How do you solo parents go to conferences with school-age kids? It seems essentially impossible unless the conference is over the summer.
How do you solo parents go to conferences with school-age kids? It seems essentially impossible unless the conference is over the summer.
Yeah. It’s hard to do. My parents are 12 hours away. I do have 1 or 2 people that can watch them while I’m away, but I don’t really have a way to repay them the favor. And i don’t know of other solo parent profs that I could trade with, but that’s a really good idea if I hear of anyone. Thanks.
Mine are similarly far away… which means that they’re generally quite happy to get dedicated grandkid time, if they can clear their schedules. I totally understand the reciprocation piece - I have a couple of colleagues in town that are always offering to help me out but never let me help them in any way, and it’s hard. I left a school where I had a tribe of people who could watch the kids for a bit or help out with things for a place where I’m trying to build that community and it is a really difficult thing to do.
It is.
Most of my colleagues don’t know my situation. Mostly because it doesn’t come up normally, but also I don’t like talking about my situation, so that doesn’t help. Probably just need to talk about it some anyway.