An Unconventional childcare solution
Chasing our dreams and balancing parenting can mean that we have to get creative when it comes to childcare. While the military resources can be helpful, sometimes the best solution is relying on our partner. And when that doesn’t work, we have to get a little unorthodox with our plan.
I shared a few months ago about my trip to Denver that was canceled when my husband was called in to deploy (the deployment later got canceled, but that was after my trip had passed). My husband had taken leave for the weekdays I would be gone so that he could stay home and watch our son. We had no backup plan when the call came in to report for duty. I had to turn around and come home.
With that incident in mind, we came up with a different approach for the conference I have coming up at the end of this week. My husband is currently TDY, so he would not have been able to watch our son anyway. But we knew as soon as the dates were announced that the most reliable solution would be for me to bring the baby. I’m sure we will plan to have my husband keep our son the next time I have a conference when his squadron is not in their deployment window. But even then, we will make sure that we have local backups in place.
For this trip, though, I knew I was bringing an 8-month-old to a life insurance convention. The days are long gone when I could just sit quietly in the back with him in the stroller. My son is far too active and chatty to be anything other than a distraction. So we needed to find a babysitter. Here’s the problem, most of my family will be at this conference with me. The in-laws already had plans for the weekend. I was running out of my go-to options.
I decided to look for a local babysitter in the area. My sister is from Tampa, just a few hours north of the conference, so I asked if she knew anyone. Her first response was, How much are you paying? She definitely needed all the information before asking around. Still, I realized that I had yet to actually think about paying the babysitter (I know, pretty forgetful for a former nanny). So I did some quick calculations and knew hiring a sitter for the weekend would be pricey.
I would need someone to watch my son for at least 22 hours. If I found someone willing to do it for $10 (which is certainly on the low end of the going rate), then I would be out almost $250. And this would involve hiring a stranger to watch my son for the first time, which I wasn’t super on board with to begin. That cost wouldn’t include food, hotel (if they came from out of town), and parking (since the conference is at Miami Beach, I can only assume how pricey parking is down there). It was starting to add up to a lot for a solution that I wasn’t very excited about.
It was time to get creative. Who did I know that would watch my son? Who would share a hotel room with me? Who do I know in Miami? And the answer to that question was no one. So I had to ask a new question. Who do I know, anywhere, that I can fly in? I quickly came up with the answer of two of my best friends. One is doing online school work for the summer while planning her wedding. The other has a full-time job that allows employees to work from home whenever they want. I had two potential people that I trusted and could be available to fly down to Miami to babysit.
Lucky for me, they both said yes! This ended up as the perfect solution. These people love my son. I trust them. And I am super excited to spend the weekend hanging out with them during my conference breaks. Plus, I know how boring it can be to be stuck in a hotel room with a baby and how overwhelming it can be to take that baby out into the world. With two of them, they can balance the load and support one another.
I already know when the next conference will be, and my husband will be TDY for that one, too, so I am already scheming to get my friends out to the next location to babysit. Cost-wise, the price of two plane tickets was about what I would have paid a local babysitter (and on the low end of that number). I just had to cover the hotel room, which I was already paying for myself to stay, and I’ll take care of their food too. It may not be a cheaper solution (it probably equals out). Still, if I was going to spend the money anyways, I would much rather leave my son with people he and I already know and love.
This certainly isn’t a one size fits all solution. I am very lucky that I have people in my life with the flexibility to travel wherever I need them. They are sacrificing time with their spouse and fiance to care for my son. We will definitely have fun. We will probably spend some time planning the bachelorette party since we will all be in the wedding party. And we may even carve out a bit of time to go wedding dress shopping. But I do not take this lightly, and I am incredibly grateful for these women in my life. This solution won’t fix any day-to-day needs I may face back home, but this may be a more reliable solution for these conferences that I have every few months.
I don’t know exactly what your dream job demands. I don’t know what your needs are on a daily basis. But I do know that there are solutions out there if we get creative enough. If we keep searching and playing around with ideas, maybe we can find something perfect for our needs. Obviously, in an ideal world, our partners would be there to fill the gaps with our children, but when that isn’t the case, I hope we can all find a solution that makes us happy. And in those moments when the military options don’t help, let us find the resources and community to advocate for greater support in our area because if the military preaches that supporting families is a priority (which it has, over and over again), then they need to help equip us with the services that actually help us, and our service members succeed.