Kid and Caboodle: Musings of a "Split-Shift" Mom
By Peggy B. Hu
May 2006

With Mother's Day in a few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about my mother lately.

Although my mother is still going strong at age 66, I have noticed she is starting to slow down. She complains these days about arthritis in her knees, has developed cataracts, and seems to be losing her hearing. Although she seems to be adjusting to these problems and even finds some humor in them, they are fairly upsetting to me. My mother has always taken good care of her health, and it is distressing to me to see her body slowly break down despite her best efforts.

My mother recently announced that she wants to reduce the amount of time she needs to spend each week helping take care of my son. This is a perfectly understandable desire; I am sure my mother would like to travel, take classes, or enjoy other activities rather than spend her precious retirement years babysitting. Her growing health troubles also make it all the more imperative that she find time to do what she wants to do rather than what she feels she must do. I am sure it is also very tiring at times for her to take care of an active 3-year-old; I myself sometimes have trouble keeping up with him!

To give my mother more time to herself, my husband and I have notified our son's pre-school that we plan to switch him to a three day-per-week schedule (Monday-Wednesday-Friday) when the new school year starts this fall. I also have told my supervisor that I would like to change my flex day off from Wednesdays to Thursdays at that time. Under this new plan, therefore, my mother would only need to watch my son on Tuesdays. Both my mother and my father have said that they would like to continue seeing him once a week, so it looks like this schedule will work well for them. The additional day of pre-school per week will also give my son more opportunities to socialize with non-family members, a critical activity given his introverted nature. Some day my husband and I plan to move our son to a five day-per-week schedule in preparation for kindergarten, but we think it would be too much of an adjustment for him at this time. Right now I'm also reluctant to give up the weekly time I spend with my son one-on-one even though sometimes I find taking care of him to be exhausting.

My mother says she hopes to remain healthy enough to dance at my son's wedding some day. I devoutly hope she gets her wish. I really can't bear to think of my mother becoming feeble and ill, and I am willing to do anything necessary -- from buying her special vitamins to relieving her of all child care duties or nagging her to go to the doctor regularly -- to prevent a decline in her health. As I have said before, good health comes first; without good health, you can do nothing else.

So, here's to your health, Mom! May you have a Happy Mother's Day.