Family or activism: where do I find time for both?
By Jean-Francois Corbett at Feb 04, 2009 |
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This is an appeal especially to you parents out there...
I am the happy and dedicated dad of a wonderful 2-month-old boy, and want to spend a lot of time with him. I also want to spend as much of my time as possible doing some organising work. I also have a full-time job. How do I reconcile these seemingly mutually exclusive statements??
After Ludovic's birth in November 2008, I took 5 weeks of parental leave, during which time my wife and I did nothing but take care of our new little boy. This was a wonderful time, as we got to know him at our own pace.
Now I've been back at work for a month. Evenings vanish in a swift stream of cooking, diaper changing, playing, and lullabies. Don't get me wrong: this is all quite nice! It's just that we're not doing anything else for lack of time and energy.
I'll be back on parental leave for three months this summer. However, I have no illusions of this meaning "more free time", as I will be spending as much time with my boy as I can, and also taking over all of the chores that my wife is currently taking care of during the day -- she'll be back in school, writing her Master's thesis.
Will I ever have the time to do any of the other stuff that I also think is important, outside of the nuclear family bubble? I wish someone could tell me: Yes! There is plenty of time ahead, once the kids grow up -- or something!



A year later...
By Johnson, Theodore at Mar 07, 2010 06:35 AM
So I stumbled across this entry and it caught my eye as I am expecting my first child later this year and have many of the same concerns that you had. What can you say about your first year with your child and the balancing act of parent-job-activism? I wish I could give you the answer that you seem to have sought in your original blog entry, but instead I am going to turn the tables on you and ask for your advice/experience!
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Re: A year later...
By Cooper, Curtis at Apr 04, 2010 20:10 PM
As a parent with three kids, not to mention aging parents and in-laws, my free time has definitely been crimped. I am fortunate that my wife stays home, her parents live with us, and we have a supportive extended family around. One thing that's been harder for us is developing tight friendships and support networks with friends with kids. But the family support has enabled me to have much more time for politics and culture than I would otherwise. I spent a lot of my adolescence thinking about radical politics, but not much time thinking about parenting. Having kids I feel has really deepened some of my political concerns- as what's at stake isn't just a priniciple or something in the here and now, but future generations. It's a point of view that was often lost in the activism of my earlier years, and even in the groups I am involved with now to a large extent. If people who don't have young kids could reach out to those of us who do and figure out ways for us to participate without having to take precious time away from our families, that would help!
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