Allegra Fisher
Allegra manages strategic projects at Merit America, a workforce development organisation that offers fast, flexible pathways to family-sustaining careers for Americans without four-year degrees. Before joining Merit, she worked in solar energy. She lives with her husband Jonathan and their four-year-old and two-year-old sons in San Francisco. They love spending time outside in Golden Gate Park and in the Sierras.
What does your normal working day look like?
I work part-time, eight hours a day, three days a week. During the week, my husband and I get our sons ready for the day and my husband bikes our four-year-old to preschool. On days that I work, our au pair cares for our two-year-old during the day. I work from home and start my workday early and wrap up on the earlier end so I can bike to pick up our four-year-old. About half the time, I bring our two-year-old along. On our way home, we often stop in Golden Gate Park to play in the woods or the Botanical Garden.
Jonny’s work hours end a bit later, and we have dinner as a family around 5:30pm. We begin the boys’ bedtime routine around 6:15pm, and one parent will help with bath and tooth brushing while the other cleans up dinner. We wrap up the day reading together for about half an hour, and the boys go to bed at 7pm and 7:30pm, before Jonny, and I have the evening to ourselves (depending on the number of bedtime excursions our older son takes!).
On the two days that I’m not working for Merit America, I spend the morning with my two-year-old, getting family chores done or getting some exercise. In the afternoon, I pick up our older son earlier for some more quality time or mini-adventures or, recently, swim class.
How long have you had this routine?
I worked full-time at social impact organisations until about a year ago when I took a different role within Merit America to work part-time. Our routine has been fairly consistent since then (Fall 2021).
How has it changed as your children have gotten older or as your family has grown?
I joined Merit when my younger son was only five months old, then switched roles when he was 1.5 We’ve had various childcare changes (gotten an au pair and our older son started preschool), so the routine has shifted multiple times over the last few years. It will shift again as our younger son begins part-time preschool this fall.
What boundaries have you set around your work and how did you work with your colleagues to enable them?
I’m incredibly lucky to work for a fantastic manager who understands and encourages boundaries and work-life balance. When I started at Merit, she encouraged me to set time blocks in my calendar to demarcate working and non-working hours. I think it helps that our team is fully remote, so everyone is in different time zones and understands that each teammate’s working hours are distinct.
What are the most important things for you to get right to have a successful day?
My days are most successful when I’m patient and calm with myself and my children. Getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, and getting some outdoor time and exercise are key (and also fairly obvious, but sometimes I forget!). On the work front, I regularly revisit my top goals for the week to make sure I’m focused on key priorities.
Switching to weekends, what are the most important things to get right to have an excellent weekend day?
Our family has the best weekend days when we get outside fairly early in the day. We are so lucky to live in a gorgeous part of the world, and spending time outside recharges us and helps us connect.
What has been the most impactful thing you've done to save time / energy in your family?
Meal planning. My husband and I have always cooked almost every night but realised that deciding at 5 pm what we wanted to eat that evening did not work once we had children. We now sit down over the weekend and plan out the week’s meals ahead of time and then do a food shop. It saves so much mental energy not to revisit the question “what should we eat tonight?” every single evening.
What principles have served you best in your parenting?
Tough question to answer succinctly! First, it’s not possible to be too loving with my children. Second, respect for them as whole people is key. I’ve tried to trust in their capabilities since they were babies - following some principles of RIE.
I also love the framework of the gardener and carpenter, which I heard about via NPR a few years ago. Alison Gopnik writes about how parents, in the carpenter model, try to shape their children into a certain kind of adult, or, in the gardener model, can work to nurture the child through fostering exploration. I find her framework helpful and inspiring, and it reminds me that my role is to help my children explore and adventure without getting caught up in over-structuring their lives and worrying about the outcome.
Finally, I try to treat myself with grace as well as my children. I’m not a perfect parent and can get frustrated with myself when I fall short, but I continue to try to learn, grow, and do better.
How do you handle hard behaviour e.g. tantrums?
I try to set clear, logical boundaries, then try to be calm and present if my children are have difficulty handling that boundary. Remembering that my children aren’t giving me a hard time, they’re having a hard time, helps me reframe the situation as something we can tackle together. I also try to remember that this will pass.
Is there a primary parent in your household or do you split the parenting evenly?
Our household does not have a primary parent; we split parenting fairly evenly.
If there is an even split between parents, how do you divide the work and make sure that it is fair?
It’s always a work in progress, but we keep modifying our systems and discussing to try to divide responsibilities equitably. My husband takes more of the day-to-day childcare chores (he does 95%+ of tooth brushing, for example), while I’ve done more longer-term planning so far (what classes and camps should we choose for our older son, for example). We try to discuss how things feel regularly and make changes, but I think it’s a constant balancing act and that it’s a challenge for things to feel completely “fair” when there’s always so much to do.
How do you bring play and fun into your time with your children?
I channel my inner child and play on the floor with my sons. When I remember to get down to their level and engage my silly and goofy side - especially with physical play and a sense of humour - we always have so much fun.
What is something unusual or unique that you do in your family?
We bought an electric cargo bike a year ago and almost entirely bike or take public transportation within San Francisco. Biking feels freeing and is more enjoyable with our children than travelling via car (although our two-year-old enjoys driving and requests it far more regularly than we drive!). We are privileged to live in an area where there is reasonable bike infrastructure (although I still occasionally find some drivers’ behaviour intimidating, and I’d love to see pedestrian and bike-friendly spaces continue to improve!) and a good climate for biking, and I hope that more places become bike-friendly in the coming years.