S/O maximum number of kids to ensure dual working couple

[Anonymous]

My BIL (banker) and SIL (dentist) worked with 4 kids, but had a nanny-housekeeper they absolutely depended on when the kids were little, and the grandparents helped a bit too. In spite of all this help, my SIL did have to go part-time for a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amy Coney Barrett and her husband both work with 7 kids.

Didn't they have a family member living with them to help with the kids? Someone like that can make a huge difference. It's basically a SAHP who's not actually a parent.

They had family members, church members and hired help. Those kids didn't get much attention from their parents and they are show pieces.

You’re gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I are planning a family but we want to keep working. There seems to be a point at which despite high incomes ( we are a doctor/lawyer couple) it becomes too hard to sustain. What’s the magic number?

One. Unless you will both be very involved managing and running the household together or fluidly tagteaming. Do not have one person leading everything while working fulltime and handing out “tasks” to the other “parent.”

Even managing a nanny needs attention and communication. You can’t outsource many decisions to nannies or housekeepers. They want you to think they’re doing super well so be ready for major stories about dents in the car, why they can’t make it in, how the kid suddenly got ill, etc.

[Anonymous]

We have two and it’s very difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amy Coney Barrett and her husband both work with 7 kids.

Didn't they have a family member living with them to help with the kids? Someone like that can make a huge difference. It's basically a SAHP who's not actually a parent.

I actually hate examples like her. She always talks with pride about balancing kids and a career but it’s all a lie. They have an aunt come daily to “help” with the kids. It sounds more like the aunt functions as a SAHM for Amy abd her husband. I’ve seen this work with live-in grandparents too.

People like Amy are basically relying on another person’s unpaid labor and further undervaluing that labor by pretending they can do it all.

Yup.

And it particularly annoys me when you point out that having family support like this obviously helps make it all work, and people will dismiss it out of hand, like "Oh, we don't rely on my mom that much, just a couple afternoons a week and when we have date nights." Which, one, is a TON of help (equivalent to several hundred dollars worth of childcare per week)l. And two, it's never just that. It's also having someone who can spend the night with the kids in an emergency. It's having a childcare option for whom you never have to worry about a background check or whether your kid is going to freak out about them. It's having wiggle room in everything from school drop off to having someone around to watch your older kid when you go into labor to having someone to call if someone is running a fever and you are debating the ER. People dismiss this kind of help as minimal because it makes them feel good about themselves. But for those of us who don't have it, it's like a cheat code. Sure, we're both "working parents" but our circumstances are not really even comparable. It's like pretending you and someone who makes half your salary are in roughly equivalent economic situations. You're not.

I know that it's just piling on at this point, but ACB bugs me to no end about her parenting. What particularly irked me was this line: "While I am a judge, I’m better known back home as a room parent, carpool driver and birthday party planner." Um, either you i) own a time machine (in which case, why are you a judge?), ii) are a terrible judge and spend no time doing your job, or iii) are not as involved of a parent with your 7 kids are you want people to think. There are a limited number of hours in a day, and writing opinions takes time...as does driving a carpool and being a room parent. Especially for 7 kids!

If you're going to have a lot of kids and rely on family for help, at least own it. That's why I always respected the PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. At least she was honest about the sacrifices: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-pepsico-ceo-indra-k-nooyi-cant-have-it-all/373750/

I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all. My husband and I have been married for 34 years. And we have two daughters. And every day you have to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact many times during the day you have to make those decisions. And you have to co-opt a lot of people to help you. We co-opted our families to help us. We plan our lives meticulously so we can be decent parents. But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they will say that I've been a good mom. I'm not sure. And I try all kinds of coping mechanisms.

[Anonymous]

With this attitude, be prepared to be one of those people who says "where did the time go" when they leave the nest one day.
Of course you'll wonder -- you were working all the time.

We have 3 kids, my wife currently does not have a paying job, and we have a happy, organized, often joyously noisy (albeit occasionally whiny!) home with minimal stress and enjoyment of life's moments. Yeah, she could go back to work...it isn't worth it....the money ain't worth the stress. You get one time around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're stopping after 2 with no family help but lots of other help, and flexible schedules so we get "face time" in.

This was me. I also advise to never plan on having family members help. Parents burn out, parents die, friends move away—all this happened to me in the lead up to having kids. We were a solo operation but we knew that from day one. I’m really glad we didn’t revolve any decisions around help from family members. I also advise serious outsourcing of every possible household chore.

This is us. We get zero help from family, which is fine because we weren't planning on it, so we have a full-time nanny even though our kids are in school now and her role has morphed over time to more of a house manager role while they're in school. We also have a maid and a gardener and we outsource basically everything we can. As a result, we work from 7:30-4 while our kids are in school (thankfully they're back to in-person, although I suppose there's no telling how long that will last) and then we stop working either at 4 and do homework with them or at 5 and the nanny does homework with them and then we make dinner together and spend the evenings together. We also have an hour in the mornings getting ready and eating breakfast. And then we have the entirety of the weekends because we've outsourced all the errands that we used to do pre-kids. Well, not all the errands, but most of them.

So, OP, we wanted two kids because that seemed like a good number for us to handle, and it works great for us. I have tons of friends with dual career spouses like you (we're lawyer/engineer, my friends are lawyer/lawyer, lawyer/doctor, doctor/doctor, etc.), and they have anywhere from 1-4. Again, for us, two was a good number. I would highly suggest you learn to outsource once you have kids. It obviously isn't cheap, but since you can afford it, it buys you time, which is the most valuable thing of all.

[Anonymous]

Two is easily doable barring special needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have two, have them pretty close together so they are at similar stages in terms of school, napping, activities, etc. and get a nanny if you can- more flexible than daycare.

