This is your primary mission Todd. Everything else is secondary. You have a little girl to love, raise and make sure she grows up to be strong. You’ll learn as much from her as she does from you, but remember EVERYTHING else is secondary. - Major Charles Petigo shortly after learning I was going to be the primary caregiver of my daughter.
I’ve tried to do this as a podcast, but it becomes either ranty, or emotional, and that tone just clouds what I’m trying to say.
So yeah, I pulled the plug on going to FOSS4g NA 2018. Was I looking forward to the conference? Yes. Would I have presented a session? Yes. Had I spent a few months putting together a community day? Yes. Had I already paid my reduced speaker’s fee and would I lose that and the Gala ticket? Yes. Do I give a fuck? No, not anymore.
See, I adore the Open Source Spatial Community. But…I have a real issue when people are disingenuous about “inclusion.”
After the 2016 FOSS4G NA, I wrote this, and indicated that I didn’t feel included. And I didnt, I had to run all over Raleigh to make it work. I had private conversations with people who indicated, they would have helped if I hadn’t “fixed it for myself” so quickly. I just needed to know my kid had a landing pad, so I took matters into my own hands.
2017, in Boston, the stars aligned. I have heaped praise onto the team because it was well put together, and my daughter was with her mom, near Boston. I could just swing in and grab her. In hindsight, there wasn’t childcare offered there either. I wonder how many parents weren’t able to attend because of this?
I was looking forward to taking my daughter to St Louis for 2018. On our retreat from Florida to Colorado, we stopped at the city museum, and I was looking forward to taking a day with her there.
About 3 weeks out from the conference, I IM’d one of the planners about the Child Care situation, and they said they had set aside a room, but because “You’re the only one” I would be required to pay for it. As they did not find a sponsor.
The “I was the only one” made me feel like, I was putting people out and my situation was a burden, so we began to discussion options. On my dime, but as I have said before, I’m not asking for it to be free.
I started looking around the website, and there wasn’t a mention of childcare on any of the splash pages, or the secondary pages. So, I dug into the prospectus for sponsorships. Nothing about sponsoring care. In my mind, I had hoped that they socialized sponsoring child care, but I was starting to have my doubts.
Later that night I was IMing with the planner, and they indicated it was on the registration page. So I start to register to see where it is.
Step One (first click) — Click on Register
First Page (second click) — Detailed layout of costs and associated costs, such as the Gala and tickets
Second Page (third click) — Create an Account
Third Page (fourth click) — Create a Password
Fourth Page (fifth click) — Attendee information and the following next to a checkbox
“Are you interested in finding out more about any special accommodations, mobility assistance, or child care services that might be provided and/or made available, either by the conference organizers and/or the community?”
Full disclosure, I doubt I clicked “yes” on this button. When I see “special needs” I’m all “I can see lightning, hear thunder and can amble, I’m GOOD TO GO”
At this point, I indicated I was going to pull out of the conference, and I really wanted to just end the conversation. The planner kept pushing me, telling me that “I was the only one” and “They had tried to find others.”
No, no you hadn’t. Single parents, or parents in general will assume there isn’t child care if they don’t find it on the first few pages. (If “child care” is there now its been altered). They aren’t going to click through 5 fucking pages of sign up on the off chance there might be something there.
Case in point https://2018.jsconf.us/tickets/ Onsite Child Care is about one mouse wheel down
Or you know, the ESRI UC https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/events/uc/things-to-do/fun-at-uc Like 2 clicks in. Sure its not free, but look it’s there and available for people to see. Its known, and I didn’t have to google and look around for a half hour.
The planner was pushing me though; this was no longer a problem to solve, which it could have easily been. But I was angry. I wasn’t angry over the cost, I wasn’t angry over the planner trying to solve my problem, I was angry because I felt abandoned and alone. My brain was swimming in this. “Oh, its Todd, he’s fine he’ll just toss money at it, fuck him” For right or wrong, that’s how I felt.
And I wanted the pressure tactic off my screen, I just wanted to disengage and have this conversation over.
So I indicated that pulling my kid out of school for a week was selfish of me, and it was no longer worth it. This is not a lie. It is a condition that I include in my metric of “stay or go” But its late in the semester, and I talked with her teacher, it would have been fine, but yeah no. I used it as an excuse. Not my finest moment, but we react in weird ways when we’re hurt.
The next day, I went to twitter to amplify my voice. I did so partially in anger, partially in pain, and to not feel abandoned and alone. It was mostly a cry for help, for a caring DM. Because when I made that tweet, I felt like my contributions, my efforts, my involvement DID NOT MEAN SHIT. I felt shut out, I felt excluded, and I began to question why I even fucking bother.
Over the last week and change, I’ve done a bunch of thinking about this. I know that it wasn’t the community that abandoned me. It was the “non profit” that put this thing together. And while I know things cost money, I also know that there weren’t insurance issues, and that two high end nannies from care.com would have ran the conference about 1200 bucks for the three days.
Yeah, its a business decision, but I’m sure when ESRI was putting together their MapCamp someone in that meeting was like “How much is this going to cost, and how many people are really going to use it.”
Also, its not just about me. What about some mid level analyst who is also a single parent and their boss approved the trip to St Louis. They go on the site, nose around for child care, and they can’t find anything, or they just couldn’t afford the extra 300 to 500 for the conference. How uncomfortable would it be to ask your manager to, on top of dumping 750 for the ticket, and about a grand for the hotel, if they could pick up the extra 400ish bucks to pay for a nanny for their kid. Fuck, even I don’t have the nerve to have that conversation.
I’m not as hurt as I was, nor do I feel as abandoned. That’s thanks to the kind DMs, texts and phone calls from you guys. All offers to help have been appreciated, but yeah, I’m out this time around. We’ll see about 2019, but I’m already working with other groups to put Spatial Tracts in their open source conferences.
A few of you DM’d me indicating disappointment that I wasn’t going to present. I’ll put something together soonish and pump it out on a podcast or youtube video.
Lastly, for those of you who DM’d me about losing “clout” in the community for “Not showing up.” First, thank you for your concern, and second and most importantly: “This is the hill I’m willing to die on.” Open source is about the elimination of gatekeepers and to drive innovation, which means, EVERYONE. I know a bunch of you are child free, and I support your right to choose that, but don’t limit me because I chose a different path.
Not all single parents are as lucky as me. They don’t have extra cash to toss around. Is this lifestyle hard? Yeah, it is, and some days it feels fucking impossible. That being said, there is a better than average chance I’ll be in San Diego for a couple of days, interviewing single parents, being supported at a conference, by a company who made the decision to include them into the conversation. WAY TO GO ESRI.
I cannot write enough about how the community has really came through for me, even now. And while the planners of a conference might have been short sighted and turned their backs on me, you didn’t. And that’s how I know my efforts, time and inputs do mean something. I had lost sight of that, and thanks for reassuring me.
For those of you going, enjoy. St Louis is a geo city on the rise,and should be fun. Maybe I’ll see you in 2019, or maybe I can drag you somewhere in the fall ;).
Oh, and forgive me for my lack of content over here. I’ve been doing a Podcast over here, and its been eating up my content. I might start making this a companion piece.
