Gratitude is the memory of the heart.
-Jean Baptiste Massieu
This is my tale of gratitude this year. I hope that you can find something to be grateful for as well.
I began working part-time at the Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute when I was five months pregnant with my second child. Working a mostly remote position gave me the flexibility to be home with my toddler, but the impeding birth of my second child made me very aware that I could not work with a toddler and newborn from home or the office. I needed childcare. I frantically searched for childcare, and with the help of my sister, enrolled my toddler.
At five and a half weeks postpartum, I attended my first work meeting. I was grateful that I was not dropping my newborn off at daycare, a reality many families without paid leave have to face. I am one of the lucky ones. I am a part of a small fraction of women who are afforded the opportunity to bring their baby to work with them. I was excited for this opportunity for many reasons, but most important was my desire to spend as much time bonding with my baby as possible. I spent the first few months working from home with my new bundle of joy, and after about three months I packed up and headed to the office with blankets, diapers, wipes, a folding bassinet, lots of burp clothes, and a deep hope that this would all work out. Despite my bosses’ approval, I was afraid that their joy would soon melt away if my baby was….well, a baby. People love how cute and cuddly babies are, but they often forget that their needs are made known through fussy, frustrated tears.
For the first few months things went great. People seemed more than okay with her being there; they were genuinely excited. I met people in the office I had never spoken to before. Children have a beautiful way of bringing people together. Folks would stop by to play with her or say “hi,” and those who didn’t know she was there would excitedly exclaim, “There’s a baby in the office!” I realized how much she lightened the mood. My boss would hold “crawling meetings”. We would all sit on the floor and watch her as she began to crawl and scoot around. I affectionately referred to my daughter as my “intern.” She attended meetings and trainings in-person, on zoom, and even traveled to a conference.
As the months went by, my little baby wasn’t so small anymore, and neither was her cry. Often, my co-workers would say, “Oh, she was fussy today.” I would recoil as I feared her time at work would become a disturbance to others, but those comments were always followed by things like, “it doesn’t bother me,” “I love hearing her,” or “we are happy she’s here.” As my daughter got busier, the days were harder. She didn’t nap as long. She wanted to be held while I typed. She wanted to stick her fingers in the outlets in my office. Things were changing. As she grew, I did the work of baby proofing my office and changing out her baby toys for more engaging ones. I even moved from using my beloved duel monitors to sitting on the floor with my laptop to encourage her independent play.
As she neared her first birthday, I knew the time for her to be at work with me was coming to an end. At this point I was working full-time, and my commitment to her and my work assignments became hard to do simultaneously. Two weeks before her first birthday, she started daycare. I was sad to see her leave and to be honest, I felt completely empty leaving her that day. For the first time, I was a mother without either of her children. A few weeks ago, as I began to take her toys, diapers, bassinet, and other items home, I reflected on the past year working with her and the gratitude I felt to my employer and co-workers. I believe there are many benefits for parents and employers alike when there’s a baby in the building.
Personal benefits to having my baby at work:
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Maternal mental health: Postpartum mood disorders (PMD) affect 15-20% of new mothers. Postpartum depression is the most prevalent of postpartum mood disorders affecting 1 in 10 women, and of those 50% go undiagnosed. PMD have negative implications for the family unit, as a mother’s ability to care for herself, her baby, and any other children, as well as her partner is affected. PMD also disrupt maternal-infant bonding, and can affect following pregnancies. Having my daughter at work with me decreased my stress and anxiety. I didn’t have to worry about how she was being treated or suffer an overwhelming feeling of emptiness.
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Bonding and nurturing: The bond I built with my daughter in her first year of life is immeasurable. I am grateful that I got to nurture her every need through individualized care. Research published by Le Bas, Genevieve, et al. (2022) suggest that a baby’s social, emotional, behavioral, and temperamental changes can be predicted by the strength of their bond with their parent, along with when they will meet vital milestones. Emotional bonding and the baby’s cognitive, language and motor development were also linked to strong parental bonding, although this relationship was not as strong.
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Monetary benefits: From a practical standpoint, I would not have been able to work part-time and afford childcare for two children. The average monthly cost of childcare for an infant in Indiana is $900 per month, and the estimated cost for an infant and toddler is $1,700 a month. Infant childcare in Indiana on average is 16% of a median household income. At the childcare that my children attend, infant care was significantly higher at $325 a week, or $1,300 a month. Waiting until my daughter reached a year old to start childcare saved me $40 a week, as the cost for a one-year-old is $285 a week.
External benefits that I observed:
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Boosted morale: On the days my daughter and I were at work, it seemed to invite people to come see us. I met new people who I now still speak with. People would always smile when they saw her, and it lightened the mood, especially on stressful days.
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Increased employee retention: Employees who are considering quitting work to stay home with their child are less likely to leave work if they are given the opportunity to bring their child to work with them. I am not sure I would still be working if I had to send my baby to childcare at six weeks. Actually, I know I would have drawn the line right there.
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Earlier return to work after baby’s birth: Employees who plan to bring their baby to work with them may also return to work sooner knowing that their baby will be with them and they don’t have to use as many of their valuable leave days (that they may need for doctor’s appointments, or other life events). Although I didn’t have plans of returning to work at five weeks, and certainly didn’t want to or wouldn’t recommend it, I did so because I had the security of working from home with my child, and I needed the income to pay for my toddlers’ childcare.
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Incentive: At a time when paid family and medical leave is still not widely available, having family friendly policies could be a way for employers to provide an alternative incentive to their employees. The Parenting in the Workplace Institute offers resources to assist employers with creating family friendly work polices.
In Conclusion
My daughter has now been at daycare for a few months, and my heart is forever grateful to the Indiana Community Action Association and Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute for allowing me to bring my daughter to work. This act of kindness and humanity lives up to Community Action's promise to change people’s lives, embody the spirit of hope, improve communities, and make America a better place to live. My life, my child’s life, and our family’s life is forever changed. We are a part of a community where we were given hope that opportunities like this will become a norm, because they make America a better place to live.
