The working parent grind is so exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless husnand and wife both have high paid meaningful jobs or both low paid jobs that need both incomes it is selfish to both work
with young kids at home.

Needing both incomes is not binary, and a lot of wage growth comes after your first kid is born, but only if you stick to working. I would not have had kids if it meant not working, and you can look to South Korea for an example of how that plays out.

That’s a myth for most. My wife’s career hit a dead end at 34. Working 14 years on Wall Street. Same major bank she was in mgt. training program. She left at 35 and had kids 35, 37 and 42. She was never making it to next level. Her career was at tail end by 32. It is up or out. In banking, Wall Street, big 4 by 36, 90 percent of people career is over. Continue to work is silly if spouse has big job

I worked with lots of “career women” who did not figure it out till 45 and missed the boat on kids.

I slowly climbed my Wall Street job from 120k at 32 to 300k at 42. It ain’t over when a bald middle age men says it’s over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Try being one parent who works two jobs and holds it all down solo. That is real fatigue. I would kill to have just one job or to have a second parent and income in our household. You’ve got both. Please realize how lucky you are!

Was all of the above - not a result of your own life-choices? Why are you deciding to be a single parent or even a parent - without full planning?

You relinquish all rights to complain when you become a parent because you signed up for this. Unless, of course, you were trafficked and you were bred forcefully without your consent and had no recourse to BC/abortion.

My DH dying was not my choice or his. Things happen in life and they aren't always planned.

Life insurance? And don’t the kids get social security from him?

And I’m pretty sure the SS is tax free.

All of this.

[Anonymous]

I gave up on my career.

My husband makes literally ten times more money than I would ever make in a year and I was just so sick of constantly being completely stressed out, all the time.

And it only got worse when the kids got to high school, that's when I just gave up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless husnand and wife both have high paid meaningful jobs or both low paid jobs that need both incomes it is selfish to both work
with young kids at home.

Got it 100% of men are selfish.

Until babies can get their own bottle out of the fridge, someone has to care for it. It's not a "men are selfish" problem. It's a "kids are not capable of caring for themselves" problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did the older GenX and younger baby boomers in dual working households get it done? Not teleworking — not in 1999, 2001. And no professionals in DC lived near their moms then so that also isn’t the answer

I do think commutes weren’t an hour+ each way then. But mainly we just … did it.

I’m an older Gen X and we did it because our mortgage small enough that we had a full time nanny for a LONG time. A 3rd adult is how we did it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did the older GenX and younger baby boomers in dual working households get it done? Not teleworking — not in 1999, 2001. And no professionals in DC lived near their moms then so that also isn’t the answer

I do think commutes weren’t an hour+ each way then. But mainly we just … did it.

A third person is the key. In less affluent households, the older daughters are given the responsibility.

I’m an older Gen X and we did it because our mortgage small enough that we had a full time nanny for a LONG time. A 3rd adult is how we did it.

[Anonymous]

It really is brutal. We went from 3 days in office to 4 and even this smallish change has made a big difference.

A part of me just wants to quit work to make everyone’s lives easier but I think I’d regret it in 10 years and I really don’t like the idea of losing my financial independence.

I’m not a type a parent, kids aren’t over scheduled, no special needs, but, even so, it so often feels so busy and hectic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought WOHM life was fantastic and these supermoms did everything that a SAHM does and more?? 🤔

- SAHM

No it can be really stressful!

But I don’t have family money so it would be even more stressful for me not to have a work history/the ability to earn a decent income.

Unfortunately, for most people, there are notable downsides to both staying at home and working so you just have to make the best choice you can

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought WOHM life was fantastic and these supermoms did everything that a SAHM does and more?? 🤔

- SAHM

I have never heard that. Most WOHM complaints were how SAHM claimed they and the hardest job in the world: retired once all kids are over 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I gave up on my career.

My husband makes literally ten times more money than I would ever make in a year and I was just so sick of constantly being completely stressed out, all the time.

And it only got worse when the kids got to high school, that's when I just gave up.

Yeah, that’s not the typical working parent scenario. If your partner is making $800k+ you definitely don’t need to work.

[Anonymous]

There is a lot of ugliness in this thread, and I’m choosing to believe most of it is from trolls or people who are intentionally antagonistic.

Many women who are moms of young kids today came into the work world as things were becoming increasingly flexible. Now we see a backlash and retraction on flexibility. It might have been easy for people 10-15 or more years ago to deal with this because this is how it always was. Now, we have seen it can be different and that business owners and political leaders who are typically rich men are choosing to take flexibility away from the masses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s how we made it work- my kids are out of the house now so mainly this was pre-pandemic/telework.
1. Few activities. They probably just had one each at any one time.
2. Lots of independence and responsibility. The kids did their own laundry from 8 or 9, and cooked a meal a week from 12 or 13. They took themselves to activities on their own by bus or bike from 12 onwards. They walked to school on their own from 9 onwards.
3. We had a nanny from 3 to 6 for a couple of years during the worst of it.

It wasn’t easy but the kids don’t seem any the worse for it. Indeed, they adapted to college much better than many of their peers. I think we infantilize kids in this country.

This. My parents were both doctors who had very inflexible jobs. All of our afterschool activities were done through the school. We otherwise were latchkey kids who made our own dinners most nights of the week. We also would clean up after ourselves, do the laundry, bike to the grocery store, etc., without being told. The only kids I knew who went to therapy were kids who had SAHMs. Otherwise you had to figure things out on your own. But there was also wasn't the expectation to go to college. ADHD kids usually went to vocational school instead of high school, and did better there.

I remember school activities were extremely boring, just kids hanging out.
I wish I had done serious dance or sports or music. That’s going to be harder when you are an adult.

Your school didn’t have sports? All my sports were done through school. If I couldn’t get on a team I chose the no-cut sport for the season.

[Anonymous]

I went to public school and there were no school sponsored sports until middle school. In ES we did sports through the rec center. That’s how it works now here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a lot of ugliness in this thread, and I’m choosing to believe most of it is from trolls or people who are intentionally antagonistic.

Many women who are moms of young kids today came into the work world as things were becoming increasingly flexible. Now we see a backlash and retraction on flexibility. It might have been easy for people 10-15 or more years ago to deal with this because this is how it always was. Now, we have seen it can be different and that business owners and political leaders who are typically rich men are choosing to take flexibility away from the masses.

Thank you for pointing this out.

[Anonymous]

I am a young boomer at 65.

Most of my college friends worked throughout their careers. They are accountants, nurses, journalists, HR pris, teachers, lawyers. They used daycare, they lived close to their jobs. They had modest houses, sometimes a biweekly cleaning service, and their kids all watched a lot of TV and played with other kids from their schools without a ton of supervision. There was not a lot of travel sports. Just school sports.

In short we lived much more middle class lives and weren't micromanage the hothouse flowers you are bringing up today.

My DH played it differently. We postponed kids until our early 40s, doing a bunch of travel and house projects then one of us switched to part time after they were born. By that time we had power in our jobs and could set up our schedules to suit us.