Not a solo parent, but I have a husband who can't really be left solo with the kids because his job requires emergency response. I generally have to ask my parents or his parents to come stay with the kids if I go to a conference, whether or not it's over the summer.
That's kinda what I figured. Thanks. I'm glad your parents are really helpful.
They're supportive, but they're also pretty far away, so it's hard to coordinate. I've tried to have the whole family come along with me, and that doesn't tend to work well (but maybe it will now that they're a bit older?). I know some other people who have reliable babysitters that they can pay to stay with the kids for a few days for conferences. Basically, I think you just need to cultivate some sort of tribe - find a colleague in a different department with kids approximately the same age, maybe, and see if you can trade kid-minding duties to allow the other person to go to a conference?
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.
Team up with a colleague at the conference who has a similarly aged kid and trade off watching them? At least you could do half the conference.
If i had colleagues in that situation, that would be ideal. But, they're all married or have no kids.
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