Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 27, 1994 TAG: 9402250068
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
No matter how she tried to juggle her job responsibilities and day-care arrangements when her first child came along, McCutcheon felt she was always dropping one of the balls.
She got a baptism by fire into the world of full-time child care.
She went through six different baby sitters in her attempt to maintain at-home day care.
"I was constantly on the phone at work, trying to make day care work," she said.
Once, when she needed to leave work because her child had an ear infection, McCutcheon asked if she could just use a sick day.
"Your child doesn't work for IBM," said her boss. "You do."
Her story echoes that of many working mothers.
While trying to work, her eyes would wander to her child's photo on the desk. She'd become concerned.
"I just felt like I was never where I really needed to be."
According to a study conducted by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization working with companies on issues related to women:
58.4 percent of all women with children younger than 6 are in the labor force.
66.6 percent of all women with children younger than 18 are in the labor force.
Of all children under 18 in two-parent families, 61 percent have both parents in the work force, compared with 37.6 percent in 1970.
The number of working women with preschool children has more than quadrupled from 1950 to 1990.
And of Virginia's one million women in the civilian work force, almost 400,000 are mothers of more than 600,000 children younger than 13.
Carol Giles is one of those women.
She has been fortunate, finding reliable child care for her 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. Her son has been with the same sitter since he was six weeks old.
Giles' challenge was coordinating the daily trips to the sitter around an unusual work schedule.
She held a management position for Allstate Insurance that required her to be at the office at 7 a.m.
Her husband, the morning deejay with a Roanoke Valley radio station, had to be on the job at 5:30 a.m.
Her evenings were filled with preparing baby bottles. The next morning, "it was like packing to go on a vacation.
"Every day."
It was exhausting.
"I didn't think I was doing anything well," she said. "I felt like I wasn't doing well at work. Like I wasn't a good mother. Like I wasn't a good wife."
Eventually, she found a reasonable solution, but at a cost.
She asked her supervisors at Allstate if she could be demoted and removed from her management responsibilities.
"It's much better now," Giles said. With less responsibility, she's not going home every night worried about work.
It was just more important to her to be a good mother.
"I manage to get by on less money, but the reward is I get more time with my family."
It boils down to dealing with the proper priority of things, said Carolyn Hare, administrative assistant to the president of Shenandoah Life Insurance Co.
"The children's needs come first, then my needs, then finances, then convenience," she emphasized. Once you've got that down, sandwiching in a full-time job is manageable.
Finding child-care options with immediate openings that were reasonably priced was the first hurdle.
What she discovered was more crucial was the happiness of her children.
"I finally found a place that was physically nice, and a friend had a child there who was quite happy," said Hare.
Her daughter would put up with it. Tolerated it, if it was after school.
"But if I left here there for the whole day, she was absolutely miserable," Hare said. "She was constantly asking how much longer it was until 5 o'clock."
Hare thought the crying would stop after the first few days. Then the first few weeks. When it didn't, Hare was sitting at work thinking about her broken-hearted daughter.
"If they're not happy, then you're worrying. And when you're worrying, you're not productive."
Hare's problems multiplied when her next two children came along.
"For a while, I had three children in three different child-care facilities," she recalled.
When her older daughter started school near Oak Grove, but the sitter for the other wasn't in that area, she had to move her second daughter for convenience.
Today, she considers herself fortunate to have two children in day care full-time and one in after-school care.
It's costing the family $175 a week.
"It's critical to find a place where they're happy, so it won't occupy so much of your time worrying rather than concentrating on your work," she said.
Where her two children in full-time day care are happy happens to be in two different locations for now.
Each morning, her husband, Walter - who works as an architectural hardware consultant for Skyline Doors - heads off in one direction with their 4-year-old daughter.
Carolyn takes her year-old son with her in the opposite direction.
Their 6-year-old daughter is now in school and rides the bus.
It's still a problem dealing with what to do when her children get sick. There have been years she has come very close to using up all of her vacation days caring for sick children and taking them to the doctor.
What would she do if she ran out of time?
"What every other mother would," she said. "You do what you have to do," stay home; the children come first.
Hare considers herself blessed with working for "a supportive, understanding executive."
Shenandoah Life doesn't offer company-subsidized child care. Most Roanoke Valley employers don't.
"If employers would start subsidizing child care," Hare said, "they'd really gain in the long run, because they'd have a productive employee at work."
by CNB