What would you do? Too much on my plate.

[Anonymous]

I'm a WFH parent with a 4.5 y/o. I work 7AM - 6PM, Monday - Thursday.

My husband leaves for work at 4:30AM and gets home by 5:30PM. DH works in the construction field and was laid off until January. He does not have any PTO banked up as of now.

I am the primary parent who does PreK pick ups/drop offs. I also am the primary person to deal with sick days, dr appointments and shuffling to activities.

I thought I might want to try the nursing program. I have nearly finished an AA degree in pre-nursing. I have 3 courses left: A&P and inorganic and organic chem.

I am failing inorganic chem. I'm sitting at about 70%. I have fallen behind in work and don't have it in me right now to finish the chemistry course and am considering taking a loss and withdrawing. I'm falling behind at work because I use my lunch break and morning 15 minute break to do pick up/drop off.

My son is in school 9-3. I've recently received feedback that my son was overheard during a meeting and I've asked to make sure he is not distracting staff during meetings. I was horribly embarrassed and need to resolve it. I've fallen behind on some work tasks because I am struggling to juggle it all and (admittedly) have tried studying during my afternoon work break and weekends, but my son is demanding my attention and so is work. I have little time for myself to do things I enjoy like go for a long run. I gained 20lbs in 2023 because I didn't have the time to workout between work/school/ and my son.

I don't know if I could realistically commit to a nursing program with the in-person labs and clinicals. I am thinking about trying IT or computer science since I won't have to go in person for those courses.

Would you:
Drop the chemistry course? Give up? I really want to give up but feel like a failure and am annoyed that I'm losing out on about $600 that I paid in tuition. But $600 means nothing if it results in any kind of disciplinary action at work.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand what happened with your son - the teachers were having a meeting and he was loud enough they could hear him, so their solution to a 3 yr old acting like a 3 yr old was to ... tell his mommy? Aren't these professional teachers? Sounds like he did nothing wrong.

You need to work Fridays, so you can work shorter days. And you didn't gain weight bc you aren't working out - you gained weight from how you eat.

[Anonymous]

I would drop the course and focus on work. Your job is the stable one.

[Anonymous]

The PP is on point. You cannot work 11 hour days. The schedule is not sustainable. Unless you hire more childcare or your partner becomes more available, you need to focus on your job and your child and not tried to add School into the mix.

It sounds like you are trying to watch your son while working from 3:15 to 6 PM? That’s not OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PP is on point. You cannot work 11 hour days. The schedule is not sustainable. Unless you hire more childcare or your partner becomes more available, you need to focus on your job and your child and not tried to add School into the mix.

It sounds like you are trying to watch your son while working from 3:15 to 6 PM? That’s not OK.

OP here - yep.

And get dinner going. It's bad.

And to answer the PP, my son was overheard during a work meeting, not a school meeting.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to have hours or his family help out with the kiddo?

Is it possible to cook in bulk and freeze so you don't have to cook everyday.

Is it possible to drop the course and retake it once you or DH can have better hours or different jobs?

Make sure no new pregnancy happens.

Is it possible to enroll kid in school's after dismissal care until you pass your courses?

[Anonymous]

A 70% may not be "failing" the course. It is often curved. Finish the course. Nothing else needs to be decided. Finish something you have started.

[Anonymous]

As much as we tell ourselves you can do anything you want, it’s simply not true. Children are limiting and small children are very limiting. That’s why we encourage youngsters to get their degree before getting pregnant even though it’s much better to have your children in your early 20s, because trying to raise children and be in school is extremely difficult without a lot of generational support or hired help.

I’m really sorry, OP, but you have to back off on your commitments for now. I work in IT and rarely work overtime and have been able to raise my only child successfully with a good work life balance.

[Anonymous]

So what if your son was heard during a work meeting? People who work from home have kids. Sometimes we see or hear them. No big deal. This is life, post-Covid for a LOT of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 70% may not be "failing" the course. It is often curved. Finish the course. Nothing else needs to be decided. Finish something you have started.

OP here, unfortunately, it is. A 75% is required to pass the course to enroll in the nursing program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As much as we tell ourselves you can do anything you want, it’s simply not true. Children are limiting and small children are very limiting. That’s why we encourage youngsters to get their degree before getting pregnant even though it’s much better to have your children in your early 20s, because trying to raise children and be in school is extremely difficult without a lot of generational support or hired help.

