Anyone here have 4 kids and both parents work outside the home?

[Anonymous]

If so, how do you do it?

[Anonymous]

Not me, but I have a good friend who fits this description. Both have pretty busy jobs.

They live very close-in, where they can walk and/or use public transit for most things. Kids are in walking distance to their school.

Also, a huge part of this is that her parents are both still able-bodied and fit and they help out a lot and live nearby.

[Anonymous]

This is not me. But I want to throw something out there: it's always assumed in these kinds of threads that X family situation (particularly a lot of kids) is "too hard" or "too complicated" for both parents to be working.

Am I the only one for whom working is easier? My nanny's job is definitely harder than mine!

I work full time, so does my husband. We both have a lot of flexibility. I ostensibly work 40 hours a week, 9-5. But honestly, with breaks, and doing some personal tasks (laundry, phone calls, emails) I probably only put in about six hours a day (which I know research has show is about the high water mark for thought/strategic desk work, so I don't think I'm THAT far out of the mainstream). One of us works from home each day, the other is in the office (we alternate). I don't make a ton, but more than enough to cover the nanny. I have a baby and a toddler, and we'll probably have a third down the line. The nanny keeps the house straightened up.

If I were watching the kids all day, I'd be exhausted at days end, and with no folded laundry to show for it.

I know I'm lucky that my job isn't that stressful and we can afford a nanny. But I don't think this is a total unicorn situation. Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous]

We had a neighbor who fit that description-kids we’re older (youngest was 8) and they had a 20 hour/week cleaner and the older kids were told to keep an eye on the younger ones. In practice, the younger kids were always at the house of various neighbors where parents were home because they were bored. (The village helped to raise those kids, not always sure the parents even noticed that.) older kids were told they could do 1 extracurricular activity and it could not involve anything where their parents had to drive them during the work week.

[Anonymous]

Paid and unpaid help. Lots of it.

[Anonymous]

Yeah my wife and I have four kids. Youngest two in daycare, have a part-time cook (comes in twice a week and makes 2 days worth of food), cleaners once every two weeks. We are clean freaks anyway so spot clean constantly. The real key is that my job is flexible so, for example, when I needed to meet the kindergartner at the bus at 4:05 I was able to leave work at 3:30. If I need to stay home for two days with a sick kid, no problem either

[Anonymous]

I have around the clock help. You need a lot of help with four kids and parents working

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not me. But I want to throw something out there: it's always assumed in these kinds of threads that X family situation (particularly a lot of kids) is "too hard" or "too complicated" for both parents to be working.

Am I the only one for whom working is easier? My nanny's job is definitely harder than mine!

I work full time, so does my husband. We both have a lot of flexibility. I ostensibly work 40 hours a week, 9-5. But honestly, with breaks, and doing some personal tasks (laundry, phone calls, emails) I probably only put in about six hours a day (which I know research has show is about the high water mark for thought/strategic desk work, so I don't think I'm THAT far out of the mainstream). One of us works from home each day, the other is in the office (we alternate). I don't make a ton, but more than enough to cover the nanny. I have a baby and a toddler, and we'll probably have a third down the line. The nanny keeps the house straightened up.

If I were watching the kids all day, I'd be exhausted at days end, and with no folded laundry to show for it.

I know I'm lucky that my job isn't that stressful and we can afford a nanny. But I don't think this is a total unicorn situation. Am I missing something here?

DH and I both WFH most of the time and have flexible jobs. We also have three kids. We debated a fourth but stopped at three mostly because of the reason the OP is asking: I thought it would be too hard to have four kids with two parents who work FT.

What you’re missing is that with each additional kid, the uncertainty increases. On a micro level: random sicknesses, injuries, bad days, crappy sleepers, etc. On a macro level: special needs, significant medical issues, normal needs of any individual child for attention and nurturing. Also, while the toddler and baby years are physically exhausting, as they get older, the logistics become more challenging. Each kid makes the logistics substantially harder. When our kids were little we were wiped out, absolutely, but we also had fantastic day care coverage, most days, from 7:30 - 6:30pm if we needed it (we rarely needed it).

What you’re also missing is that if you’re a SAHP to four kids, yes, you’re probably exhausted by day’s end, but you likely also have the bandwidth to cover the random sick days, school projects, etc., in a way that most working parents, even with lots of flexibility, don’t have. So, yeah.

[Anonymous]

NANNY

[Anonymous]

I know one with 5 kids, she’s a teacher at the school they attend. Another has 5 but multiple Nannie’s.

[Anonymous]

We have four kids and both of us work.

I work part time overnights Thursday and Friday. I homeschool my oldest who has high functioning autism, so he gets a lot of attention from me during the school day. We have a sitter who takes the younger kids to school Friday mornings and stays overnight if both DH and I have to work.

I cook fairly simple meals. We have a routine that includes exercise, homework, and music practice. I only put kids in activities that they are interested in, so I don’t spend a lot of time trying to coerce them to do things that they don’t want to do. We are a no screen family, so they have some incentive to want to do something .

We tend to socialize during the school day or as a family with kids in tow. DH and I have “date days” while kids are at school and DS is at the homeschool co-op we go to rather than date nights.

I don’t know. It works for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids and both of us work.

I work part time overnights Thursday and Friday. I homeschool my oldest who has high functioning autism, so he gets a lot of attention from me during the school day. We have a sitter who takes the younger kids to school Friday mornings and stays overnight if both DH and I have to work.

I cook fairly simple meals. We have a routine that includes exercise, homework, and music practice. I only put kids in activities that they are interested in, so I don’t spend a lot of time trying to coerce them to do things that they don’t want to do. We are a no screen family, so they have some incentive to want to do something .

We tend to socialize during the school day or as a family with kids in tow. DH and I have “date days” while kids are at school and DS is at the homeschool co-op we go to rather than date nights.

I don’t know. It works for us.

Dam

[Anonymous]

This is the case for my two neighbors. Both of the moms are physicians with fairly flexible hours. Not sure what the dads do. One has 3 nannies - a morning nanny and an evening, plus one solely for the youngest. The other has already had an au pair and is getting ready to send one of the four kids to boarding for high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the case for my two neighbors. Both of the moms are physicians with fairly flexible hours. Not sure what the dads do. One has 3 nannies - a morning nanny and an evening, plus one solely for the youngest. The other has already had an au pair and is getting ready to send one of the four kids to boarding for high school.

They also have a lot of hands on family help.

[Anonymous]

It might be okay when they are little. It will get exponentially more difficult when they are older