Reader Question: I’m pregnant and due in 6 months (yay!). I’m completely and totally petrified to announce this to my students (boo!). I have no idea how to manage my studio and be a mom. Can I do both? This is my first child and I just don’t know how to navigate this life change. Can you help?
Several of my friends and family members have had babies recently. And I have to admit… I’ve watched in envy as they’ve enjoyed a full year of paid maternity leave. They attend leisurely playgroups, they host elaborate 1st birthday parties complete with hand-made decorations and fondant cakes, they scrapbook their child’s milestones and they remember to write down height and weight at every stage. The only thing they have to do for that entire year is raise their child.
Me? I returned to work just 8 hours after having my first baby girl; answering emails from my hospital bed. My midwife watched in amusement and commented “You do work for yourself do you not?”
This question really got me thinking. While I was certainly self-employed, deep down I believed I actually worked for my students and their families. Maternity leave was not an option. I’d lose my students; I’d lose my job.
And so I did what many piano teachers do. I just coped. I said goodbye to my little teeny first baby just 8 weeks after she was born and was back teaching; fearful that any more time off would certainly spell the end of my hard-earned studio. I perfected the one-handed typing technique; nursing my baby as I prepared lessons and answered emails. I wore her kangaroo style as I accompanied students on stage during our end of year recital and I became an expert at baby distraction techniques every time the phone rang.
By the time my second baby girl was born I had decided that this was not the way I wanted my child-rearing years to look. I had seen just how quickly that teeny infant became a bossy toddler in gumboots and a jean skirt. I didn’t want to multi-task anymore. I wanted to be a mom. And so I chose to be a mom.
And my studio didn’t die… in fact it flourished. And my students didn’t leave… not a single one. And I learned how to truly multi-task… not how to multi-stress.
Piano Teachers… Create Your Own Maternity Leave!
My answers to how to manage maternity leave as a piano teacher may not work for everyone, but through my own mistakes and triumphs I learned a thing or two about how to create your own maternity leave. And because I feel so passionately about the importance of Mom and baby (or Dad and baby!) being together as much as possible in those fleeting first years, I hope that the strategies below work for those of you in this situation.
Plan A) Find a Fill-in. Advertise for a fill-in or “apprentice” piano teacher. Try your local universities and seek out a senior student or a graduate student who is interested in some hands-on teaching experience. This person would then teach your students from your own studio and would be paid by you as a sub-contractor. Your students can continue on in lessons as though nothing has happened! This solution can work long-term or short-term… your choice. You also continue to make some income as you can decide how much of a wage you would like to pay the fill-in teacher.
If you go this route, I suggest you spend some time training this new teacher for a seamless transition for your students. Depending on how your studio is set-up, it may not work to have lessons going on around your family and this may call for some creativity. It is really convenient, however, to have a fill-in teacher you can call on even after you return back to work for those days when your baby may be sick… or teething… or very upset that they can’t find their red shovel.
Plan B) Change Your Schedule – Re-arrange the way you teach and take holidays according to your due date. If you usually take July and August off, but are due in November, instead teach through the summer and take November and December off (or longer) instead. Add additional weeks onto the holidays you normally already take off (like spring break, Easter etc.) If someone can look after your baby in your home, build your schedule with lots of breaks for snuggles or feeding in between lesson times. Consider breaking up your teaching into smaller chunks of time spread over more days.
Plan C) Change Your Lesson Format: Consider having your students attend every other week for 45 minutes instead of every week for 30 minutes. While it’s not an ideal situation, it does continue your students’ learning and gives you every second week off for the months that you need that time. Alternatively, you can match students of similar age and ability and have them come for partner lessons (focus on duets, theory, music history… anything that can be done in pairs) for the first few months after your baby is born. You’ll cut your teaching time in half, but still connect with all of your students regularly.
Quick Tip – To keep your kids practicing in the “off-week” check out this resource
Regardless of What You Choose… Don’t Forget To:
1) Announce Your News With a Plan – The most important thing you can do is to announce your baby news with a clear plan in place for your students. When I told my students that my second child was due in October I had a clearly laid out (in writing) plan for how their lessons would look for that year. Leaving it up to their imagination until you get organized is never a good thing. Even the kindest clients will tend to look for alternative solutions on their own after hearing this kind of news as they make assumptions that may or may not be true. Make the decisions early on as to how you will navigate this in your studio and share all of the information immediately with your clients.
