Family Friend

Autumn is coming and it’s such a sweet time to gather, harvest, celebrate, and be in community with neighbors and friends. I can’t wait to see some of y’all at these upcoming events, make sure you mark your calendars (details can be found in our posts or reposts, story highlights, and on our website) 🗓️🍁🕯️

Collaborating on events and providing fun, creative, and engaging moments for families while also fostering an environment for caregivers to connect has always been a meaningful and super fun part of this work for me. Come out, enjoy some family friendly fun, support our mission + some other amazing orgs and friends 🌈❤️

ʏᴏʀᴋ ᴄᴏʟʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ Jane Flanagan Survivor PDX

Hi friends! Bella here, checking back in online after some time at the coast visiting with family and showing them some of my favorite places in Oregon. How lucky are we to have such amazing natural beauty (with public access) in our area? 🖤🌲🌳🪾🌊🪼🦭

I’m lucky to have grown up near the ocean, and it has always been a comfort place for me where I can reset and realign with the big picture, and this visit was no exception. Each morning I could, I would take a trip to the beach at low tide (cause iykyk, I was lookin out for those cool rocks and early morning wildlife) I was reminded how much we can be affected by the tides in our life. The tides being all those things that feel huge, bigger than us, moving, shifting and make major changes in our day to day lives and perceptions 🌊

Some days the tide surprises us with a little treasure like a piece of jasper, or the treat of a gorgeous sunset on the horizon, and some days the tides reveal a mess of jellyfish slime, stinky seaweed, and clouds cover the sun before it sets. If you focus on the day to day differences and details, it can feel disorienting, stressful, or even boring. I think noticing /accepting this truth about the tides and their constant yet chaotic alteration of the coastline forces me to think about the bigger picture, taking the bad with the good, and how that is parallel to much of life💧

Starting a project like this has been FULL of those wavy ebbs and flows, and getting back to work today was no exception! Sometimes you wake up with one plan and then you have to be quick and shift to make a new one, and that’s just how it goes! To all the folks who have been a part of this early chapter of Family Friend, thanks for your flexibility and understanding of the human being who’s behind all this, shifting and changing with the tides! Due to that nature, it will happen a little slower than we’re used to in this modern world 🤖🌿

I’m so excited to see the impact all of this work and movement will have over time, and I’m grateful for the perspective shift to appreciate those day to day changes, slow progress, and the “chaos” that keeps me on my toes! 〰️🌊🌎

HAPPY LABOR DAY CHILDCARE WORKERS! 🚼🧑‍🧒‍🧒❤️🍼🌱🌿🐣

The labor of childcare is no easy feat, but it CAN involve a walk in the park! 🛝 If you do this work now, or have done it in the past, cheers to you! ✨ we honor you today and every day ❤️

Childcare is one of the oldest and most fundamental forms of labor that exists in our modern world - not to be dramatic but humanity literally depends on it 🤭😅 this work is the foundation of our economy, human development, and creates the village we often talk about. Unfortunately, childcare labor has never been valued enough by our society, but we’re taking steps to change that.

🔎 Did you know nearly 2.5 million individuals in this role are excluded from federal protections in the United States? In Oregon, we do have a protection act in place that grants rights to in home childcare workers, though the act has a number of exclusions and loopholes, and many states do not have any such laws in place. Childcare work has historically been devalued and under appreciated and it’s not something that changed overnight - the fight continues to this day!

It’s important we look around at our fellow caregivers and see how we can collectively lift each other up in this work - for all the folks now and throughout history who have chosen this work or had it forced upon them - we can make a change now for future care workers (and kids and families) who deserve so much better. There’s a lot to change and change moves slowly, but it’s definitely coming!

If you want to be part of the movement towards more rights for childcare laborers - let’s collaborate! drop a line in my comments/ DMs / inbox! 📧

Hi friends! Come out and be in community with us at the York Collective Community Care Harvest on Sept 26th at Overlook Park! 🍁🍂🌾

If you’re looking for an opportunity to be in community, connect with us and support an awesome local organization ʏᴏʀᴋ ᴄᴏʟʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ , definitely check out this event!

York Collective is a black-led community organization working to leverage cultural memory and black collectivism to improve and create better communities. The org is named in honor of York, the enslaved explorer who traveled on the Lewis and Clark expedition, yet was widely erased from “history” lessons.

Placemaking, dismantling inequality, and BIPOC liberation are hugely important values to hold while building community, and are values I personally hold and center in this work with Family Friend. I’m super excited to be supporting this org and event and hope to see some friends and neighbors there!

