In honor of One Weird Mother, who encouraged me to stop complaining and start acting. I wrote this e-mail to my future city government after reading these two articles that One Weird Mother linked to on her blog.
I agree with her. It's time that both women and men start addresses the systemic imbalances that working parents face - in the workplace, in civic life, and within our homes.
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Dear Fruity Parks and Recreation Department,
I'm moving to the City of Fruit in Spring 2007. I went to the City's Parks and Recreation Department website this afternoon and was amazed at all of the activities that you offer for city residents! It's great to encourage residents to be active and involved in their community, especially while getting to know their neighbors.
However, I was extremely disapointed that most of the activities for younger children are offered exclusively during the day. I would love to enroll my 20 month-old son in Toddler Buds tumbling class or take the Awesome Abs or 20/20/20 fitness class for myself, but all of these activites are only offered during traditional working hours. Fortunately, there are other fitness classes that are offered for adults in the evenings that I could attend, but that isn't the case for toddler classes. Both sessions of the Toddler Time class, in addition to all of the preschool activities, are offered only during the morning hours.
As a working parent, I'm frustrated and confused as to why the Fruity Parks and Recreation Department would choose to only schedule classes for children and their parents in the morning. Working parents deserve as much quality time, interaction, and city-sponsored activities with their children as those children that are fortunate enough to have stay-at-home guardians, especially for toddler-aged children.
What are the plans to address this situation in the future? I'm cc'ing JB, Director of Parks and Recreation, and MS, Recreation Superindent in the hopes that these individuals can help shed some light on the scheduling issues and the plans for making classes more inclusive for working families. Thank you.
Sincerely,
NSP
Future City of Fruit Resident
Monday, February 26, 2007
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6 comments:
*******Applause!!!*******
City of Fruit made me laugh.
There are a lot of weekend and evening activities in the Boston area. James used to bring Max to a Saturday Gymboree class ans it was packed. Maybe your letter will prompt more weekend activities? Is there a local weekly that you can send a copy to as well? Maybe gather some support from other parents?
Good luck!
Karrie,
Good question. I know that the City of Fruit does have a local paper. Maybe I can submit my letter to them to see if other parents feel the same way.
I could see if a privately-owned business, like Gymboree or a Kids Club, wanted to only offer toddler classes in the mornings during weekdays, but an entire City? That is ridiculous and supports the bias that parents with young children don't work outside the home.
ok, but i want to know where you're moving. what the heck is the city of fruit??
Now I know why you can hear me yelling (okay, in my head) "Get out of the grocery store, MOMMY, I work for a living and can only shop after 5:00 so why can't you do all your shopping BEFORE 5:00??" But now I see, they're with their toddlers doing classes during the day. I will be so much more sympathetic now. Poor non-working mommies. Bitches.
Word up! I can't do my friendly city's swim classes for my daughter because they are during the day. Hence I headed to your fruity city for the YMCA swim classes they have in the evening. The problem? HOly h. cow that place is packed. It truly took me 15 minutes to find a parking spot and hike in to the pool area against the tides of people leaving the previous class time.
Good informative post.
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