Working parents everywhere have been desperate to find a solution to the caregiving crisis that has reached its peak during COVID. This lawyer and mom of two thinks she’s found the solution.
Michelle Chan was tired of feeling like she had to constantly choose between wanting to go into an office — spaces that already didn’t cater to her parental needs — and staying home with her children, a problem she faced every day even before the pandemic worsened the state of work for parents.
“When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was working in a co-working space in San Francisco and really felt excluded,” Chan says. “I just thought, why isn't there a place for me to go? Why can't I feel comfortable? This wonderful thing is happening in my life and nobody cares.”
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So Chan set out to found Workplayce, a co-working space in the heart of Manhattan that seamlessly combines child care and office space for working parents. Unlike other co-working spaces and offices offering child care that separate parents and children — sometimes even on different floors — Workplayce will be designed as a venn diagram where the two can happen side by side, according to Chan.
This new setup helps parents find that elusive balance between spending quality time with their kids and still managing to achieve better work outcomes, Chan says.
“I'm still me,” she says. “I still like working in an office and working with my clients. So I looked for places to work where I could bring my baby and didn't feel like I needed to be separated from her during the day.”
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Solutions like Chan’s are a necessity for the millions of parents struggling to find adequate care for their kids. During the pandemic and the subsequent closures of child care centers, parents — particularly mothers — were carrying the burden of working from home while also caring for the home. The stress pushed nearly 3 million women out of the workforce, with lack of caregiving support from employers as the leading cause behind the mass exodus.
For working mothers lucky enough to have support from their workplace, more than half are less satisfied with their jobs now than they were pre-pandemic, according to a recent study conducted by childcare company Care.com.
“It's hard to operate childcare and it's hard to be a parent,” Chan says. “And no one's really helping to solve that economic puzzle.”
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With a membership to Workplayce, parents will be able to rent out office space — which will include private desks and workspaces as well as lounge areas — and child care starting at $10 an hour, depending on the frequency of need. This differs from the yearly tuition certain childcare facilities corner parents into.
Despite being in the works for several months, Workplayce is slated to open in the spring of 2022 — a testament to how challenging it’s been for this dream to become a reality, according to Chan. But the investment of time and resources will be more than worth it in the long run.
“I just tried to think of a solution that would work for me and for the people I know,” Chan says. “Because parents are key to their children's success and their own success — but they need a little bit of support.”
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October 30, 2021 at 12:21AM
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New coworking space provides onsite child care - Employee Benefit News
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