📸 We will be there to run the Chosen Family Photo Booth, and there will be lots of other amazing local orgs, food vendors, vendors, raffles, games, and family friendly activities to enjoy! 🌈✨

I wanted a simple start to this huge conversation of community care that I plan to dive deeper into and thought, what better way to start than with the basics about nanny shares? I’ve been the dedicated caregiver for quite a few very sweet “nanny shares” and it’s been an overall positive experience for all of us 👶🏼👶🏿👶🏻👶🏽👶🏾

Nanny shares, like any kind of childcare arrangement, come in many forms. Simply put, a nanny share is when two or more families join together with similar childcare needs and share one dedicated caregiver. It’s a collaborative, budget friendlier option that creates a little village for your little one while supporting local childcare workers 💕💞✨

Families “split” the caregivers wages (typically this is about 2/3 of their single family rate), so families can save ~33% while receiving specialized, private childcare in a small group environment. The arrangement can look like one family hosting at their home for all of the time, periodically swapping homes, completely synced schedules, rotating schedules, specific philosophies or teaching styles, school break care pods, and more. 🏠🌳☀️🌻

Drop a comment below if you have questions about nanny shares, or tell us what you think about it if you’ve had experience in a care share! 🚼📓

⭐️Families / Parents! 💌 Make sure you get on our membership launch email list (on our families page) to hear first when we release membership to our caregiver network. We are also going to have a dedicated online space for our families to connect and chat with each other to find families to establish or join existing care swaps with, and discuss all kinds of alternative and shared forms of care we can build in community! ❤️

Hey friends! I wanted to bring back this lil throwback pic of me checking out the community room at the North Portland Library. This was at the very first craft and chat I hosted for care workers a little over a year ago, in the earliest days of my journey starting Family Friend! 🌱

🤩I am so excited to host you all here again on September 6th from 12:30-2:30pm. Bring a craft you’re working on or use some of our supplies, it’s a super relaxed and fun time to get a little creative and meet other folks who care for kids.

👥 WHO is invited to this event? If you feel like it’s maybe you - then YES, YOU! All levels of experience / care workers are welcome! Nannies, babysitters, daycare employees, early educators, doulas, and beyond. Whether you’re and creative or just want to chat and doodle. We are assembling all the people who support the q***r parenting village of Portland to collaborate and just hang out together. Drop in any time and just say hi, or stay throughout and craft to your hearts content.

❤️Though we love kiddos, this event is focused on the adults so we can have space to talk and connect with others in the same boat. Activities are centered around grown ups, but it’s at the library and all are welcome, so if you’ve got a kiddo who wants to come hang out and read some books, definitely still swing by and say hi!

If you have littles tagging along and you are looking for ways to get crafty with us - we have something super fun for you on OCTOBER 3rd 📅 you can grab a ticket for our upcoming collaboration with Jane Flanagan , hosted at Second Shapes Bookstore - check out the post on our page / Jane’s website for more info and tickets! 🎟️

Q***r Kin Collective will also be meeting up at this space for storytime THIS SATURDAY AUG 29th - 2-4pm 🌈📚 so families should definitely be sure to check that out!

So excited to spend some time in person being creative with y’all again soon 🎨💕✨

Hey families! It’s been such a privilege talking with some of the most incredible caregivers in our community while building up this network and I’m so excited to be gearing up to launch this resource (and more) to y’all soon! Thanks to all who have been submitting info and sharing the post around to some incredible people.

If you or someone you know is a q***r parent and going to need childcare in the coming months (or further in the future), or you’re just looking to connect with other likeminded parents, join this list to be the first to hear about launch and all the exciting things coming along with it! ✨🌈🧸

Hello fellow childcare providers 😎 time for another craft and chat! Let’s hang out and create with collage, paint, decoupage, or whatever other craft you’re working on that you’d like to bring along! ✨ no RSVP required - but don’t forget to put it in your calendar! 🗓️

Who knows, you might just leave with a new connection who actually gets it, who you can text during the long nap breaks, meetup with your nanny kids at the playground, or decompress with after a long week. Or maybe you’ll just make a silly little doodle or collage with our supplies and have a fun Sunday afternoon! 🧶📝🎨🖌️

Whether you’re coming to geek out over your latest craft obsession or just want to keep your hands busy making something while connecting with other childcare providers - you are welcome here 😊🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Sunday Sept 6 - 12:30-2:30PM at North Portland Library Community Room 2A (upstairs, accessible by elevator) ❤️Multnomah County Library

Hey there! Maybe you can tell from the consistently increasing amount of words per slide, I have a lot to say about values! ✨ When it comes to each of these issues, there’s so much more I’d like to elaborate on, but for now I really just wanted to put out a broader statement and inform anyone who’s new here or isn’t aware of where I stand. 🖤🦋🍉

While within our community LGBTQIA+ rights and threats to our families are often top of mind, ALL of these values and beliefs are intertwined and work together to shape who I am, and the core of what Family Friend represents.

Not only are these my personal values, but these are values I hope we share, as I intend to work on and talk about them directly with folks in this community. I’m also always open to evolving and learning from my community, peers, elders, and experts, so I’d be happy to discuss these and more with respectful folks who want to engage in healthy dialogue. 🌱🌿

Thanks for being here friends ❤️🌈✨

PS - if you need help accessing the text from these slides, kindly send me a DM and I will send you the plain text (since it’s too long to fit in the description) ⌨️👀