2) Allow for Flexibility – It is so important to find a solution that does not have a predetermined end date. You have no idea how these first baby months will go. Don’t make promises that will hold you hostage to a looming deadline. Find a solution that can be long-term if need be and let yourself enjoy those first baby moments for as long as you need/want to.
3) Keep It In Perspective – Keep in mind that there will always be new piano students, but there are very few times in your life when you get to be a new parent. Remember what is truly your priority and let your time be spent on what really matters. Fancy incentive programs, recitals, elaborate theory games, studio awards… they can wait. Remember that, to most of your students, piano lessons are one of several things they have going on in their life and, while it is certainly of paramount importance to you, their world will continue to turn if their piano lessons are simple for a few months.
Once I learned to give myself permission to be on my self-created maternity leave, my life became much simpler. And while I chose to do a combination of the 3 plans listed above, your own personally-created solutions may just do the trick as well.
And I still certainly don’t have it all figured out… I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that just last week I gave my 2 year old a donut in her car seat and parked in the shade so I could make a bunch of phone calls. So… if you’re an experienced parent/piano teacher who navigated the baby years with a piano studio in tow we’d love to hear your experiences! Share in the comment section below.
I left full time employment before I got pregnant with my son 20 years ago and started teaching piano before he was born. When my son was born I took a few weeks off then re-started teaching a bit like Andrea did, with a baby on my knee, and then later employed teenage sitters to keep a eye on the baby while I taught. After a while I found this didn’t work as I could hear the baby crying and teenagers aren’t always great at soothing a crying baby so I found I was rushing out to feed or sooth him.
Then I hit on the perfect solution. I offered parents of my students reduced rates if they would take care of my son and later my daughter too, while their child had lessons with me, at least until my husband got home from work. In later years, that became simply sitting with them in my sitting room, or garden and by the time my daughter was 7, and my son 9, I no longer needed student parents to step in as my kids had full access to me whenever they needed me but otherwise were happy in the next room.
This worked because it was totally fexible – ie I didn’t have to pay sitters if a student cancelled, the parent sitters were experienced and unfazed by a crying baby, and were happy as they got discounted rates. Also it suited my wish to be an accessible stay at home parent.
It wasn’t an easy option. I never was able to totally cut off from my kids while I worked, especially if they were ill, but it was good enough. And as my kids got older – I loved it when they got home from school, put their heads around the door to say “Hi Mum – want a cuppa?”. My daughter who is now 17, still does that, and in fact she now “sits” with some of my student siblings who wait for brothers or sisters to finish before starting their own lessons.
What a wonderful idea! Probably cheaper than a sitter, AND your child got a lot of interaction with different personalities. You are so creative, Jane!
I could see that working beautifully -sometimes. What about parents who don’t take you up on the offer? Did you have a sitter for those times? What about when the baby starts screaming? I could see this working really well with some of my piano parents. Not so much the one who is already trying to wrangle 3 wild little maniacs of her own while one of her kids is taking a lesson.
I am a piano teacher now, and my mother was a piano teacher. She taught way too may hours and neglected her children because she was teaching. when I started teaching, my son was 17 years old, and expressed jeolousy over all the attention I gave other children.
Whatever else you do, make sure you have time for your children. Do NOT be teaching when your children get home from school. Do not assume your husband can attend swim meets and baseball games for you. Do not assume that your children will have your values if you don’t take time to teach them.
enough said.
Sounds like you had a bad experience. What suits one doesn’t always suit another person.
What I like about the method I use, is that as a result, I feel really close to both my children, and they know that even if I am in the middle of a lesson, if they need to talk to me I get up and speak to them – they always come first.
Occasionally I have cancelled the remainder of a lesson and given a part refund because one of them was upset. As I said, this isn’t always an easy option. The fact is, because they know that they are top of my list of priorities, they don’t get jealous and have rarely ever interrupted a lesson. My daughter says she is amazed that I always know if she is upset, just by the way they say “Hi Mum” when they come home from school.
I also protect their home space. My piano studio is totally separate from the rest of my house, so my kids don’t feel they have to accommodate other people when they are home, and can relax.
Having a strong support system is important – whether it is your husband (and mine is really hands on, I say he’s the better parent all the time), family nearby (being jealous of Andrea and Trevor for this 🙂 ), or friends. I have different sources to go to when I’m in a bind. If you can, get a baby nurse so that you can sleep at night for the first month. This sleep will be much needed to what your body just went through!
