It seems SAHM & working mom live in different world

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why exactly does your work from home husband not do any of this?! He can’t take them to school or pick them up?

Also 7-6? How long are your work hours? In the US we work 8/8.5 hour day. You could easily work 7-3:30 or 8-4:30. It is your choice to work these long hours. And it seems you both are!

Lots of jobs require you to work more than 8.5 hours per day. As an attorney, my day is 10 hours minimum. Most are somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15. Not my “choice” per se, just what I need to do to stay employed.

LOL. It is absolutely your choice to work 10 hours a day. There are government or in-house positions that do not require that. And there is tons more WFH flexibility after the pandemic.

I really do not understand people who prioritize $$ and are willing to put their young child in group care for that long. Both DH and I work FT but we have never needed more than 30 hours of care. Even 40 is fine. But 50??

I guess we aspire to be more than middle class slackers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My kids are not left outside because I forget to pick them up. I mean they are outside of home for long hours daily. One kid's beforecare is 7am to 8:40am & aftercare is 3:25pm to 6:30pm. One kid's beforecare is 7am to 9am & aftercare is 3pm to 6pm. They are at different schools, and I do separate drop off /pickup. I drop off one kid around 8am & another kid around 8:30am. I pick up one kid right before 6pm and another kid before 6:20am. We don't use the full hours for beforecare hours. I still have to work at nighttime or on weekend for a few hours.

I sometimes see that SAHM neighbor doing gardening, walking kids to bus stop or chilling in front of her front porch in the mornings. I sometimes see her hanging around at front porch by herself or with kids when we get home. We can see their house from our window, like 20 steps away, so close to each other. We have one same age kid going to same school. Maybe she thinks I am a bad mom. The high energy kid loves beforecare/aftercare and summer camps. The low energy kid probably is better off with less activities and would not mind staying longer time at home.

Honestly, you don't sound like a great mom if your kids are in care that many hours. It really doesn't make sense if one or both of you are working from home. That's a lot of hours working with no commute.

+1
We both work full time and navigate having children and spend quality time with them because we prioritize them.

OP, why did you have children? If your a bad mom, please by all means keep them in long hours of care. If you actually love your kids and care about their emotional development, why are you doing this to them? It has nothing to do with your neighbor. She's just picking up on what we are - that it seems you don't want kids and prioritize your job - and for what?

[Anonymous]

Can one or both kids take a bus? If you see her going to the bus, why can’t one of you walk at least one kid to the bus instead of driving in the morning? I work remotely and walk my kids to school. Doors open at 8:40 and I’m at my desk by 8:55 for 9am meetings. Saves me $400 per month (2 kids)!

There are a lot of working moms in my neighborhood with super flexible jobs who walk kids home every day at 3:45. I have no idea what they do that the schedule works for them, but we’re still friendly! Sometimes they even invite my kids for a play date and my kids walk home with them and I go over and get them at 5:30 instead of walking over to the school.

It takes a village OP. You don’t have to be BFFs with every single mom, but if your kids like each other, it helps to cultivate a group of friendly acquaintances who have a variety of schedules and availability. Sounds like you are used to driving kids around at 7:45-8:30am. If our kids were in camp together, you could do morning drop off and I could pick then up at 4pm and let them play in my yard until 5:30!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child used to be in before and aftercare from 7-6PM. She was sleeping for most of her time at home. She was being parented at school, but teachers kept asking why she wasn’t being parented at home. It was not working for her.

I did not want to rearrange our lives but we had to so that we could parent our child. ‘Merica!

Nice try. No teacher said this to you.

Of course they did: she needs more structure, she needs to be practicing reading 30 minutes a day, she’s constantly tired at school.

America doesn’t have solutions for dual income working parents. Companies want almost all of the hours a child is awake, and the country sees it as normal. Other countries have different solutions

The solutions of other countries is government funded daycare and schooling, which from your posts seem like something you’d have a problem with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My kids are not left outside because I forget to pick them up. I mean they are outside of home for long hours daily. One kid's beforecare is 7am to 8:40am & aftercare is 3:25pm to 6:30pm. One kid's beforecare is 7am to 9am & aftercare is 3pm to 6pm. They are at different schools, and I do separate drop off /pickup. I drop off one kid around 8am & another kid around 8:30am. I pick up one kid right before 6pm and another kid before 6:20am. We don't use the full hours for beforecare hours. I still have to work at nighttime or on weekend for a few hours.

