Driving 3 to 7… how are you handling it?
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Anonymous
| My kids are 12 to 16 and there are so many places they need to be after school and camp—the driving is killing us! How do other people handle it? Before the pandemic we had a nanny but she quit and I’m now sure we can find a nanny for a bunch of teenagers for 3-7 at night. We carpool when we can but it’s still a lot. |
Anonymous
| DH works from home when he can, we car pool as much as possible, sometimes we say no but the worst is the high school sports practices. They can’t skip them. So starting about 14 sometimes they would share an Uber with a friend. I know, no need to post and tell me they were too young. It worked for us when all of the parents were in the same situation, working, and can’t always do it. |
Anonymous
| ^how exactly is they would get dropped off at one of the houses and then hang out there until a parent could actually pick up or walk home if they lived close enough. Same with going. They would meet up somewhere together and call it. We couldn’t have let them be on some teams without this. |
Anonymous
| How soon until the 16 yo gets their license? |
Anonymous
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This is one of the many joys of walkability. The kids walk, bike or metro.
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Anonymous
| If you pay enough OP you can find someone to do those hours. I have one kid so I acknowledge it’s much easier than 2 but we do both work and do shift work. Spouse is not around in the evenings because of this. I try do do multiple things on one day, which seems hectic but works better. DD does martial arts. They have classes 5x a week and our goal is to do at least 2. She does swim team twice a week. I picked the 2 days that work for us to go from one directly to the other. So Tues and Thurs the Martial arts is 530-630. Then a 10 min drive to swim which is 7-8pm. That gives her time to change etc. we eat dinner T 430 on those days and have a snack in the car before swim and after swim. She also does 30 min piano once a week so she does that on Thursday as well because her teacher is on the way to the martial art class anyway. This leaves Mon/Weds/Fri totally open for play dates, homework projects or just chilling. If she wants to do a 3rd day of martial arts she can. |
Anonymous
+1 You need to make sure that the 16-year-old gets their license as soon as they are eligible. Also, the kids should use their bikes to get places. (Buy them backpacks for transporting sports equipment, etc. Ride with them several times on the weekends to help them to learn the route.) |
Anonymous
That’s ridiculous. There are very few high school, homes, and sports fields all within close walking distance unless all you do is at the high school and THAT is close to your house. |
Anonymous
| We kept our nanny. Otherwise there are so many things my kids couldn’t do. |
Anonymous
| Metro and bus. Uber and carpools. College babysitters who drive. We use it all. |
Anonymous
| We have younger kids, but our au pair has many friends whose host kids are teenagers and they just do the after school driving. Maybe an au pair? |
Anonymous
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Wow. You are all impressive, devoted parents. I don't work, so I'm free to drive my kids about, but there's no way I'm spending the afternoon in the car every day. There is a limit to the number of activities they pack in, just for everyone's sanity, and the planet (even in an electric car, that's a whole lot of pollution). |
Anonymous
But they are often all within biking distance. |
Anonymous
Same. I’m not raising homebodies, but this sounds excessive. I guess I’m lucky to live in a residential area. My high school only pulls from a small area and everything is bikeable. |
Anonymous
| I used to be an after school nanny and I basically lived in the car. Hire someone and pay them well. I did it for 3 years in college and made good money. |