But I know all too well about what Andrea is talking about. I was replying to emails on the hospital bed hours after giving birth because I thought, well, if I didn’t do it, who will? With each child I delivered, I learned to try to save a bit each month before the child was born so that I wouldn’t feel stressed financially. And as crazy as this may sound, I did also try to time delivery months according to when my studio will have a break. This way, it impacted less. For my first two, I had them in June, so taking the summer off was no big deal. With my third, she was born around Thanksgiving, so I took until after New Years to go back.
Like Andrea said, changes will happen because of your child. But you will adjust and I believe your studio will flourish because you now fully understand how your studio parents feel 🙂 Do not worry too much…everything will always fall into place!
Oookay … going to have to delay having kids for a little while longer. D:
This comment made me sad and I just had to give my two cents.
I’ve been teaching for about fifteen years. I have three children and right now I am actually not teaching anybody, except for occasional music classes (I may pick up a few students while my son is in school). My husband is in school and money is tight. I taught for the first 2 or 3 years of his schooling but when I had my third child I just needed a break to focus on my kids.
I think it’s important to keep things in perspective, like Andrea said. You can always get new piano students. You can always set up a new studio. You can always teach exclusively for years and years and years (which I plan to do!) after your kids are grown. And you can find ways for teaching with kids to work if it’s that important to you. But you can’t always hold your brand-new baby in your arms and spend the day with your sweet little toddler, because they grow SO fast! When times are hard financially, I think of how much money I could be making if I had a hugely successful studio (which I know I could no doubt create given the time and circumstances). But then I look at my three kiddos and it is all worth it, 100 times over. And if it’s that important to you, there are so many ways to be flexible in your teaching and make it work! Here are some of my ideas here:
http://theteachingstudio.blogspot.com/2013/03/piano-teaching-q-teaching-mama.html. Good luck!
I do something similar to what Jane does since we homeschool and I start teaching at 12:30. I have 4 kids and they go over to one of my piano parent’s students house while I teach. I teach only 3 days and they have 3 different families they go play with. When my youngest was home/still a baby I scheduled in times for putting him down to naps and he had a play pen with me as I taught. Everyone of my families just loved to pick him up and play with him when he got fussy. I didn’t teach summer that year since he was born in July and that worked fine for everyone.
I’m a mother of five. They range in age from 5 months to 9years old. I am lucky that I only have 12 students and teach from my home to people who are mostly friends outside of the studio as well. The parents understand that my kids will be around during lessons and I’ve taught my older four exactly what they can and cannot do during my piano lessons and they pretty well govern themselves in the next room. I am also careful to not schedule a block of lessons for longer than an hour before taking at *least* a 30 minute break. This allows me to handle any needs my kids might have.
As for my baby – that is a little different. I was lucky that she was born in the beginning of April so I took both April and May off from lessons which was great for myself and my students. The end of the school year is so crazy and I know my students enjoyed the break and just being able to focus on end of year grades an such. With this baby I purposefully trained her to be used to the piano. Her swing is set up right next to the piano and she actually naps while I play or am teaching lessons. At this point she actually seems to find the piano soothing!
I am also a nursing mother so I make sure to feed her right before a block of lessons, and as mentioned earlier, I take a break after an hour so I can deal with her needs as well as everyone else’s.
There have been just a few times where she has been on my lap during a piano lessons and she ended up being a help to the lesson! For example, I have a beginning student who struggles with dynamics. My baby was on my lap, but rubbing her eyes, so I asked the student to play in such a way that it would put my baby to sleep like a lullaby. By the end of the song my baby was asleep on my lap and my student had played her piece beautifully. She still talks about how she was able to put my baby to sleep and she is getting much better at dynamics.
I have had similar success with my baby helping at lessons. Even when I was pregnant, I asked my piano students to play a lullaby and make it smooth and quiet. I recorded it, for extra motivation, and then told them I would play it for the baby when she came.
Oh, that’s such a cute idea!
I have a 4 month old and had to deal with same problem. For me, I work a 40 hour work week for my church, and then last year was teaching an additional 12 hours of piano a week. I taught up to the day before I had my baby girl, and luckily with her being born at the end of April, my students just got to start their summer break a little earlier. My studio takes a break over the summer, but if students are interested in continuing over the summer, I do teach a few hours.
