Seeking Balance | How the recession is reconfiguring work/life balance
Photos/Livia Gershon
MALL WATCH: Pictured from left are: Luz Rivera; David and Valerie Holcomb with their daughter; and Denise Parker with her daughter.
Luz Rivera
Jon Tammaro
Yihui Gould
Erin and Tom Snow
Denise Parker
David and Valerie Holcomb
On a recent rainy Monday, the Worcester Business Journal visited the Mall at Whitney Field in Leominster to get a firsthand look of how parents are grappling with the changes foisted upon them by recession-driven layoffs and pay cuts.
What we found is that it’s not just mothers making adjustments. Increasingly, it’s fathers that are cutting back on career to do more parenting.
The cause of this change may be consistent, but the ways people are dealing with that change vary from family to family.
Some fathers are opting to stay home with their children while mothers head to the office. Other couples are both working reduced hours to stay afloat and pay for daycare. And still others are contemplating a move to warmer and cheaper climes.
The only sure thing these days, it seems, is that what was once simple is now complicated. Child care can be prohibitively expensive, time with children is fleeting and job-hopping is now so common that resume gaps are less glaring than they might once have been.
Reduced Expenses
Luz Rivera has six kids, four of her own and two foster children. Her husband works for a printing company. She was a community health worker, working with the homeless, until her 1-month-old was born.
Now, Rivera is staying home. But the timing isn’t great—her husband’s pay rate has dropped a bit thanks to the recession.
So the family has cut its expenses to the bone. From two cars to one. From $150 a week on groceries to $80. That means fewer snacks for the kids.
“Now they eat more healthy,” Rivera said. “But every kid deserves a snack sometimes.”
Rivera is already looking toward the future. Once the baby is old enough to talk, she plans to go back to work—with a new associate’s degree. She’s enrolled in a medical assistant program at Mount Wachusett Community College’s Devens campus, where onsite child care will let her stay close to the baby.
Self-Employment
Jon Tammaro and his wife run their own barber shop. When it comes to caring for their 21-month-old son, Tammaro said, being self-employed is a mixed blessing.
On the positive side, he said, the business is doing well enough that they don’t have trouble paying for child care. And it’s flexible enough that his wife can leave a bit early to pick the boy up when his program lets out at 4:30 p.m.
But the job is time-consuming. Tammaro said he often can’t leave work until 6:30, and since his son is in bed by 8 that leaves little time together.
“That’s the toughest thing,” he said.
Fortunately, he said, the family is able to spend Sundays and Mondays, when the barber shop is closed, together.
Second Thoughts
Yihui Gould had a successful career in journalism, including time as a television reporter in Los Angeles. Six years ago, she moved to Massachusetts, and four years ago she quit working to take care of her 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter.
Now her family lives on the pay of her husband, a teacher in the Worcester Public School system. Gould said the psychological cost of quitting paid work got to her, especially in the first year she stayed home.
“I missed work a lot…was doubting myself, [asking], ‘Why did I quit?’”
Now, though, she said she’s worried about how she’ll feel when she does go back to work.
“It’s going to be hard to get used to,” she said.
But at least, she said, she’s not too concerned about finding a job. She’s already been offered a position she would have been interested in if she didn’t have her toddler at home.
“It’s not worth it sending her to day care and going to work,” she said.
Sweet Music
Scott Babineau has been a professional musician, playing and teaching guitar and bass, most of his working life. Now that he has a 2-year-old son, he does that at night. During the day, while his wife teaches public school, he takes care of Jude.
Babineau said he hasn’t taken any flack for being a part-time stay-at-home dad.
“A lot of people, when I talk to them, they can be envious,” he said.
Babineau said the expense of child care, along with the prospect of leaving Jude with strangers for long stretches, is unappealing. At times, he said, his current schedule has meant less sleep than he’d like, but he and his wife make do.
“It’s a challenge,” he said, “but it’s definitely worth it.”
Support From Mom
Erin Snow is a banker, but in an ideal world she would be a stay-at-home mom to her 2-year-old daughter Kierstyn.
“I would love to, but I carry the health care,” she said.
Erin works 25 to 30 hours a week at a bank, while her husband, Tom, is a full-time landscaper. When both of them are at work, Erin’s mother takes care of Kierstyn. That’s been a major key to their budget since child care costs would have been high.
Even with the help, though, the situation isn’t a perfect fit.
“My ultimate goal, being head of household, is to let her not work,” Tom said.
But for now they’ve decided that’s just not possible.
The Snows said they haven’t suffered from Erin’s cutback in hours since Kierstyn was born because they were never big spenders.
“We’re homebodies ourselves, so we never really go out and splurge,” Tom said.
Looking South
Before she had two small children, Denise Parker worked in retail. But it was the sort of job that paid less than $10 an hour, not enough to justify the cost of child care.
Besides, when her children were babies they were often sick with asthma and allergies.
“I knew if I went back to work I’d be calling out a lot,” she said.
Now Parker stays home, while her corrections officer husband works. With her younger child, Isabel, now 4 years old, she’s looking at reentering the work force, but she doesn’t see any jobs around. So the Parkers are considering moving to Florida.
“Jobs might pay a little less, but there’s some out there,” she said.
She said there are jobs in her husband’s line of work everywhere, and the cost of heat and electricity are bound to be less down South.
Military Order
David Holcomb has been in the Army for seven years. Since his daughter, Rebecca Lynn, was born four years ago, he said, he’s had more reason to regret his long absences from home but also more reason to stay with the military.
David’s wife Valerie has moved back to Leominster, where the couple is from, to get support from her family during the times he’s deployed. She works as a cashier at Market Basket in Fitchburg, but only a few hours a week, and more for a change of scene than because the money makes a big difference.
The Holcombs enjoy his breaks from the service when the family can spend a week or two together.
Thanks to the Army, Holcomb said, he can take care of his family. He figures without the military pay and benefits, he would have to find a civilian job at $60,000 a year or more to keep their living standard at the same level. And with only a high school education, he said that’s not likely.
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