Working moms - when do you cook dinner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This kind of post is exactly why men objected when women said they could do it ALL--"just like the men"
But the men never did do it all.
Division of labor in a household meant that there were already two full-time jobs. One for the partner who worked outisde the home and got paid for the work (typically the man), and one for the partner who took care of the household/daily operations of running a family--like shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, chlldcare.
When you try to pretend that it isn't a full time job, you run out of time to do those things.

Not that living in 1950s is the solution. But we can at least have an honest conversation about how it is not just the "working moms" responsibility to do this, right? In order for a NON-1950s arrangement to work at all, the question needs to be "working PARENTS...how do you make dinner happen during the week?"

+100000

This. And honestly most families I know have either a PT spouse or WAH spouse or “early shift” spouse. I can’t think of anyone where both parents don’t get home until 6:30. That’s really late.

[Anonymous]

The first year and a half was really difficult. We did a lot of sandwiches, pasta with salad (using sauce I made in big batches and froze), tacos, etc. Now my kids are 2 and 3 and they *usually* will play by themselves for a few minutes while I make something quick. Honestly sometimes I cook dinner during breakfast time and then reheat for dinner.

[Anonymous]

The au pair puts rice on while we commute home. Then I roast/broil something.

[Anonymous]

Change your hours - we get home at 5:30 and make dinner while the kids play or watch a show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Change your hours - we get home at 5:30 and make dinner while the kids play or watch a show.

Wtf no do not “change your hours” find easier recipes.

[Anonymous]

It's true that both parents coming home at 6.30pm is very late; that's barely any family time and it's stressful for the kids to be rushed to bed like that. (Signed, a FT mom who gets home at 5.30, who had to lean out with shorter hours so DH could lean in, sigh, I can't help it.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's true that both parents coming home at 6.30pm is very late; that's barely any family time and it's stressful for the kids to be rushed to bed like that. (Signed, a FT mom who gets home at 5.30, who had to lean out with shorter hours so DH could lean in, sigh, I can't help it.)

Or you can just broil a salmon filet. I mean really. Dinner prep is nothing to “lean out” over.

[Anonymous]

The first year with a baby and a toddler was survival mode, for sure. My evening schedule was programmed to the minute:
5:00 leave work
5:45 arrive home (I dropped the kids off in the morning and DH picked them up in the afternoon)
15 minutes to kick off my heels, change into sweats, and turn on the stove
6:00-6:25 cook dinner
6:30 sit down to eat
6:50 done with dinner, start bath
7:30 both kids in bed (DH did dishes while I did bath/bedtime, or vice versa)
7:45-8:30 prep bottles, lunches and dinner for the following day
8:30-9:15 catch up on a few work emails and set my schedule for the following day
9:30 start getting ready for bed
10:00 lights out for me
Up at 5 the next morning to start all over

As you can see, the magic to this schedule is having dinners that can be mostly prepped in advance and cooked or reheated in 20 minutes. Lots of batch cooking on weekends. Prep the night before might mean cooking ground beef for tacos and prepping the sides; dinner is just warming up. Or slicing chicken breasts into thin cutlets and trimming green beans; dinner is a quick pan-fry for the chicken (7-8 minutes) and pan-steam the green beans. Or order pizza from my phone on the way home.

Luckily, that level of craziness only lasted for a couple of years. Honestly, that's why I stopped at two. I couldn't picture starting all that over again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Short answer: we don't cook during the week. We reheat.

That's either meals we cooked on the weekend and froze, or prepared meals from grocery stores or takeout.

This except often I cook the night before. So a typical schedule is:

Sunday night -- cook Sunday dinner and cook something easy to reheat on Monday (eg, sausage in oven)
Monday night -- reheat sausage and pair with salad, fruit, bread. Cook something for Tuesday -- perhaps frozen meatballs in tomato sauce (throw in stove and let simmer 45 mins).
Tuesday night -- reheat meatballs and make pasta (or sometimes I make this the night before too) and salad.
Wednesday -- my work from home day so I make something fresh. Usually chicken on stovetop or sheetpan, or duck, or hamburger on stove -- something under 40 mins. Pair with cooked vegetable or salad if I am feeling lazy.
Thursday -- leftovers from any or all of the above.
Friday -- leftovers if there are any; otherwise, "scrounge meal" -- scrambled eggs, PB&J for kids, cheese and crackers, any of the above with salad.
Saturday night -- cook something decent or do takeout.

2 kids, 5 and 2, and I get home from work around 6:20 and DH gets home with kids around 6:30. With the reheating system dinner is on the table by 6:45. It's a bit boring because there are only so many things that reheat well and that the kids eat and that DH doesn't mind repeats of. But it works.

