Family Friendly

When Dr. Delaney Spaulding purchased her dental practice, Ross Bridge Dentistry, in 2020, she and her husband Andrew didn’t plan to immediately start a family. They soon, however, found themselves pregnant with their first child.

“We were overjoyed, but I knew we had to figure out what we were going to do to make it work because I still had my practice to run,” Spaulding says. “Then I realized: there would be no reason to limit myself and choose to either stay home or send my child to daycare. It only made sense to me to bring the baby to work so that I can give my time to the office but also keep doing what I need to do as a mom.”

That’s when Spaulding got the idea to begin offering childcare during work hours at her practice. With the practice located on the bottom floor of the building, she decided to use existing upstairs space to create a childcare area for anyone working at the practice. “Once I got the idea there was no reason not to extend it to anyone working at the practice,” Spaulding says. “A family-friendly working environment is beneficial to everyone.”

It certainly helped Spaulding when she transitioned back to work after giving birth to her son, Riley. “I was more focused and calmer knowing that he was only a footstep away, upstairs with a caretaker watching him while I was working,” Spaulding adds.  

Spaulding also saw many other added benefits, such as saving time on her commute and being able to breastfeed when needed. “So many barriers are set up for working mothers when they reenter the workforce that makes the breastfeeding journey so difficult,” she says. “I was able to go breastfeed when needed. And I also appreciate getting the added time with Riley on my lunch break or between patients. I wouldn’t have that one-on-one time during the day any other way.”

Spaulding isn’t the only working mother faced with the difficult decision of going back to work or staying home after starting a family. According to a 2020 study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 77.5 percent of employed mothers working full time had children under the age of 6. The number was higher (81.2 percent) for mothers with older children ages six to 17. 

For many working mothers, it’s a difficult decision to determine what to do when that time comes, especially considering that for many mothers, there’s not even a choice. An analysis by Pew Research Center revealed that approximately 40 percent of mothers are the primary breadwinners that must work to support their families. “Every other job I’ve ever walked into, I’ve wondered, as a female, how can this job work whenever I decide I want to start a family?” Spaulding says. “It’s often taboo to even ask about things like that. So often women are told it makes more sense for them to stay at home, but not every female wants to, or can, give up their career to do that. That’s why it’s so important for me to have an onsite child-friendly working environment.”

While Spaulding’s practice is making it easy for working mothers, it’s certainly not the norm. But there are other companies who agree that childcare should be an easier topic to tackle for working mothers.

Alfa Insurance home office campus in Montgomery has offered an onsite daycare, known as Little Alfa, for employees since 1991. “At that time, there was a need for employee childcare, especially childcare that mimicked the hours of our home office,” explains Susie White, Alfa Insurance’s employee relations and training manager.  

The onsite daycare is open to all employees, and if space is available, it’s even available to grandchildren of employees. “With it being onsite, employees have the ability to go there during the day to check on their child and visit with them, which is special,” White says. “The facility being onsite also allows the children to come here. They have come here to do lemonade sales and this past year trick or treated at Halloween. It was a huge success. Involving the children with the employees here onsite when possible has been fabulous.”

White speaks from experience as her daughter began attending Little Alfa at the age of six weeks when White went back to work. “They do a fabulous job of getting the children ready for kindergarten,” White says. “One of the staff members in human resources was a child at the daycare center at one time. That really speaks to the longevity of the program. We have children that grow up and then come back to the nest.”

Children’s of Alabama is another organization that recognizes the need to help employees with childcare as well. The hospital opened Near & Dear Childcare Center in 2001. The center, which has a capacity to care for up to 45 children, has three distinct services that while aren’t meant to be daily routine childcare, do offer an option for childcare help. One is transition care, which is for newborns. Moms or dads can bring their newborn in for the first eight weeks. “It allows for mom or dad to come visit during the day, mom can breastfeed if she wants to, and it essentially eases them back into coming back to work while providing a little more time with their newborn,” explains Paige Larkin, director of Near & Dear. 

Another option of childcare Children’s of Alabama provides is backup childcare when other arrangements can’t be found or fall through. “This service is for when your typical childcare center is closed or if the family member who typically watches your child is sick or unable to keep the child that day,” says Larkin. “It’s designed for when your regular arrangements just aren’t available.”

When that help is needed, employees simply call the center and make a reservation to bring in their child. Every employee of the hospital is given 35 days per year of the backup childcare and it can be used however they need. “It could be when the nanny is sick or the normal daycare is closed for a holiday or if your child has a doctor’s appointment,” Larkin says. 

The third option is sick childcare. In this scenario, a child can stay at the center and cared for by a nurse. This is often most beneficial when a child is getting over a sickness or with something simple like a cold or pink eye but not quite able to go back to daycare. “It’s often used by parents with a child that is well but hasn’t hit that 24-hour fever free rule so many daycares have in place,” Larkin says. 

With so many options, the childcare is a serious benefit to employees at the hospital, and it’s appreciated by them all, Larkin says. “It’s a big help to make sure that parents don’t have to miss work if they don’t have to,” Larkin says. “We want to make sure employees can save their vacation time for when they are actually sick or going on vacation and not using it up to take care of their child because they can’t go to school or daycare.”

While there is certainly still quite a way to go with more employers realizing that this is a need important to not only mothers but also fathers, the options that are available are helping so many mothers the transition back to work post-baby easier. “Having the option to keep my child at the office made my life so much easier, and I’m not nervous or scared of having a second child because of how easy the transition back to the office has been for me,” Spaulding says. “I think my team feels that way to knowing that they can bring their child to work. No female should have to worry that starting a family will ruin their career or that they will have to give up their career.”

Paige Townley is a Birmingham freelance writer.