The survey has been running for just over two weeks now, and I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has communicated directly with me either by email, through this blog, or through comments at the end of the survey. If you asked me to contact you regarding results, rest assured you will hear from me before the end of the summer, or by the early fall at the latest. I just have to finish my degree before Thanksgiving, when my second child is due.
A number of you have suggested alternate sites for reaching eligible moms. Thank you also! There is only one problem with this, and it is a big one that I dealt with for over a year while designing this study. My thesis committee required that I draw my response population from a somewhat unified source — aka, Brain Child. On my own, I think I would have gone for more than one source simultaneously, but it is my hope that BC, with a national readership exceeding 30,000, will give me a good number and diverse geographic representation.
If I had been able to conduct the survey completely on my own (and who knows, at some point in the future I may do just that, a re-do exactly to my liking, using all of the wonderful mom sources I have collected), I think I would have spread the survey out far and wide, and encouraged moms who completed it to forward it to their friends.
That said….if you enjoyed filling out the survey and are friends with other moms who are also Brain Child readers, would you write them and encourage them to visit? Here is the full link:
https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/rotherm/47788
I ask because I actually am slightly concerned with response rates. No matter how many (or how few) of you participate, I know I will be able to gain important information and complete my thesis. But my ability to publish the final numbers, and to get them out there with any level of confidence would require that I have at least a few hundred respondents. There’s still time (I hope to keep the survey up until the end of July), and I’d love it if you could help me.
Last, but not least, I’d like to thank everyone who provided so much detail in response to the last question — filling me in on your lives. When I was testing the survey with my friends, I found that most of them really wanted the opportunity to say even a bit more after completing a survey that, for all its hopeful relevance, is still an impersonal and detached instrument. Hearing from all of you also makes me feel a heck of a lot less alone; both right now and retroactively, over the ~2 years I’ve devoted to getting this project underway. Here are some of the things you have told me:
“I often feel like I want to go back to work, but there is no such thing as a meaningful part time job anymore. I wish my husband and I could each work part time so we could both have a good balance between work & family.”
“I got a chuckle out of the “past week question”. It was an extremely stressful week. Our son was diagnosed with Asperger’s on Monday, Tuesday my husband left for a 4 day business trip leaving me with three kids under 4. Wednesday my mother in-law and his aunt arrived for a 4 day stay! Ain’t it great to be a mom ! Good Luck with your work.”
“[snippet] The lack of high-quality, affordable childcare in this country is as deplorable as the lack of across-the-board paid maternity leave. When I go out for a meal with other mothers–even if it’s only for an hour–it’s like we’re escapees from a prison. We do almost nothing other than care for our children and work (be it in the home, out of the home, or some mishmash of the two).”
I’ll sign out for now. Thank you all again — you’re making me feel great about doing this work.
Caitlin