I sometimes see that SAHM neighbor doing gardening, walking kids to bus stop or chilling in front of her front porch in the mornings. I sometimes see her hanging around at front porch by herself or with kids when we get home. We can see their house from our window, like 20 steps away, so close to each other. We have one same age kid going to same school. Maybe she thinks I am a bad mom. The high energy kid loves beforecare/aftercare and summer camps. The low energy kid probably is better off with less activities and would not mind staying longer time at home.

Honestly, you don't sound like a great mom if your kids are in care that many hours. It really doesn't make sense if one or both of you are working from home. That's a lot of hours working with no commute.

+1
We both work full time and navigate having children and spend quality time with them because we prioritize them.

OP, why did you have children? If your a bad mom, please by all means keep them in long hours of care. If you actually love your kids and care about their emotional development, why are you doing this to them? It has nothing to do with your neighbor. She's just picking up on what we are - that it seems you don't want kids and prioritize your job - and for what?

You sound like you forgot to take your bipolar medication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why exactly does your work from home husband not do any of this?! He can’t take them to school or pick them up?

Also 7-6? How long are your work hours? In the US we work 8/8.5 hour day. You could easily work 7-3:30 or 8-4:30. It is your choice to work these long hours. And it seems you both are!

Lots of jobs require you to work more than 8.5 hours per day. As an attorney, my day is 10 hours minimum. Most are somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15. Not my “choice” per se, just what I need to do to stay employed.

LOL. It is absolutely your choice to work 10 hours a day. There are government or in-house positions that do not require that. And there is tons more WFH flexibility after the pandemic.

I really do not understand people who prioritize $$ and are willing to put their young child in group care for that long. Both DH and I work FT but we have never needed more than 30 hours of care. Even 40 is fine. But 50??

Sorry, some of us have more ambition than you and your slacker spouse.

Is that supposed to make me feel sad? We somehow managed to cobble together a 7-figure HHI. And still were able to spend tons of time with our kids. When you are sufficiently in demand you can flex your schedule.

Ooh, touchy, touchy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why exactly does your work from home husband not do any of this?! He can’t take them to school or pick them up?

Also 7-6? How long are your work hours? In the US we work 8/8.5 hour day. You could easily work 7-3:30 or 8-4:30. It is your choice to work these long hours. And it seems you both are!

Lots of jobs require you to work more than 8.5 hours per day. As an attorney, my day is 10 hours minimum. Most are somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15. Not my “choice” per se, just what I need to do to stay employed.

LOL. It is absolutely your choice to work 10 hours a day. There are government or in-house positions that do not require that. And there is tons more WFH flexibility after the pandemic.

I really do not understand people who prioritize $$ and are willing to put their young child in group care for that long. Both DH and I work FT but we have never needed more than 30 hours of care. Even 40 is fine. But 50??

I guess we aspire to be more than middle class slackers.

Please refer to post about $1m HHI. Thx!

[Anonymous]

Plenty of people still have their kids in childcare from 7-6 (or the equivalent). Not everyone works from home and many people have long commutes. I drop mine off at before care at 7 when it opens and rush to work (I have to be there at 7:30). I rush back to pick them up by 6pm. I’m a teacher (I’m sick today) and my ex lives many states away. I’m not the only parent I see at childcare doing what I’m doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't lived in DC in a while. Have things changed SO much since the pandemic that people can't understand that a dual-career couple would have a kid in care from 8-630? This used to be 100% the norm so I am surprised at people shaming the parents for having kids in care "so long" unless it's a DCUM thing or one person?

Because those long hours used to incorporate a long commute. In situations where neither parent has a commute, why are such long hours necessary?
Both parents work a 10.5 hour work day every day?

Do you not remember how, during Covid, companies expected (and still expect) maximum flexibility from the people who WFH? My company is cool with WFH but you better believe you are expected to work harder to prove you’re not abusing it.

PP you quoted here.
No, I definitely don't remember that being what people said about their work expectations. Are you not familiar with J1 (job 1) J2 J3 guy that posts here? Each of his work from home "full time" jobs required so few hours that he was able to juggle all three AND still post here a lot.

