child and blame that child and familiy, when there are a lot of systemic issues that have hindered that child from getting the most out of life so far.

Mostly, I get to work with an amazing group of talented women who are also coaches and have been in this field for a very long time. We all are finding our ways of navigating the federal grant guidelines while maintaining our deep values about how children learn. This is much to the chagrin of our own "higher-ups" at times. I have to say, I get a kick out of working a system to protect the most vulnerable. My biggest problem with this grant is that it has twice as many people monitoring and assessing its value as it does implementing the curriculum. I don't think this is abnormal in the No Child Left Behind system.

Anyway...I'm telling you this because I'm starting to find a way to create balance. Ok that word is hard to type. I don't think it is easy to come by but attending to my mother role as well as my educator role is important. I have recognized that I am benefiting from 50 years of our culture swinging the pendulum on the roles and rights of women and am starting to see how the pendulum is swinging closer to the middle. We went from being completely stay at home mothers with a 100% focus on the needs of the family to full time working mothers who were told that they were choosing their work lives as their priority. We know that this isn't true. They just took on two full time jobs. Now I feel like I can find a way to do both without sacrificing my physical or emotional wellbeing.

Lucy goes to a co-op preschool three mornings a week with me attending two mornings. She then spends a day and a half at an in-home daycare right on our block. She gets just enough socializing without sacrificing her need for space, calm and self-initiated play. I get just enough work to keep my brain active in an area I'm passionate about without sacrificing the ability to know intimately how Lucy is exploring and discovering the world around her. I still have a huge impact on what and how she is learning. I know what Lucy would be like in a typical full time toddler classroom. She would survive and even thrive in some cases but socially and emotionally it would be very challenging for all of us. AND, she would be developing her reactive skills even more than she is now. For example, when she is tired or overstimulated, she turns to hitting and pushing to interact. She would be the kid in a lot of trouble at school. I've worked in those toddler rooms. Hee Hee.

Anyway...the transition to this set up has not been easy as I've had to change my organization strategies and I'm navigating a ton of logistics but now that I'm settling in, I'm loving it. So thank you to all the women who have worked this system before me and helped mold our culture to create opportunities like I have. Co-op preschool, part time, contract work, and in-home licensed care are the strategies that support families!!! If only we could make health care more reflective of our needs. aaahhh...at least its an election year!!! And a bigger thank you to my husband who has remained solid through my turmoil and is taking advantage of our culture's value of technology by getting paid enough to fund the majority of our family needs.