MEDIO BIÓTICO

Case Studies Three and Four present the most complex coordination arrangements found among the part-time working lone parents we spoke to.

Case Study Three

Case Study Three involves a lone mother who had one son aged three years. She worked unpredictable hours as a supply teacher and did not always know in advance whether she would work at all in some weeks, or what hours or days she might be required to work. She usually received work offers from the Local Education Authority on Monday mornings and had to make childcare and travel plans at the last minute to fit with work commitments. The key people involved in providing support with childcare and transport were the grandmother and the child’s father. The father came to the lone mother’s home to care for the child there. This family’s arrangements are illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2

Case Study Three: informal help with coordinating

work, childcare and education for lone mother

working part-time (irregular days)

Figure 4.2 shows how the son was transported from his home to the grandmother’s to stay overnight on Sundays and throughout the day on Mondays. On Mondays, the grandmother cared for the son and took him to and from early-education in a school nursery about fifteen minutes drive away. This substantial and regular support from the grandmother allowed the mother to respond quickly to work offers made on Monday mornings, without worrying about any of her son’s childcare needs or about coordinating childcare with her own work commitments. On other days of the week (if the mother was working), the child’s father would offer similar support, but he came to the son’s home to care for him until the mother finished work. He also walked the son to and from early-education (the father was unemployed).

The key element of coordination in this context of unpredictable employment were the mother’s car to travel to the grandmother’s house and to work; the grandmother’s car to take the son to and from early-education; and the proximity of the father’s house to his son’s house and to the school nursery. In effect, the father and (to a lesser extent) the grandmother were all ‘on standby’, waiting to respond to the mother’s work situation, and she was heavily reliant on the flexibility of this support to coordinate, work and childcare/education.

In general, the mother thought these arrangements worked well and were even better than they had been in the past, as the grandmother was now retired and no longer caring for a sick relative. She said:

‘It just seems to work really well at, at the moment anyway, and I can’t see anything changing, and especially now my mum’s retired, she’s got that bit of extra time and my [female relative] died last year so she had her to look after as well before that, so she’s now got more time, so it does make sense.’

(lone mother of three-year-old, worker)

Even so, this mother wanted to change her working hours to work the same three days a week on a predictable basis. This suggests that, as in Case Studies One and Two, she was not entirely satisfied with arrangements, in spite of her assertion that they worked fairly well overall.

Case Study Four

Case Study Four involved a lone mother who had two children aged twelve and nine years. This mother worked regular part-time hours from 9am to 2pm, Monday to Friday. However, despite this regular employment, this mother had multifaceted childcare and transport arrangements similar to those described in Case Study Three, where the parent’s employment hours were less predictable. The main reason for this was the mother’s relatively long journey to work (45 minutes by car) and the fact that her children attended two different schools. The key people involved in providing childcare and transport support were the children’s grandmother and a friend of the lone parent. These arrangements are illustrated in Figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3

Case Study Four: informal help with coordinating

work, childcare and education for lone parent working

regularly (9am – 2pm, Monday to Friday)

Figure 4.3 shows how this lone mother travelled from home in the mornings by car, to her friend’s house where she left her oldest child. She then travelled to the grandmother’s house and left the youngest child before proceeding to work, a 45 minute drive away. The friend and the grandmother cared for the children separately before walking them to their respective schools (one secondary and one primary). At the end of the working day (finishing at 2pm), the mother usually returned home before travelling by car to pick up the children from their different schools.

The key element in this context of predictable part-time employment was the proximity of both carers’ houses to the children’s different schools. The mother’s car was also important for transporting the children to and from their different care/ education settings as well as for taking herself to work. As in the other three case studies, this mother believed things worked well. However, despite her apparent satisfaction, she was planning to move house to be nearer to her children’s schools. She said this would make things a ‘lot easier’: not only would the family be nearer to the school, but it would also shorten her own journey to work. In fact, it would mean that she could use public transport instead of her car, which had recently become a matter of importance, as her employer had decided to withdraw car parking at her place of work. She said that, without the car, she would have had to get two buses to work from her current home, which would have taken over an hour each way. She explained that, under these circumstances, she would have been unable to drop the children off at the grandmother’s and friend’s houses, and that, ultimately, this would have made it difficult for her to sustain her employment. This case study illustrates, therefore, how both proximity to work and schools/care settings, as well as owning a car, can be crucially important for coordinating work and care, even to the point where a parent might not be able to work without them.