A new work-play space at a library in Virginia is all the rave among parents. This public space accommodates parents in a novel way that’s never been seen before. One elated father, Ali Faruk, shared this work-play-style desk on Twitter. And the photo shows that this desk space has a portion for the parent and an adjoined baby-proof area for your baby.
So what inspired this desk-and-crib combo? Barbara Weedman, the Henrico Public County Library Director, and her team are behind this fantastic idea. They saw the usefulness of such an inclusive environment in the Fairfax area.
An answer for the community
Parents understand how difficult it is to keep an eye on their child in public. It isn’t easy to do that in a library while trying to do something productive. Staff at the Fairfield Area Library noticed that parents with toddlers struggled to use their computer stations in their adult section. To create a conducive environment, Barbara reached out to TMC Furniture to find a solution.
“We’ve seen parents and caregivers who would need to do adult work, like apply for a job or create a document for community college and so on, and if they had little infants and toddlers, we saw that it was very tricky to do,” Barbara said in an interview with GMA.
Barbara also has firsthand experience with the hardship of parenting and working simultaneously. When her son was younger, she saw parenting struggles in public places. So finding a solution that allows parents to work with their children was also a personal mission.
“I know how challenging it can be for caregivers to access things that are welcoming for them, much less intentionally designed for them, in public places,” Barbara said.
Michigan-based company TMC Furniture stepped in. According to their website, the design firm specializes in making furniture “inspired by imagination” and transforming spaces into “joyful experiences.” The company then worked with an interior designer and architect to make the now-famous desk with a portion for parents and an adjacent area for children. The children’s room has didactic panels that keep your child busy while you work.
Necessity, the mother of invention
The Fairfield Parent + Child Carrels — as the desk is called — has been used since 2019. Barbara believes it has offered an excellent alternative for most parents who can’t afford to pay for babysitters.
“On opening day, a mother with an infant and a small child sat down at a Work and Play Station to use the computer and placed her children in the carrel — without having received any direction from staff,” Weedman said. “It was gratifying to see that the design was immediately intuitive.”
This design resonated with most parents because of the lockdown during the covid pandemic. Most people were forced to work from home and had to find a way to work while wrangling with their children.
Raising awareness about the plight of parents
While people hailed the excellent initiative by the Fairfield Area Library, some feel the situation shouldn’t exist in the first place. Laura Brody Smith, the author of The Fifth Semester, is among them. In an interview, she said while she applauded the goodwill of the library and its librarians, that’s not “the solution we’re looking for.”
Laura believes every parent should have access to affordable childcare. She also said the government should do something about the plight of parents. And Faruk seconds her. Faruk, who shared this fantastic contraption, is a policy director of Families Forward Virginia, a nonprofit that aims to stop child abuse.
“Raising children is so hard in America. There’s no universal child care; there’s no universal health care. Many families don’t even have paid sick leave, which is a real shame, and it’s not that we can’t afford these things. The stock market keeps hitting record highs. We have the money; it’s just not a priority,” he said.
For now, it’s up to institutions such as the Fairfield Area Library to develop ways to reduce parenting struggles.
