We’re in the midst of some major home decisions right now. Our 2 year chonse contract is up in April, and we need to decide whether to stay in our current place for 2 more years or to move to a more family-friendly area of the city right now. Like any good Korean parents, our first priority is education, and specifically the daycare options for Dragon beginning in 2013. We’re discussing this issue with Part 1 still fresh in our minds, and with the added knowledge that there is, by both anecdotal accounts (um 60% of my female friends have had babies or are expecting babies this year) and statistical projections, 2012 is going to see a baby boom. In addition, since the government has decided to expand daycare subsidizes to more parents this year, we know there is going to be a shortage of spots in 2013.
In the middle of this discussion, we started considering options near work, and I said to Mr. Lee, ‘I know there’s no work daycare at my university, but what about at your company?’ He turned to me and said, ‘but we have so few women at my workplace – why would we have a daycare?’
Now you have to understand that Mr. Lee is a pretty hands on father. He comes home from his at least 12 hrs+/day workday or from driving all day on a business trip and gets down on the floor and starts squeaking Sophie la girafe in Dragon’s face and claps along to the tummy time playset music. He starts off the night time watch to give me a few hours of sleep, and he makes a verbal stink about changing dirty diapers, but he changes a hella lot of them. He’s involved. And he likes to be involved. And he doesn’t question that he should be involved. But that comment still came out of his mouth because that’s really the pervading feeling when it comes to having children and company life.
Every semester when we discuss parenting styles around the world in one of my classes, we examine Swedish SAHD and talk about how public policy might help to encourage Korean fathers to be more active parents in this land of extraordinarily long hours and mandatory drinking nights. I’ve often told my students that I believe that mandatory drinking would decrease sharply if there were more daycare facilities in companies. If the boss has to pick up his kid at 7 every night from the first floor daycare, he’s not going to take the kid home and then come back for a late night binge session. And if many men have their kids spending their days at the company centre, there’s a greater chance that the general workplace atmosphere will be more respectful of the relationship between fathers and children and the time that parents and children need to forge that bond.
But then I forgot the attitude regarding company daycares for many people: daycare centres in companies exist, but they exist for the female coworkers not the males. Now, I’m sure that this attitude is stronger at Mr. Lee’s work because his company is very conservative, and the nature of the work means that it is unfortunately more male-dominated (especially in his building). So I’m sure that there are men who have their children enrolled in company daycare centres, but this particular conversation made me realize that simply having a centre in an office is not enough if the attitudes toward who should be the primary clientele do not change as well. And I suppose, since men are expected to drink and work late to more extremes than women, perhaps the day when most Korean fathers are able to be the primary parental clientele at company daycares is still some ways off.
Of course, none of this helps us with our housing decisions.
Hi
. Where’s part one???
Decisions decisions decisions- there are so many to make when you become a parent. Kid friendly/family oriented communities make life much easier, especially when the babe begins walking and exploring.
Daycare- hard to think about. I hope you find a place for him that you feel good about. I’ve been working eves/nights for a long time so I’m not facing the issue now, but I would like to join the land of the living which ultimately means done type of day care is expected.
Lastly- your Dragon is ridiculously adorable! He looks like he’s grown a bit already! How’s the feeding going?
Take care of you
. Hope you enjoyed your having your mom 
I made the change to make it clearer where the link to part 1 is.^^ I’m going to be posting a feeding update as soon as a few people who have some breastfeeding resources to share get back to me. He’s growing by leaps and bounds though!
[...] Company-provided daycare: just for female employees? (On Becoming a Good Korean {Feminist} [...]
[...] That’s great except…why are we just talking about women? Why aren’t we talking about changes to the work environment that are family friendly for both mothers and fathers? Of course we need the government to be actually able to enforce legislation that protects women’s rights to maternity leave, pumping at work, and promotions after mat leave. These laws are foundational to making women feel safe in their careers as mothers. But I’m a SAHM until September (I have mat leave…I think…^^), and you know what is equally as important for family sanity? A father who comes home at a reasonable hour…and who is sober…and who has a bit of time to see his kid and give a full time mum a break. It’s about 8 o’clock when Dragon is starting his screaming portion of the night that I look at the clock and WILL my husband to get home. And he usually does come home sometime between 8 and 9. But he accomplishes this by putting his own career in jeopardy by limiting the amount of drinking he does with his colleagues. He took paternity leave (a WHOLE THREE DAYS!) which would have been unheard of just a few years before. But really, a new family kind of needs a bit more than three days off together to bond (and we got ‘lucky’ as our son decided to start his slow entrance into the world on the Friday before the Lunar New Year holiday, thus giving Mr. Lee more time off while I was labouring). And of course, I would love it if my place of employment had a daycare on site but equally nice wou… [...]
[...] time with their kids. Against that though, just like in most other countries there’s still a pervasive attitude that childcare is primarily women’s work, with insidious manifestations in our daily [...]