do both working spouses deal with finding care for days off from school?

[Anonymous]

Just wondering how this goes in your house.
I'm finishing a long years where this has fallen entirely on me.
My husband leaves daily for 10-12 hours. I deal with all the days off from school including today, tomorrow and Fri (DCPS ends at noon today).
My kids are late elementary aged.
I work from home but I still have TO WORK.
He just doesn't seem to get this. We argue and argue about it.
I give him the days in advance and ask him to take of (which of course he also has access to on the online school calendar) and still he doesn't do anything about it.
So I'm always scrambling to find care or I lose hours of work because I'm breaking up fights, etc.
I scheduled all summer camps too.
This really aggravates me.

[Anonymous]

What about a drop in care solution. Our local karate school plus all the daycares around here pick up kids on half days and care for them until 5:30. A lot of inhome daycares do the same.

[Anonymous]

We both work out of the home, which I think helps with the understanding that we will both do childcare when regular childcare isn't available. He is able to work from home regularly. I am not permitted to work from home ever. Sometimes I take the day off if DD isn't in school. Other times, he works from home and she entertains herself during times when he's on the phone or on deadline. She's 7 now, and this arrangement has been working for the past 5 years. Before that, she was in daycare and if she wasn't able to go to daycare, I just stayed home with her all the time because he had a different job that was less flexible. We are expecting a new baby, and the expectation is that the same arrangement will continue, with slightly more attention paid to what his specific day looks like since babies are more work than first graders.

[Anonymous]

My husband is the same way. He has a very intense 12 hour day. It falls on me - all of it. I ended up going part time. Saved my sanity. But hopefully in a couple years I can ramp back up to full time. My husband is a good guy, it's just he's in a very demanding field with zero flexibility. I guess I'm not offering you much advice, but you have my sympathy. I totally get where you are coming from.

[Anonymous]

I know this probably isn't helpful to your situation, but to answer the question, we use grandparents. It was our nanny's week off last week and we had the grandparents in town to watch our dd

[Anonymous]

In our house we try to split the days (sometimes 50/50 on a single day, sometimes trading off). But we also use aftercare camp when it's offered.

Grandparents are coming to visit this weekend, though, so had them come early Friday so that we could (ab)use them for childcare then.

[Anonymous]

Sit down with school calendar as soon as it comes out. Come up with a plan for all those days. Taking day off for dh/de and grandparents. Block those off on work calendars to prevent conflicts and so they become obvious that it's a conflict as soon as possible. Come up with policy for snow days. M/w/f - dw and t/th- dh. Or anything in dec is dh and Jan is de/grandparents (based on anticipated work business).
I realize this is crazy planning and would annoy some but it makes it so much easier later. Plans can be altered once in place but a base plan/routine helps head off any unforeseen issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sit down with school calendar as soon as it comes out. Come up with a plan for all those days. Taking day off for dh/de and grandparents. Block those off on work calendars to prevent conflicts and so they become obvious that it's a conflict as soon as possible. Come up with policy for snow days. M/w/f - dw and t/th- dh. Or anything in dec is dh and Jan is de/grandparents (based on anticipated work business).
I realize this is crazy planning and would annoy some but it makes it so much easier later. Plans can be altered once in place but a base plan/routine helps head off any unforeseen issues.

Pp here. We both woh and my schedule is a little more flexible and I have a short commute so I take more on but dh wants to and does as much as he can and plans fun things on his days.

[Anonymous]

I think it usually falls to one parent, though which parent has changed over the years.

[Anonymous]

He clearly doesn't value your work. Do you not get paid very much? Does he secretly wish you worked part time?

Maybe next time there is a school break, plan to travel those days and let him figure it out. Women lose so much time planning everything, arranging stuff, researching, etc.

[Anonymous]

Both of our employers offer Bright Horizon's back-up care and we can arrange for a sitter to come to our house. I've only done that option when one of us can WFH, since the person is a total stranger (but in theory the agencies have done a background check, interviewed, etc.) We've had some duds and some gems after probably dozen days over the past few years - but prefer a drop-in 'school's out' camp when there's one being offered near home or work. I get stuck being the 'accountable' parent for these days, but my husband will help. Not great, but his work hours are more intense than mine - but he has more flexibility. Good luck! This week with DCPS is a tough one!

[Anonymous]

Well, my house is the reverse of yours - DH is the one that works at home. So the child care does default to him usually. But I don't assume he can work and watch DS (who is only 2.5). I assume his normal work day is totally shot, and that I will need to get home quickly and take over so DH can fit some work in in the evening hours (he does have the flexibility to do that). I also recognize that it is kind of a shitty deal for him, and do try to take of days here and there to take my turn. However, that eats into my PTO, which affects family vacations, etc. So, it kind of is in our mutual best interest for him to do it.

[Anonymous]

It's a non-issue for us because we have a nanny full time. But in the future, I'm sure we'll just call one of our backup people for days when both kids are enrolled but have no school if one of us can't work from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering how this goes in your house.
I'm finishing a long years where this has fallen entirely on me.
My husband leaves daily for 10-12 hours. I deal with all the days off from school including today, tomorrow and Fri (DCPS ends at noon today).
My kids are late elementary aged.
I work from home but I still have TO WORK.
He just doesn't seem to get this. We argue and argue about it.
I give him the days in advance and ask him to take of (which of course he also has access to on the online school calendar) and still he doesn't do anything about it.
So I'm always scrambling to find care or I lose hours of work because I'm breaking up fights, etc.
I scheduled all summer camps too.
This really aggravates me.

[Anonymous]

We talk about who has what going on and we decide who will be in charge. We both primarily WAH, but I'm part-time and can work whenever outside of calls, meetings, travel etc. He has to be logged in with his butt in a chair for certain hours. It usually ends up that it's me covering and working after bedtime or whatever. But if I have a meeting or presentation or something, he will cover because he never has those.