All my take home pay would go to the nanny….

[Anonymous]

I had a husband that had a demanding job and worked long hours and found dropping to a 4 day work week solved many of my "I can't do it all myself" issues as well as getting a cleaning service to come in weekly. I was a valuable team member and never thought my company would go for less than full time, but basically they would rather have 4 days than none of me so it was accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, you just have to evolve your life and make it more simple if you choose to work.

When my kids were elementary or younger, we had "mommy kiddo" time while doing groceries, doing the dishes, watering the plants and folding the laundry. It taught them necessary life skills and we talked about their day and friends.

Now my kids will be starting HS and younger MS. They both have part time summer camps and we both are WFH but back to back meetings. They completely do the dishes, prepare lunch for us. They in fact even cleaned up our pantry (just because they had free time on their hands!). They still see friends every day for 3 hours at their pool and play x-box 4-5 times a week + Tennis + Piano so spending 30-40 mins every day is not a really big deal for them. Plus they chat and catch up while doing the work together. We do have housekeepers to come and clean every two weeks and do a lot of fresh salads, simple lunches like sandwiches. 2-3 times takeouts a week. Some frozen food when we are too tired to cook

Ask your elementary kids to help out with simple tasks.. and outsource quite a lot.

The life that you are imagining with full time household help (Nanny doesn't cut it) is not what middle class families have at least not in US. Move to another country like India.

DP but this is lovely.

Thank you! I am grateful knowing that running a household is not "just" my responsibility but my kids and DHs as well. I have always believed and let my kids and DH know that our house is not a "free boarding and lodging" place. Everyone has to contribute in their way. Even when my older son was 3.5 and I had a newborn, my older kid helped getting me diapers, wash the baby rattler when it got dirty. More like developing a mindset that this is "our" home, "we all" are responsible. My DH also works really long hours and does travel quite a bit for work, so getting the kids to own household chores with a full time WOH(pre-covid) job was critical. We have no family support system here, although we did have nannies for both the kids till they were ~18 months, and it worked great.

I actually went over the household help costs with them at one time (sometime in elementary school), and showed them a compound savings calculator. $x is what we can save if we don't spend on additional help that can go towards their college tuition, vacations and EC. We do outsource within reason as I mentioned earlier, bi-weekly housecleaners, lawn moving service, frequent takeouts, occasional prepared meals from grocery store, handyman (we are not DIY folks) and save ~30% of gross income for a while now (+ 401K match)

That said, not everything is perfect, I did forget kids dental appointments last month (calendar issues), my closet is a big mess and once school starts my high schooler will have very little time to help with house hold chores, but then less dishes to wash as the kids eat lunch at school. We make it work without one of us quitting our job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school, my after-school job was working as a parents' helper: I was there when the kids got out of school, made dinner, did a little cleaning, made sure the siblings treated each other reasonably.

I would not have been useful as a household manager, but working 2.5 hours a day was exactly what I was looking for.

Did you not do any type of after school activities? No sports? No marching band or theater? No clubs? I get that it might vary by school but at my kids' high schools having a job directly after school would not have worked if they wanted to participate in any of the above.
OP doesn't say where she lives (or she did, I missed it) but I know some school districts (like Loudoun) have a schedule where elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids do.