Why would you take J1 guy as the norm? In my client facing role, the expectation is that I am available with a same day response, where as pre COVID, you had the courtesy of 24 business hour response. My leadership is cool enough with WFH and flexible work schedules but since everyone knows we WFH they want to hear from you immediately. And if the client isn’t happy, leadership isn’t happy, so…

"Same day" until what point? Surely if your client emails you at 11:58 pm, they aren't expecting you to respond within the next two minutes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why exactly does your work from home husband not do any of this?! He can’t take them to school or pick them up?

Also 7-6? How long are your work hours? In the US we work 8/8.5 hour day. You could easily work 7-3:30 or 8-4:30. It is your choice to work these long hours. And it seems you both are!

Lots of jobs require you to work more than 8.5 hours per day. As an attorney, my day is 10 hours minimum. Most are somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15. Not my “choice” per se, just what I need to do to stay employed.

LOL. It is absolutely your choice to work 10 hours a day. There are government or in-house positions that do not require that. And there is tons more WFH flexibility after the pandemic.

I really do not understand people who prioritize $$ and are willing to put their young child in group care for that long. Both DH and I work FT but we have never needed more than 30 hours of care. Even 40 is fine. But 50??

I guess we aspire to be more than middle class slackers.

Please refer to post about $1m HHI. Thx!

You mean the lie about your HHI? Yeah, saw that one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why exactly does your work from home husband not do any of this?! He can’t take them to school or pick them up?

Also 7-6? How long are your work hours? In the US we work 8/8.5 hour day. You could easily work 7-3:30 or 8-4:30. It is your choice to work these long hours. And it seems you both are!

okay, okay - the poster who has been out of the DC area a while recently and is wondering if work culture has now shifted to 1) kids not being in daycare 8-6/7 (yes, a long time, but was at one point 100% normal for dual career families, and 2) do people really work these hours now? Don't most people work 9-10 hours a day who are in white collar professions, esp in DC?

Have you ever heard of the global pandemic? Also, the white collar professions who need to work 9-10 hours a day (aka not government) can afford a SAH/PT/WFH parent, or at least a FT nanny so the child can come home after school. Not as ideal as having a parent around more, but still better.

Obviously I have heard of the pandemic, I had several people quite close to me pass away/almost die, perhaps you can consider being more kind when speaking with people about it because some of us suffered grately.

But I am seeing you are generally about the mommy-wars, and seem to have the impression that women who don't stay with their kids all the time are evil (or maybe you allow a man to do so also) so we wouldn't be friends in real life anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people still have their kids in childcare from 7-6 (or the equivalent). Not everyone works from home and many people have long commutes. I drop mine off at before care at 7 when it opens and rush to work (I have to be there at 7:30). I rush back to pick them up by 6pm. I’m a teacher (I’m sick today) and my ex lives many states away. I’m not the only parent I see at childcare doing what I’m doing.

Yes, but that's not OP's situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people still have their kids in childcare from 7-6 (or the equivalent). Not everyone works from home and many people have long commutes. I drop mine off at before care at 7 when it opens and rush to work (I have to be there at 7:30). I rush back to pick them up by 6pm. I’m a teacher (I’m sick today) and my ex lives many states away. I’m not the only parent I see at childcare doing what I’m doing.

And some can't afford a nanny.
some of these people are on crack if they think that parents who chose to work outside the home with real, adult jobs are bad parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child used to be in before and aftercare from 7-6PM. She was sleeping for most of her time at home. She was being parented at school, but teachers kept asking why she wasn’t being parented at home. It was not working for her.

I did not want to rearrange our lives but we had to so that we could parent our child. ‘Merica!

Nice try. No teacher said this to you.

Of course they did: she needs more structure, she needs to be practicing reading 30 minutes a day, she’s constantly tired at school.

America doesn’t have solutions for dual income working parents. Companies want almost all of the hours a child is awake, and the country sees it as normal. Other countries have different solutions

The solutions of other countries is government funded daycare and schooling, which from your posts seem like something you’d have a problem with.

Why would I have a problem with that? My problem was, for example, child needed to practice reading 30 mins a day. Child only had about 30 mins of free time at home a day. Since the school sees the need and the school runs daycare, can the child practice at school? Apparently the answer was no. My issue is not government funded programs. My issue is programs that didn’t work

[Anonymous]

During our daycare days, there were parents who would maximize hours to work out, run errands, do chores, etc.

Dh and I both worked out of home but we minimized daycare hours.