Two working mid-level professional working parents

[Anonymous]

I love how so many Feds are listing telework as a solution. Um, doesn't telework mean working from home....not child care or volunteering at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how so many Feds are listing telework as a solution. Um, doesn't telework mean working from home....not child care or volunteering at school.

It allows the parent to go to the school for lunch break or to take a half day and not a whole day for an event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how so many Feds are listing telework as a solution. Um, doesn't telework mean working from home....not child care or volunteering at school.

Well, she mentioned logistics, and the inflexibility of their schedule. If I have a school event, I can arrange to telework so that I can attend the event and only miss a couple of hours of work versus an entire day since we live close to school.

[Anonymous]

I have a 90 minute commute to DC, yet I can manage to put in some early hours and still make it to the Halloween and valentines day parties.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting this. We are in your shoes OP and you are in good company. We hate when our kids wonder why we can't be at school more but we have no choice and we know we are luckier than most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a 90 minute commute to DC, yet I can manage to put in some early hours and still make it to the Halloween and valentines day parties.

You clearly missed all the discussions about parents being there everyday. A couple of afternoon parties a year is not the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP- I think you can make easy changes that will help ease the burden and your guilt. (Much has been recommended through the previous posts)

1) Deal the the mail every day and trash everythung immediately that needs to be trashed. Walk in, hang up coat, put keys in bowl, go through mail. Leave important mail spouse needs to see next to key bowl.

2) Run dishwasher every night before you go to bed. Have children unload dishwasher in morning and set the table for the evening.

3) Sweep kitchen floor and floor under table every night- just before starting the dishwasher.

4) Plan meals and cook on weekends. Make two of everything. If you make two things (twice) to freeze every weekend- you will have 4 dinners prepared (cook two from this weekend and the two left from previous weekend for variety). Use the crock pot too.

5) Get an every other week house cleaner.

6) When you plan your meals (lunch time is a great tiem for this) write a grocery list and shop once a week. You can go to the grocery store mid week to get more fresh produce and milk.

7) Plan your errands and drive to them in a circle Sat. morning. Or set aside an evening in the week to do them.

8) Stagger your work hours. Even if you can't work from home, you should be able to stagger at least an hour. That give your children more time with a parent each day. Early riser starts laundry, late bird puts in dryer, child pulls from dryer when the get home and someone folds and puts away (you can take turns or have it be the same person).

9) Let your children know that you or your spouse will come to a few special events each year. They may want to pick which ones are most important to them.

10) Friday family night and don't forget to have a date night at least every other week.

It is exactly the fact that everyday is a scramble and requires constant viligance and pro activity. We want to have the kids get home from school and sit down and talk about the day, look over or work on homework, maybe practice piano.

Instead every night is a sprint from aftercare, dinner on table, bath & bed and then chores.

We do stagger schedules but really, but most Feds have core hours 9-330 so with a short commute and pickup kids you home by 430 or 5. Then start cooking dinner for eating at 6, unless you do take out or have really mastered Rachael Ray 30 min meals (does she do them with a preschooler trying to help in a galley kitchen).

Every day is this mad dash. It will get better when's kids are older and can help more with chores, but compare to the option of spending time with DC at school, quiet afternoons to run errands, tidy house, and prep dinner and then the big homecoming where you focus on the kids rather than the frantic must-do-list.

I just figured more people would just move or find jobs where they have more flexibility and time to make something like that happen. I guess many people feel stuck with mad dash like us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry for rambling, I have been sick do I am muddled headed.

Thanks for responses. Insightful. Unfortunately some of your tips won't apply (Like neither of us is anywhere near shopping at work, we really don't do any activities). But I am heartened to hear kids are okay with parents not there (though yes DC has been asking us to come).

To try to clarify my question:

How common are two full time, WAHM, working professional parents without family nearby and both commute 30+ min to work? And where are such households? My theory is one parent will downshift or work close to home. Or I guess they hire a nanny/driver?

Do you mean WOHM? DH and I both WOHM full time, but only he commutes into the city 5 days a week. I work in the No VA suburbs, so I can stop in at the elementary school any time. We both make good money, so neither of us downshifted, but we stopped at two children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kids are in elem school, then your life should be relatively easy. One of you should head to work super early (like 6am), and the other should either get them off to school or before care. Hire a high school student to get them off the bus, give them a snack, start homework, etc. One of you should be able to get home at a decent hour (l envy your 30 minute commute...sometimes my commute is closer to 90 minutes).

