A baby in a sling makes an amazing Conference icebreaker. Over the five days I lost count of the number of people who stopped to admire my darling and ask questions, to the point where occasionally I gave the answers without being asked (“11 weeks”, “Nicholas”, “no, not after the Leader, after his father’s uncle). During the day, when I wasn’t carrying him, I frequently got stopped and asked “where’s your baby?”
“In the crèche,” I would reply, and almost always got the response “There’s a crèche?”
Yes, there is a crèche at conference, on site inside the secure area and just a few minutes walk from the auditorium. It runs from 8:30am to 6pm and the cost is subsidised by the party to ensure access for all parents. The staff are qualified professional childcare workers. They were wonderful, asking me about my son’s routine and adapting to my preferred parenting approach. We managed breastfeeding-on-demand via text message most of the time, but I was also able to block out times when I needed to be completely uninterrupted, such as when I had a speaker’s card in for a debate.
The crèche allowed me to fully participate in the business of conference: debates, votes, speeches, lunchtime fringes and, at one point, a campaign meeting. Without it, I could not have attended at all. With the crèche, I had the best of both worlds: regular cuddles with my son grounding me in between policy debates & ministerial Q&As.
My mother tells me that, as a baby, I was part of a protest at Liberal Party conference about the lack of crèche. The front row was filled with activists and their babies for the Leader’s speech. The following conference had a crèche. It remains vital for keeping activists included and involved after they have children.
On Monday I return to work part-time, while my husband reduces his working hours to cover the days I am working. I realised during conference that if I had similar close good-quality childcare at work, I would happily be returning full-time, able to fit in my eight hours a day around three or four “baby breaks”. Sadly there isn’t any such childcare available, so part-time it is for now.
I am glad and grateful that party conference has set such a high standard for keeping parents included. Nico and I will be back in the spring.
* Rachel Coleman Finch is a LibDem activist in Cambridge. She blogs here
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5 Comments
It was great to see you at conference with your baby.
I’m pleased that the Liberal Democrats are so inclusive, its very important for our democracy to ensure a variety of people’s voices are heard.
So glad to see you writing about your positive experience, Rachel. I’ve also been a happy user of the Conference creche (though not anymore – kids now in school). We need to empower women to play a full part in politics and this is a great start. Job-share MPs next.
“Nico and I will be back in the spring.”
Glad to hear it, Rachel 🙂
Completely agree about the creche – it was brilliant and our daughter enjoyed it!
I have fond memories of my daughter “working” on a drawing with then-leader David Steel in Bournemouth over 25 years ago. No issues about inside or outside the secure area then!