Eh. We had one, and didn’t have our second until 6 years later. Double biglaw. This worked much better for us. Our first is now 8 and more independent, which is good since our 2 year old is, you know, a two year old. I think if we’d tried to have two toddlers at once we would either be divorced or I would have quit.

We had twins and it worked out great for us because they were always on the same schedule at the same time. They were a surprise and obviously twins aren't something you can plan for! But just offering a different opinion, not disagreeing with you, PP.

[Anonymous]

We both make six figures and I am expecting our fourth. I know multiple women who work with 6 kids. I have several friends who work with 4. The people saying two is the limit have no imagination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have two, have them pretty close together so they are at similar stages in terms of school, napping, activities, etc. and get a nanny if you can- more flexible than daycare.

Eh. We had one, and didn’t have our second until 6 years later. Double biglaw. This worked much better for us. Our first is now 8 and more independent, which is good since our 2 year old is, you know, a two year old. I think if we’d tried to have two toddlers at once we would either be divorced or I would have quit.

We had twins and it worked out great for us because they were always on the same schedule at the same time. They were a surprise and obviously twins aren't something you can plan for! But just offering a different opinion, not disagreeing with you, PP.

I'm PP, and, sure! Lots of age gaps work well. People worry about it around here a lot (planning the perfect age gap) and there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

[Anonymous]

If neither of you cut back your hours, but, you guys want to do the bulk of the child things yourselves and you plan for your kid to have hobbies, interests, play sports—one.

Number goes up if a career is cut back or if you hire nannies or if you’re fine with all your kids glued to iPads 24/7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're stopping after 2 with no family help but lots of other help, and flexible schedules so we get "face time" in.

This was me. I also advise to never plan on having family members help. Parents burn out, parents die, friends move away—all this happened to me in the lead up to having kids. We were a solo operation but we knew that from day one. I’m really glad we didn’t revolve any decisions around help from family members. I also advise serious outsourcing of every possible household chore.

Yes. THANK YOU. I was just thinking about this issue on my morning run (at o'dark early because that's the only time I can). We chose to live near my parents in hopes that we could have some support, and guess what. My younger sibling had another kid with an unstable partner, requiring my mom's help, then my mom got cancer (thankfully recovered), my dad's health has declined early, etc. etc. I'm glad that we can be here to give at least a bit of help to them, but whenever I hear people talk about having "local family" I want to scream. Yeah, local family are great if they have the time, health, and temperament to help out. That's often not the case.

[Anonymous]

^^and we have three, but our jobs are flexible and not as demanding as most medicine/law positions would be. It's still a lot. We love having three and I wouldn't have it any other way, but I also would never recommend someone have more kids than they and their partner can handle in a worst-case scenario. I mean, what if one of you gets sick and can't work? It's dark, but you have to think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amy Coney Barrett and her husband both work with 7 kids.

Didn't they have a family member living with them to help with the kids? Someone like that can make a huge difference. It's basically a SAHP who's not actually a parent.

I actually hate examples like her. She always talks with pride about balancing kids and a career but it’s all a lie. They have an aunt come daily to “help” with the kids. It sounds more like the aunt functions as a SAHM for Amy abd her husband. I’ve seen this work with live-in grandparents too.

People like Amy are basically relying on another person’s unpaid labor and further undervaluing that labor by pretending they can do it all.

Yup.

And it particularly annoys me when you point out that having family support like this obviously helps make it all work, and people will dismiss it out of hand, like "Oh, we don't rely on my mom that much, just a couple afternoons a week and when we have date nights." Which, one, is a TON of help (equivalent to several hundred dollars worth of childcare per week)l. And two, it's never just that. It's also having someone who can spend the night with the kids in an emergency. It's having a childcare option for whom you never have to worry about a background check or whether your kid is going to freak out about them. It's having wiggle room in everything from school drop off to having someone around to watch your older kid when you go into labor to having someone to call if someone is running a fever and you are debating the ER. People dismiss this kind of help as minimal because it makes them feel good about themselves. But for those of us who don't have it, it's like a cheat code. Sure, we're both "working parents" but our circumstances are not really even comparable. It's like pretending you and someone who makes half your salary are in roughly equivalent economic situations. You're not.

I know that it's just piling on at this point, but ACB bugs me to no end about her parenting. What particularly irked me was this line: "While I am a judge, I’m better known back home as a room parent, carpool driver and birthday party planner." Um, either you i) own a time machine (in which case, why are you a judge?), ii) are a terrible judge and spend no time doing your job, or iii) are not as involved of a parent with your 7 kids are you want people to think. There are a limited number of hours in a day, and writing opinions takes time...as does driving a carpool and being a room parent. Especially for 7 kids!

If you're going to have a lot of kids and rely on family for help, at least own it. That's why I always respected the PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. At least she was honest about the sacrifices: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/why-pepsico-ceo-indra-k-nooyi-cant-have-it-all/373750/

I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all. My husband and I have been married for 34 years. And we have two daughters. And every day you have to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact many times during the day you have to make those decisions. And you have to co-opt a lot of people to help you. We co-opted our families to help us. We plan our lives meticulously so we can be decent parents. But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they will say that I've been a good mom. I'm not sure. And I try all kinds of coping mechanisms.

If I could like this comment a thousand times I would! I hate the ACB kind of comments which so smugly suggests that women who can't raise 7 kids and work a tough, high-profile job are just DOING IT WRONG. Sorry, no amount of efficiency in parenting or job management allows you to give adequate time to both these things, and yes, it's covering and devaluing a lot of behind the scenes help.

Reminds me of Sarah Palin and her "I'm a governor, but more just a grizzly mom of 5". Can't say that turned out well.