Aftercare vs work cut-backs

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I just had a thought.
My husband's company just announced that they are going to cut everyone's hours and pay by one day per week. They will keep their healthcare as-is. I expected to see this in other places, but I thought his business was recession-proof. It actually makes a lot of sense. If it's a choice between laying off whole families or cutting back everyone by a few hours, the cut backs are better. You know that the people being laid off will not find another job, anywhere. A responsible company would do all that it can to help. That is probably going to happen to a lot of other people in the near future.

Anyway, the point is, could you use one problem to solve another problem?

In an unrelated story, I heard a mother saying that a child was unhappy in aftercare, but that she has no choice. If you get your hours cut at work, would they negotiate about shorter days rather than giving one day off? Just a thought, if it comes to that.

At my mother's work they did the opposite really, they laid off a huge number of people and are now requiring 8 extra hours a week and a extra 8 hours on the weekends for their people. They also cut everyone's wages back by 10 percent company wide.

My mother is salaried so it doesn't matter how long she works, she still gets the same pay.

OK, there is one thing I hate about this laptop - I have some sort of macro I set up some unkown way that with the wrong combination of typing clears my whole post! So now as so many times before I have to start over. Or give up. I often take the hint and do the later, lol.

ANYWAY, what I was going to say about kids and work and AS is this: it really helps if at least one parent has flexibity in their job. In our family, that is me.

Reality is that childcare can be an ongoing issue especially with an AS child. Their needs are different, the developmental time frame is different, and all that means that the readily available options for childcare may not always work. We faced that when my son was an infant, and we're facing it again now that he is in middle school. Elementary school we lucked out wth.

I think knowing that has to affect the work choices the parents make and what you lock yourself into. The infant and preschool years were really hard for us, because we felt locked on so many things, and childcare was so very difficult to get right. We were fortunate to be able to afford a part time nanny, which eased the stress but drained our savings. What if we couldn't have done that? You've GOT to keep some flexibility available.

Unfortunately, not all careers allow for that. My husband's really doesn't, although we have tried having him self-employed and other things. So, it's me. But if my husband's current employer folds? Well, we've got some ideas in the back pocket, mostly involving that I will have to work full time instead of part time. Balance and planning can be SO hard.