If you thought you can’t go to a tech conference with an infant, you would be wrong. Well, kind of. It was a situation I found myself in when 🐻 was 4 months old. I had been granted a diversity scholarship to attend Playgrounds Conf, a Swift and Apple developers conference, but my sitter had double booked. Having been away from the office for 5 months, I was in real need of the company of other iOS developers. While my husband (another developer) and social media keeps me up-to-date with the current trends and technology at night, my day consists of singing nursery rhymes and soft toy animal ventriloquism. I really missed spending my daylight hours being consumed by programming. My husband also wanted to attend the conference, but a deadline at work prevented him from attending. If I wanted to attend the conference, my only option was to bring 🐻 along. Thankfully, when asked, Andyy, the organiser allowed this. At this age, 🐻sleeps most of the time so I thought: ‘Yup. We could do this’. And so the planning began.
Travel
I didn’t want to drive (traffic + crying baby would not be a great start to the day), so I opted to take the train in. To make it to the breakfast, we needed to be on a peak hour service. My advice is to pick the least packed carriage in case your baby cries. As I commuted daily to work by train I knew that for us, this was the first carriage. We sat on the special needs seat so that I could sit next to the pram, out of people’s way. He slept for most of the trip so that was one milestone unlocked. Next, I went into recon mode to traverse through the crowded train station searching for the best route out while keeping the baby asleep.
Conference Venue
The conference was to be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, while in theory I knew they would cater to parents with prams, I had to make sure I had a place to feed and change the baby. Going online and reviewing their accessibility features and floor plan confirmed that this was the case. We had ramp access entry to the building, lift access between the parents room and the theatre and Andyy had organised a ‘reserved’ cover to be placed over the seat nearest the theatre door where there was plenty of room for the pram.
Reactions from other developers
People see what they want to see. So when you walk with a pram, no one expects you to be a fellow developer heading to a conference. One person apologised at the venue when he realised I had tried to catch his eye to greet him on the street earlier that day. It’s really interesting to see how others who’ve known you as an individual suddenly respond to you differently when you go around with a baby. On the other hand, you meet people who are going through the same thing you are. A fellow female developer came over to say hello and we discussed the options of bringing children to conferences versus expressing if you are still breastfeeding. She chose the latter, with her husband taking time off work to mind their children at home. Other reactions were mild surprise, sympathetic camaraderie and simple pleasure at the sight of me wearing my baby.
Enjoying the talks
Well, I tried to at least. I only managed to see 4 of the talks scheduled for the day. During one talk, he began fidgeting in the middle so I had to take him outside. It was a talk I was really keen to see, but unfortunately had to miss out. At one time, 🐻 was asleep so I left him with the volunteer coordinator who would message me if he woke up (I do not encourage you to leave your baby with a total stranger). I could see him every time the theatre door opened to the front foyer. The rest of the time he was either asleep in his pram or sitting on my lap in the theatre.
Finally, 🐻 had an explosive nappy incident. After changing him (and being left with no other change of clothes if he did an encore), I decided to thank the organiser and headed home. The train ride and journey home was luckily uneventful.
Final thoughts
If I had a choice, I would not bring a baby to a conference as I did this time around. You get to see half the talks and your attention is split most of the time. If you chose to express instead, you would still need to step away from the conference to do it, although the kit would be smaller than a baby and pram. It would be great if there was a minder to watch the baby at the venue while you are listening to the talks, then you’d only need to step out as needed for breastfeeding. There are tech conferences that do offer child minding services for free or heavily subsidized e.g. Yow! Bubs. Had my husband been able to attend, we wouldn’t need to choose who would miss out either. Finally, despite a lot planning and thought required to get us to the conference, I was glad I attended. I had a lot conversations with other developers about their work and thoroughly enjoyed the talks I saw. It helped me stay involved with the tech community while I’m away from the office, and challenged me in an entirely different arena.
As a parent, you’d know that any outing would involve a detailed plan of attack and sometimes days of preparation. However, you can’t foresee the emotional and psychological experiences of mixing your two worlds, that of a parent, and as an individual. It’s a challenge I hope would be made easier when more parents are catered for in this industry.
If you are starting or have started a young family, let me know how you get on with staying involved in your tech community. Best of luck!
Here are a couple of articles on child minding at tech conferences:
http://www.itwire.com.au/development/70070-yowbubs-ready-to-play-at-developer-conferences.html
http://blog.melchua.com/2016/04/19/want-more-inclusivity-at-your-conference-add-childcare/