Around 6 am every morning of the bad weather days you can hear children celebrating with glee that they have a snow day because buses are cancelled. Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of school boards, bus companies and parents sending messages out that it’s a snow day. The snow pants come on, the sleds are out and the hot chocolate is made. That is if one of the parents or another caregiver can stay home. Snow Days and the Working Mom don’t go together in my opinion.
It’s hard to make critical decisions about whether it’s safe to drive the kids to school or try to find childcare at 6 am. My work requires me to be there even on snow days, taking a personal day or a vacation day are not an option. My partner also works a job that requires him to be there (even in bad weather) and he leaves for work early so is usually gone before I begin to wrestle with my options.
Snow days and the working mom are stressful!
Snow Days and the Working Mom
In my experience, these are a few of my tools on how to predict if there will be a snow day.
Snow Day Calculator
Sudden onset of bad weather + no options for childcare = snow day!
Planned bad weather + childcare arranged = no snow day!
Weather so bad no one can come take care of the kids + can’t safely drive them to school = snow day!
Do you sense a pattern here? There seems to be a direct correlation between the lack of available childcare and snow days. Therefore I shouldn’t even need a snow day predictor, it’s pretty much bound to happen. https://starsoffline.com/
Working Mom Guilt
Working mom guilt is tough on a good day, but on snow days dropping the kids at school and heading off to work is hard. I always console myself with the fact that snow days at school are filled with movies and games and not a lot of hard academics. I hope that the boys get some extra 1 on 1 time with their teacher and maybe try a new activity or learn a new skill. I know they are safe, cared for and love having a class of only a few students.
In the end, work has to be done, snow days are stressful and arrangements need to be made. But deep down in my heart, I hope one day we can have a family snow day together. Get out our sleds, make hot chocolate and enjoy the beauty of Winter.
What are snow days like in your home?
For more of my musings about motherhood check out my thoughts on becoming a single mom, and what it means to me to be a mom.
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