How do parents juggle multiple kids and sports
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Anonymous
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Hired help
Dropping one kid off a bit earlier, picking up another a bit later Carpooling |
Anonymous
| Friends with benefits help |
Anonymous
| 3 kids. 3 different schools. Loads of activities. I SAH and my DH works from home 3 days/week. We both do a lot of driving. When he is at the office, DH times his departure so that he can pick up one kid en route. When I can, I arrange carpools. It’s really challenging, but we somehow manage. I don’t think we’ve ever had to turn down a kid’s request to do an activity bc of driving limitations. It will be a relief when our oldest starts driving next year. |
Anonymous
For our rec sports we haven’t had any luck setting up carpools. Seems like a lot of SAH and WFH parents find it’s more trouble than it’s worth now post pandemic. |
Anonymous
| OP travel sports are basically only for SAHMs. Or someone who can hire a house manager. |
Anonymous
You mean we don’t let you use us for free rides when you don’t help and want to call it a carpool. Carpools mean you do your share which is half or more if you have more kids. |
Anonymous
 Sorry someone peed in your cornflakes but we have always done more than our share. But now when we offer people say they are just zipping out since they are home anyways.
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Anonymous
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Hire a college student with a flexible schedule to help drive kids to and from practice.
If your older kid plays on a team where other players already drive, have them drive your kid and give them gas money. Your kid gets to ride with a cool upperclassman and the driver gets some extra money. Win win. |
Anonymous
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Yeah no. Our kids do activities through their schools and when they were younger aftercare.
I’m not quitting my job to be a chauffeur to kid sports |
Anonymous
You think DCUM moms can unclench their pearls long enough to let their snowflake ride with anothe kid😂? We did and our kid drove as soon as possible but I highly doubt the DCUM crowd would allow this. |
Anonymous
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- You carpool
- You hire someone to drive them - You only let them do activities you can take them to - You make them figure it out (your kid is in high school? He's old enough to figure out a way to get to practice other than having his mom not work so she can drive him there every day )
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Anonymous
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Even travel sports is 8-12 weeks long.
I do 1 kid, H does the other, carpool if necessary. It's not really that hard, they only practice 3x / week. I walk or jog during their practices, read books. It's actually really nice to be outside and not in the house. |
Anonymous
| Similar to some other posters, we both work full-time and have three kids, who are all involved in various sports and other activities, including an intense travel sport. We have have demanding jobs (one in-office and the other hybrid), but somewhat flexible work schedules where we can adjust our ending times and catch up in the evenings as needed. We carpool some, but schedules seem to change weekly, so it is a fluid situation where we cannot always count on certain days to be covered. It is a lot and most days I feel like I am running a race, but generally we are happy and believe that it is worth it. We always said that we would not overschedule our kids (for their sanity and ours) and I think that this is still the case. It's just a lot with a few kids - even if they are each only involved in one or two things! Every season, we carefully consider our options and what sports or activities are most important. Like one of the previous posters, I calculated the total number of weekly practices and we are at like 14-15 practices right now... and then there are the games on the weekends. It can feel crazy in the aggregate, but individually I think that our kids are fine and not overscheduled. We are constantly evaluating, and I imagine if starts to feel unsustainable we will make some changes, but for now it is okay (a little crazy, but okay!). |
Anonymous
My kid is 14 and will start high school this fall. He cannot figure out how to get to school. There is no public bus. There is no school bus just for sports. He cannot drive. His friends can’t drive. He is too young to Uber by himself. We live too far to walk. We also live along an extremely busy and dangerous road or else I may suggest he bike. |
Anonymous
+1. These people suggesting this nonsense don’t have older kids. |