Yes, I do. Then you're wrong. In fact when I repeated your belief to my husband we both had a good giggle over it.
I understand where you're coming from with the assumption. We thought it would be no problem too.
Do note that I said switching from work mode to parent mode, not necessarily vice versa ...which necessarily means the working person has to stop everything, get out of their groove, and start watching a kid instead. I leave you to realize what that does to a work period.
- are you telling me that you CAN'T manage to watch your own child without some sort of warmup period? I'm saying that "switching off" makes it really hard to get any work done.
There are a lot of things that make it much more difficult than you're assuming it is to have both parents trying to both work from home and care for their child all day. Here are a few:
-sometimes, the child wants to be with the parent who needs to get work done.
-sometimes, BOTH parents need to get work done NOW. (See: my two-week finals period)
-It's hard to buckle down and get unpleasant work done when your child is around. Often you instead end up playing with your child.
-If you have a strict "switching off" schedule as proposed above, you get two-hour work periods, cutting up your work-day into small chunks which many people would find distracting and difficult.
-switching off on a flexible schedule means you have to drop everything you're working on. (my husband is a programmer; this means he has to stop in the middle of coding or debugging, losing his train of thought entirely and making it much more difficult to complete tasks)
-you often don't have peace or quiet even if the other parent is caring for the child. Sometimes they can't make the child stop screaming (this was Isaac's first 8 months or so). Etc.
-you don't have a work/home separation at all, which makes it difficult for many people to work.
-And, as my husband said when I mentioned the "schedule" idea in the first place: "so then you just need to work all day and never spend any time together as a family (or a couple)." The point being, if you need to work 8 hours in a day, "switching off" means you will have to be "switching off" working for 16 hours in the day. Most people sleep the remaining 8 hours, so you get absolutely NO time WITH your spouse.
I leave you to speculate on how healthy that is for a marriage.
if you didn't have time to spend parenting, maybe you shouldn't have become a parent." Actually, what most parents in this situation do is opt for DAYCARE.
has it occurred to you that the same is just as applicable to what you've been saying? Which bit?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 10:36 pm (UTC)Then you're wrong. In fact when I repeated your belief to my husband we both had a good giggle over it.
I understand where you're coming from with the assumption. We thought it would be no problem too.
Do note that I said switching from work mode to parent mode, not necessarily vice versa
...which necessarily means the working person has to stop everything, get out of their groove, and start watching a kid instead. I leave you to realize what that does to a work period.
- are you telling me that you CAN'T manage to watch your own child without some sort of warmup period?
I'm saying that "switching off" makes it really hard to get any work done.
There are a lot of things that make it much more difficult than you're assuming it is to have both parents trying to both work from home and care for their child all day. Here are a few:
-sometimes, the child wants to be with the parent who needs to get work done.
-sometimes, BOTH parents need to get work done NOW. (See: my two-week finals period)
-It's hard to buckle down and get unpleasant work done when your child is around. Often you instead end up playing with your child.
-If you have a strict "switching off" schedule as proposed above, you get two-hour work periods, cutting up your work-day into small chunks which many people would find distracting and difficult.
-switching off on a flexible schedule means you have to drop everything you're working on. (my husband is a programmer; this means he has to stop in the middle of coding or debugging, losing his train of thought entirely and making it much more difficult to complete tasks)
-you often don't have peace or quiet even if the other parent is caring for the child. Sometimes they can't make the child stop screaming (this was Isaac's first 8 months or so). Etc.
-you don't have a work/home separation at all, which makes it difficult for many people to work.
-And, as my husband said when I mentioned the "schedule" idea in the first place: "so then you just need to work all day and never spend any time together as a family (or a couple)." The point being, if you need to work 8 hours in a day, "switching off" means you will have to be "switching off" working for 16 hours in the day. Most people sleep the remaining 8 hours, so you get absolutely NO time WITH your spouse.
I leave you to speculate on how healthy that is for a marriage.
if you didn't have time to spend parenting, maybe you shouldn't have become a parent."
Actually, what most parents in this situation do is opt for DAYCARE.
has it occurred to you that the same is just as applicable to what you've been saying?
Which bit?