Next summer, the
big once-every-four-years coral reef conference, ICRS, will take place in
Honolulu, Hawaii. With poor timing on my part, I suppose, I’ll have a
breastfeeding infant along with me – just like last time. And again, like the
2012 ICRS, the 2016 ICRS intends to provide no help organizing childcare.
This is, in my
opinion, ridiculous.
The 2012 ICRS
conference was full
of babies. They were crawling around the presentation rooms, bouncing on
hips during the poster sessions, and squawking during the lunches. There were
babies everywhere distracting their parents from fully participating in the
conference because there were no offered childcare arrangements.
I complained
then, I complained after the conference, and I am almost certain other parents
complained, yet the upcoming 2016 ICRS provides only the following:
They will get
you in touch with other parents who would like childcare.
Oh, WOW! That is
SO AWESOME. Now we can all commiserate on how freaking difficult it is to
organize short-term childcare in a city you know nothing about.
You know what
would be more awesome? If the conference organizers recognized that on-site
childcare is SUPER HELPFUL (always, but especially) during conferences. And
then provided it.
Here are the main reasons on-site childcare is helpful (to me – there may be others):
1.
Reduces
the stress level of the parents if they can
a.
Check
on their kids easily and often. Particularly helpful when they have had 0 time
to vet the childcare providers ahead of time.
b.
Be
fetched easily if there is a problem with their child.
c.
Not
have to arrange their own independent childcare, which always requires
significant time and worry.
d.
Not
be forced to just bring their kids along to sessions, which is not really very
fun for anyone.
2.
Allows
mothers to breastfeed more easily
3.
Is
likely more affordable than hiring a nanny or babysitter for the week
4.
Is
likely more affordable than flying a relative over to the conference to help
babysit
5.
Affordability
is particularly important to support early career scientists, single parents, and
attendees from the developing world
So, conferences should provide childcare.
This would significantly improve the ability of parents (of young kids
especially) to participate. Look, Forbes
agrees with me! And Science
Mag pointed out that no conference childcare is a barrier to entry back in
2003.
There are even
companies that specialize in conference childcare!
Other conferences
provide childcare, like Fall
AGU, Ocean Sciences, Society
for Marine Mammalogy, Society
for Integrative and Comparative Biology, etc. So, ICRS needs to get with
the program.
Babies may not be helpful at the ICRS conference itself, but they are good at testing fossil corals for chewability post-conference |
Ok, let's say
there is some really good reason they can't provide on-site childcare. What are
some other things they could do?
1.
In
the very, very least, they could do some of the legwork and call around to some
local childcare places to find out if they take kids short-term. When I visited
University of Queensland for a week, I was able to find a week-long slot for my
kid at a nearby center*. Even if they don't want to do the calling around, they
could compile a list of contact phone numbers.
2.
They
could find some contacts for local childcare agencies and publish these on the
website.
3.
They
could offer a room at the conference for families to use as a temporary daycare
facility on site. This way we could either work out ways to trade off watching
kids, or hire a nanny to watch the kids on site. This would be more expensive
and more work for us than on-site childcare, of course, but would provide some
of the on-site benefits I mentioned above.
Can you think of
other ways that conference organizers could make things better for people who
must bring their kids along?
*The center
turned out to be terrible, unfortunately, so I pulled my kid out after 2 days
and he came with me to the lab. Sigh.