This year a friend watched my baby girl so I could go back to teaching a few lessons in June. I made the decision before my baby was born that I was going to cut back my teaching this year so that I could be with her more. This year I am only teaching 4 hours a week and I hired another teacher to cover the hours I was giving up. I know for some that teaching piano is their only job and are unable to do that. Although it meant a huge drop in income, I decided that for me and my baby girl, that was the best option.
I had my first a year ago in September. I normally allow for a lot of flexibility in the summer. So I let them know that I was due in September and strongly encouraged parents to continue regular lessons through the summer since lessons would be postponed for 8 weeks in the fall.
After having the baby, I actually only postponed for 6 weeks, and started back with a few students. At 7 weeks, I added more students. By 8 weeks, all of my students started back. I didn’t lose any.
Now, I’m pregnant again and due in March. This time I plan to take 8 weeks off again. I’m going to have my students use “Shh… your teacher thinks this is practice” for that time to keep my students happily engaged in playing the piano during that time.
At 8 weeks, I plan to start again. I have a mother’s helper now, who watches our son until my husband gets home from work. I expect she will continue on with us after #2 gets here. I did cut back to teaching only 2 days a week though, because I felt like teaching was cutting into so much precious family time.
I have 4 kids, ages 11 to 21. My oldest was born in Oct. so I took off just 2 weeks. We were students and my husband was around in the afternoon. When we graduated, she was old enough to take a regular nap and did that until our 2nd was born 4 years later. The other 3 kids were born in May or June so I was home during the newborn stage. I taught all of my babies to take a nap during the early lessons and my husband was home by the time they woke up. When I had 3, I had to hire a babysitter for the afternoon. I kept her until my oldest was 8 or 9. They have learned that you don’t interrupt lessons to ask a quick question. My attitude now is that they can’t interrupt a lessons unless there is blood. My students are paying me a lot and I feel that it’s important that I give them my full attention. They all learned to make easy meals at a young age, they learned to stay out of trouble and they’re all really independent. My husband is really hands on and transports kids to sports, lessons, drama. He had an opportunity to take a job with traveling and he turned it down. Maybe when we have an empty nest that will be a possibility but until our kids graduate, someone needs to be there to watch their games, help coach, drive. When I am done teaching, I sit down to talk to each of them to catch up on their day, help with homework, etc. I have 20 students right now, so I am not teaching too late. This might not work for everyone, but this is just my experience.
The tip about planning way in advance is great. I lined up a substitute teacher option and had a Saturday where my students could come to my studio and meet the teacher. The parents could ask questions, etc.
I came to terms with the fact that not all my students would return to me, but it worked out because I could ease back into a larger schedule. I stopped teaching 3 weeks before my due date because it was the beginning of the month and worked out for billing with the new teacher. That was a great thing, so I had 3 weeks to relax a bit more. I even took 4 months total off of teaching and started back in the summer. I got 15 out of my 38 students back over the summer, and now have 23 with a waiting list. I am holding at 23 (I also teach part time at a public school) and it’s plenty of work. If you have a good relationship with your students, they will come back to you whenever you want.
Also, my students’ parents are happy to watch they baby, without a reduced rate. In fact, I joke that I could even charge more for lessons that come with a baby to hold for a half hour.
I worry about how it will work when she gets older (2 or 3 years old), but I will figure it out. I mostly wait until my husband gets home from work to teach lessons. So I have a mix of after school lessons with the baby and evening lessons without the baby. It works for us right now.
I have the mornings, which are the best time, with just the two of us.
OH! I also trade lessons for babysitting one day a week, which is awesome. I teach a one-hour lesson to a student and her mom takes the baby for all of my lessons that day plus one extra day a month so I can run errands. There are a lot of people willing to trade lessons for child care.
I don’t have children, but I always thought that if I did, what would work for me is scheduling a half hour lesson in 40 or 45 minute slots all the time. Then if I need to duck out for something like soothe the baby, make a cup of tea, grab a snack, instruct a sitter, or reassure a toddler, find blankie, whatever, I am not compromising the 30 minutes the student has paid for, and I’ll be sane. Hey, maybe sit down for 15 minutes!
However, I have not tried this in practise . . .
Love the resources here! I read this article while attempting to figure out what to do with my own studio when I have an infant. I’m surprised to hear how many people teach with a baby in the room/while acting as primary caregiver for other young children in the house. Is this common?