It won't kill either of you to take a half day once or twice a year to make a special appearance at school. We all do it. Suck it up.

Quick question: how often do you or your wife hit the gym or go running? If you are doing that during the week, then you have extra time to spare.

Do you r your wife go out to lunch during the week, or do you eat at your desk so you can head home earlier?

How do you people get jobs where you can get to work super early . I work in admin and staggered work times are not allowed. It's tough when both of us have such work routines. Both have to go in regular hours. The fields we work in don't allow for staggers hours. We don't have have combined incomes either. But we have to scrape money to get someone to pick up our child from school till we get home. Not working wasn't an option due to finances. We do however take half days etc when need be for events and school functions.

Yes, I feel for my admin. We're both professionals with grad degrees, so one of us can start at 7:30 instead of us both having to work 9 to 6.

[Anonymous]

OP, maybe you have to move to a neighborhood where it is less common for parents to volunteer every single day at school. That is not the norm for most families, as everyone on this thread has attested.

If you wish you had more time for your kids and want to spend each day volunteering, then either you or your spouse need to find a job in the private sector and earn more, so the other can find a part-time job.

Everyone that has posted here has either accpeted that they are victims of the "mad dash" and pay for before/after care or are fine with spending only 6 pm + weekends with their kids. When your kids get old enough, they are not going to want to spend that much time with you and your spouse. So either make the change now to spend more time with them while they're young and then ramp back up when they're older, or just accept the way things are. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Parents are not at school everyday. The op's kid's perception is skewed. Maybe there are one or two moms who volunteer every week, but I assure you that only a handful make an appearance at school regularly throughout the month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how so many Feds are listing telework as a solution. Um, doesn't telework mean working from home....not child care or volunteering at school.

In my case, I telework 50% and my kids' schools are literally across the street from my house. I can run to have lunch with them and be back within the allotted lunch time. Plus, that means almost no time is wasted on driving to a school further from my house. And finally, I'm on a maxi-flex schedule so if I want to take time off in the middle of the day to volunteer at my kids' school, I don't need to take leave as long as I make up the hours elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is exactly the fact that everyday is a scramble and requires constant viligance and pro activity. We want to have the kids get home from school and sit down and talk about the day, look over or work on homework, maybe practice piano.

Instead every night is a sprint from aftercare, dinner on table, bath & bed and then chores.

We do stagger schedules but really, but most Feds have core hours 9-330 so with a short commute and pickup kids you home by 430 or 5. Then start cooking dinner for eating at 6, unless you do take out or have really mastered Rachael Ray 30 min meals (does she do them with a preschooler trying to help in a galley kitchen).

Every day is this mad dash. It will get better when's kids are older and can help more with chores, but compare to the option of spending time with DC at school, quiet afternoons to run errands, tidy house, and prep dinner and then the big homecoming where you focus on the kids rather than the frantic must-do-list.

I just figured more people would just move or find jobs where they have more flexibility and time to make something like that happen. I guess many people feel stuck with mad dash like us.

This is us too. It is a mad dash daily. Vigilance and constant planning for the next thing. I plan dinner in the morning before I leave for work. I find that I have to conserve my energy at work so I can be prepared for my real life that begins after I clock out.

This is also why on the weekends, sometimes we all just have to stay in our pajamas and do absolutely nothing. That's when we get our family quality time.
And we do some really awesome vacations so I do think about that in the middle of the mad dash- that we also have some relief in sight.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting to read about the extent of parental involvement in the elementary schools. Our kids are currently in a well-regarded private elementary in DC and the school has very specific (and limited) times when parents are allowed at the school. (For example, the school definitely does not allow parents to come for lunch and the in-classroom volunteer time is very limited (allowed perhaps 1 or 2 x per year for a special event). )

In the interest of saving more for retirement, we are switching our kids to public schools in MoCo (Bethesda) next year. I noticed lots of in-classroom parental involvement, which I hope is helpful to the teachers. If parents do come for lunch, I hope it is to give teachers a bit of a break from lunch duties rather than just sitting with their child. One teacher I know who has taught at both public and private said that in her experience, the public school teachers have a more jam-packed school day than private-school teachers (who may have more catch-up time while the kids are at various specials).

So in a nutshell I know that private school parents are not allowed much in-school time at all, in case that is helpful to know.

[Anonymous]

Move closer to where you work, obviously. That means the city.