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Sorry for the delay in reply, Boboss. In my understanding there is as wide a range in the attention needs of children as in adults. Some people need live-in care their entire life, others only need 10 min direct attention in 2 hours even when they are tiny and dependent. I appreciate how lifechanging an event it is for people who have never had much contact with kids to suddenly be in sole charge of someone who is small and needy and doesn’t share a spoken language, but in my own limited experience it is not catastrophically incompatible with adult working life in all cases.
I hear a few months of ‘babymoon’ preferably for with both/all parents fulltime to adjust to having a new child is a really good idea, and it’s part of my plan to have enough savings so spouse can take that time off to adjust as well. On the high needs end of the spectrum, I wouldn’t expect to be able to do many hours of payable work every week, and that’s the luck of the draw I imagine. However, I don’t think it’s ‘normal’ (as in, what we expect in a median member of the human species) that operating as a ‘child plus adult’ team makes it impossible to do any productive decently remunerative activity for 4 years.
I’m sorry it seemed like I was avoiding the question. It doesn’t seem clear to me how it’s relevant how much experience I have of looking after kids. I am clear that I am talking about a certain subsection of parent/children relationships, only those which do have the ability for a wider involvement in adult life but are perhaps being prevented by their own or others uncertainty or the unfashionable nature of the decision.
I pointed out the Continuum Concept website because that’s a whole subculture who have this attitude about work, which I rated as less subject to dismissal (wrongly?) than my personal opinions, and I was wondering why the pattern is not more widespread. Although dysfunctional subcultures clearly exist, I’m impressed by the CC people I know and I don’t get the impression they are self-deceiving about the possibilities of integrating child and adult needs together into workplaces.
I will list some of the kids I know and have looked after, to illustrate the wide variance in temperament that I’ve observed, and hence where my thinking is coming from. Not a complete list, but some examples where I can recall the age of the child at the time and some flavour of the pattern of their direct attention needs and socability. My hesitation to list my observations as if they are objective data points I guess comes from the model in my head, which is that us humans are pattern seeking organisms and that it is easy to observe patterns which might be due to chance alone: I am much more interested in whether other people with wider experience also see the possibilities that I have raised, and I am glad that others like redtara do because it confirms my suspicion that it is being made to work more widely than is generally acknowledged. E.g., compare redtara’s experience with the first few responses which mostly seemed to question that it was possible at all to make it work.
Child N was happy tucked under my elbow and then on my hip whilst we played football or did housework with or for his mum, from when he was two weeks old until he was crawling (oof, heavy! Babysitting doesn’t strengthen the muscles like everyday parenting), unless he was actually ill.
Child A at three years old was fine hitch-hiking, camping and working alongside her mum at a hippy camp when I spent a few weeks with them and I didn’t witness even a single episode in which she caused any disturbance unsuitable to the situation.
Child V has a high level of special needs, multiple disabilities and autism and his mum didn’t return to her academic career until he went into residential school aged 12, choosing to care for him full time, living mostly on a care allowance and tax credits.
Child J was happy aged 2 months and up as long as he didn’t have to wear clothing when he didn’t want to, and was being held or in a sling attached to one of his extended family or one of 2 part-time nannies, until he was independently mobile.
Child H, 4 months, will protest loudly at being held by anyone except her parents, but will happily lie on a blanket on the floor for half an hour while a parent showers as long as there is something interesting to look at or listen to.
Child C aged 20 months is happy during two hour choir rehearsals to wander around mostly watching and listening, as long as she gets reassurance when her mum is actually uninterruptably busy e.g. conducting one of the songs.
Child P aged 3 can play for hours digging outside with his older brother, but loves to make high-pitched loud squealing noises for fun from time to time that would disturb anyone’s concentration within earshot!
Child E would occupy herself happily playing with a handful of stones for 40minutes at a time even when she was 18months. She has also had such extreme tantrums aged 2-4yrs that people once called the police when her Dad was trying to take her home, presumably fearing she was being adbucted.(!)
Child M, nearly 2yrs, lives in a residential community and is highly sociable. She is happy to occupy herself, with short interactions with adults she knows every 10 or 20 minutes, during the entirety of the monthly music night, as long as she gets a bit of direct attention, and that's been the case ever since she was mobile 10months plus, before that she was mostly in mum's sling or a moses basket by her mum's feet. When I’ve accompanied her and her mum recently on errands (like fetching langar from the local Gurdwara for the refugee night shelter we help at) she’s come along with no problems, except y’know maybe a bit a sob if she is really tired. |
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