Author: Patti Webb

Coffee Chat: Parenting as a Job

| Patti Webb

In March, I went through a job transition. To figure out my next career move, I weighed the options with Troy; should I find another full-time job? Do I need a full-time job? Do I pivot to a different industry? Is it necessary for me to stay-at-home?

In my job search, I looked for the following: competitive salary and vacation time, hybrid scheduling but mainly work from home, travel is a plus, retirement matching, and hourly flexibility to accommodate for my family’s schedule. If I was getting really picky, I’d go for summer Fridays and complimentary meals like at Google. Honestly, I was looking for perks that let me be as available as I could with my girls while still giving me a salary, exciting responsibilities, and time to myself.

They always say that being a parent is the hardest and best job there is, so I wondered what it would be like to be a stay-at-home during my compulsive LinkedIn browsing. It’s estimated that the average SAH parent does the equivalent of three jobs, and if paid to scale, would make over $100K per year. Working parents are at their salaried jobs for 40+ hours/week, and then come home to “the second shift”. Yes, everyone’s family is different and how they manage their lives and raise their children is completely personal. But what would happen if we started applying our job search standards to parenting?

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Our Renaissance Faire Review

| Patti Webb

It’s time for another playdate review. This month, we chose the Georgia Renaissance Festival. Both Mary and I have gone to RenFaires in the past and we each took our children last year. But for this year and this blog series, we decided to make it a full-on playdate.

Same review rules apply: The playdates need to be something new that the kids have never done before. In this case, it was a full day out with another kid. True, our kids have been to this location before, but this is not a family trip. Subtle difference there. Also, the faire had more involved activities than the standard meet-up-at-the-park and had multiple applications of sensory/development function.

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Child(ish) Reads: Diaper Dude

| Patti Webb

For this month’s Child(ish) Read, I wanted to do something a little different. The books I choose are normally about child development or parenting; but truthfully, most of these books are sub texturally written for moms. Women are the prime audience buying parenting books, so they are written with that lens.

Every time I’m in the bookstore and I see a book specifically about fatherhood, more likely than not they heavily rely on the same tropes: sports references and tired dad jokes.

I was once reading a fictionalized memoir written by a dad to his children and it was pretty much a rip off of How I Met Your Mother. The book even referenced How I Met Your Mother.

And going back to the sports thing, do you really need endless comparisons of holding your baby like a football to make the subject of being a good parent interesting? Slam dunk.

Truthfully, I don’t really take any of those fatherhood titles seriously because in no way, shape, or form would a book like that fly if written for an expectant mother.

We hear so many statistics that Millennial dads are more involved with their kids than in generations previous; not only from the time they spend, but the actual splitting of responsibilities. If this is true, I want to see fatherhood books reflect this shift in mindset. So, I gave this compare and contrast a try.

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Things We Loved: Spring Break

| Patti Webb

We’ve been talking neuroscience and brain stuff for the last month, so now it’s time for a little brain break. For our last post before Spring Break, here is our latest Things We Loved.

Mary’s Loves

For me, March has been checking in with the goals I set at the start of the year. A lot of household purging has reduced the clutter to a manageable level. I’ve been drinking a ton of water and staying active, but I haven’t quite gotten into the rhythm of getting a consistent night’s rest (it’s still a work in progress). Aside from that, here’s what I’ve been up to:

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Child(ish) Reads: Marigold and Rose

| Patti Webb

Next week is our spring break, and we are taking two weeks off and heading to the beach to enjoy our time with family. But before we go, we have a cute little Child(ish) Read to add to your TBR.

I was gifted a copy of Marigold and Rose by one of my colleagues. It is a short novella about two infant twin sisters in their first year of life. There isn’t an overarching plot or storyline. In fact, you could probably read this book in an hour. The author, Louise Glück, is a Nobel Prize-winning poet, so expect prose and getting into your feels.

The story switches narratives back-and-forth between the sisters, Marigold and Rose. They can’t walk or talk or read, but they are completely conscious of everything around them. The girls are quick to notice the differences between each other, and they have an internal awareness of their parents, grandparents, and the role they play in their lives.

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