I’m really sorry, OP, but you have to back off on your commitments for now. I work in IT and rarely work overtime and have been able to raise my only child successfully with a good work life balance.

Thank you. I have a degree in social work, but thought I would like to try something in the STEM or medical field.

I'm realizing now nursing is not realistic at this stage in my life. There's no way I would be able to manage the in-person labs for nursing or clinical placements.

I'd like to think about IT or cybersecurity though, I've done the math requirements at least. Not sure IT would be as demanding for in-person classes or practicum hours though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 70% may not be "failing" the course. It is often curved. Finish the course. Nothing else needs to be decided. Finish something you have started.

I don’t know how competitive it is to get into a nursing program.

Do you need good grades?

I would drop the class for now.

I am assuming this is community college. Are you young? Were you a teen mom?

If you don’t have a degree and not earning a high income, I would consider going into debt and going to school full time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a WFH parent with a 4.5 y/o. I work 7AM - 6PM, Monday - Thursday.

My husband leaves for work at 4:30AM and gets home by 5:30PM. DH works in the construction field and was laid off until January. He does not have any PTO banked up as of now.

I am the primary parent who does PreK pick ups/drop offs. I also am the primary person to deal with sick days, dr appointments and shuffling to activities.

I thought I might want to try the nursing program. I have nearly finished an AA degree in pre-nursing. I have 3 courses left: A&P and inorganic and organic chem.

I am failing inorganic chem. I'm sitting at about 70%. I have fallen behind in work and don't have it in me right now to finish the chemistry course and am considering taking a loss and withdrawing. I'm falling behind at work because I use my lunch break and morning 15 minute break to do pick up/drop off.

My son is in school 9-3. I've recently received feedback that my son was overheard during a meeting and I've asked to make sure he is not distracting staff during meetings. I was horribly embarrassed and need to resolve it. I've fallen behind on some work tasks because I am struggling to juggle it all and (admittedly) have tried studying during my afternoon work break and weekends, but my son is demanding my attention and so is work. I have little time for myself to do things I enjoy like go for a long run. I gained 20lbs in 2023 because I didn't have the time to workout between work/school/ and my son.

I don't know if I could realistically commit to a nursing program with the in-person labs and clinicals. I am thinking about trying IT or computer science since I won't have to go in person for those courses.

Would you:
Drop the chemistry course? Give up? I really want to give up but feel like a failure and am annoyed that I'm losing out on about $600 that I paid in tuition. But $600 means nothing if it results in any kind of disciplinary action at work.

You cannot work full-time and be responsible for children while enrolled in AA nursing program, unless they have changed it since I was enrolled. I could barely work and most of my peers did not. If they had kids, they were SAHM and had family help to cover clinicals and evening lectures.

I worked 4-5 nights a week waiting tables, working an early morning Saturday farmers market, and drove myself into the ground. My schedule went like this:
M- class 5-9
T- class/skills/some other obligation 5-9
W- class 5-9
Th- clinicals 7-3, serving shift 430-close
Fr- clinicals 7-3, serving shift 430-close
Sa- farmers market 630am-12pm, but had to leave my apt at 530 after getting home between 1-3am, serving shift 4-close
Sun- brunch/bar shift

Add in random days of skills work at the community college. Clinicals could be up to an hour away.

You are already doing two FT jobs at once.

[Anonymous]

I would spend all your energy on finding a new wfh job thats different hours. This is unsustainable and you will burn out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 70% may not be "failing" the course. It is often curved. Finish the course. Nothing else needs to be decided. Finish something you have started.

I don’t know how competitive it is to get into a nursing program.

Do you need good grades?

I would drop the class for now.

I am assuming this is community college. Are you young? Were you a teen mom?

If you don’t have a degree and not earning a high income, I would consider going into debt and going to school full time.

Quite competitive with a limited number of spots, a 2.0 GPA is the minimum, which means I would need to get at least 73-76% in my pre-requisites. I'm sitting at about a 3.3GPA, but not doing well in chemistry. I still have 3 more courses to go.

It's a community college course. I'm 34, I graduated with a bachelors in social work in 2014 but didn't take any math or science courses at all, it has never been my forte. I've been in my field for over a decade and earn ~110K as a supervisor. I had my son when I was 29.