The tricky part is I am also trying to bring my lunches at least 3 times a week to work, so that usually requires me to cook yet another 1 or 2 things on Sunday or some week night to take with me. If I don't have time, I do cheese/crackers/salami. Not the greatest but still better than Chipotle -- I think.

[Anonymous]

^^PS - I totally embraced convenience foods for quick dinners.
Rotisserie chicken
Pre-cooked grains packets that only need to be microwaved for 90 seconds
Steam-in-a-bag vegetables
Some frozen vegetables aren't bad, like peas
Really thin cuts off meat or fish that can be cooked in a minute or two - seared tuna takes about a minute in a hot skillet
Canned beans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^PS - I totally embraced convenience foods for quick dinners.
Rotisserie chicken
Pre-cooked grains packets that only need to be microwaved for 90 seconds
Steam-in-a-bag vegetables
Some frozen vegetables aren't bad, like peas
Really thin cuts off meat or fish that can be cooked in a minute or two - seared tuna takes about a minute in a hot skillet
Canned beans

Oops, sorry - the ^^ referred to 22:28. Another post slipped in there while I was writing my follow-up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Short answer: we don't cook during the week. We reheat.

That's either meals we cooked on the weekend and froze, or prepared meals from grocery stores or takeout.

This except often I cook the night before. So a typical schedule is:

Sunday night -- cook Sunday dinner and cook something easy to reheat on Monday (eg, sausage in oven)
Monday night -- reheat sausage and pair with salad, fruit, bread. Cook something for Tuesday -- perhaps frozen meatballs in tomato sauce (throw in stove and let simmer 45 mins).
Tuesday night -- reheat meatballs and make pasta (or sometimes I make this the night before too) and salad.
Wednesday -- my work from home day so I make something fresh. Usually chicken on stovetop or sheetpan, or duck, or hamburger on stove -- something under 40 mins. Pair with cooked vegetable or salad if I am feeling lazy.
Thursday -- leftovers from any or all of the above.
Friday -- leftovers if there are any; otherwise, "scrounge meal" -- scrambled eggs, PB&J for kids, cheese and crackers, any of the above with salad.
Saturday night -- cook something decent or do takeout.

2 kids, 5 and 2, and I get home from work around 6:20 and DH gets home with kids around 6:30. With the reheating system dinner is on the table by 6:45. It's a bit boring because there are only so many things that reheat well and that the kids eat and that DH doesn't mind repeats of. But it works.

The tricky part is I am also trying to bring my lunches at least 3 times a week to work, so that usually requires me to cook yet another 1 or 2 things on Sunday or some week night to take with me. If I don't have time, I do cheese/crackers/salami. Not the greatest but still better than Chipotle -- I think.

Adding for those who commented on bedtime. My kids' bedtime is later, like 8:15-ish. We aim to go upstairs between 7:30 and 7:45 and have lights out by 8:15, though sometimes it is 8:30 if it's bath night. They usually wake up between 7 and 7:30 am. I drop them at preschool around 9 though next year will have to be a bit earlier when the 5 year old starts kindergarten (school opens 8:45, 9 am bell). Then I hop on the train and get to work around 9:30 or 9:40. It's a later schedule than a lot of folks have but it works for us, primarily for financial reasons: this way we don't pay for before care, only after care (and preschool pricing is "core day" which starts at 8:45 so we save $200 a month by not dropping off earlier). It's a crazy rat race for sure. My evenings consist of dish washing, often some cooking for the next day, other chores, sometimes an hour of work. DH does the same. I am hoping that at some point, maybe when the younger one is 4 and less needy, that we can shift everything up by 30 mins (and pay for before care, sigh) so I can get home around 5:45 and cook a proper dinner each night. Nothing fancy but not reheating would be nice.

[Anonymous]

I get home with DD (2.5 yrs old) at 5:30. I give her 30 minutes of a video with some veggies (today it was baby carrots) while I make her dinner. I make her easy things (rice, mac and cheese, with some sort of protein like meatballs and a fruit).

DH works from home, but is busy until her bedtime (7:30pm).

After that we make an easy dinner for ourselves. Today it was broiled salmon with a tomato/mozzarella salad on the side. We were done with dinner by 8:30pm.

[Anonymous]

So you get less than an hour with kids at night.

When I worked, I didn’t cook dinner. I often missed bedtime. My mom or nanny cooked and/or fed kids depending on the year.

The few months we tried to do daycare solo, we ate a lot of prepared meals and take out/delivery.

I now stay home and DH also cut his hours. He grilled tonight. We may get pizza tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

I cook dinner once or twice a week. Mostly DH cooks dinner. The kids eat at about 5:30 - they eat the leftovers from the prior day. The nanny heats it up and feeds them. DH and I eat later.

DH and I were just talking about how we are going to push the girls this summer to eat at 6.