When my son Jake gets out of school, he runs to Lupe, hugs her, and tells her about Minecraft. My daughter Lilly jumps up and down while Lupe makes sure she has her backpack and water bottle. When they get to our house, Lupe fixes snacks, shows Lilly how to make a rainbow with balls of tissue paper, and helps Jake with his homework. If it takes a village to raise children, then for three hours a day, five days a week, Lupe is at the center of mine.
The truth is that providing basic rights and protections also benefits the employers–it gives us clear guidelines, instead of relying on word of mouth or arbitrary rules. It takes a lot of the guessing game out of hiring. It leads to better working relationships .I'm a software engineer and a consultant. It's a male-dominated field, and I was terrified that while on maternity leave I'd lose my most interesting clients and return to nothing but grunt work.
This foundation helped me build a great relationship with Michelle, the nanny who supported me through the transition back to work and the rest of my son's first year; with Lital, who did the same for my daughter a few years later—and now with Lupe, who cares for both of them after school. These women have been my partners in navigating the hardest parts of parenting, whether that's sleep transitions, or figuring out how to help my neurodivergent kids handle distance learning.