Working parents - feel like I spend no time with my kids

[Anonymous]

I'm a lawyer and was formerly biglaw, so my current job that pays over $200k and has me in the office from 9-5:30 but rarely on weekends is a big improvement. It is flexible in the sense that I can take my kids for their checkups and come to their room parties and skip out early for soccer practice from time to time, but I pay for those things with my promotion track and questions about my "commitment" to the job even though my hours are the same as anyone else's.

OP, I would counsel you to stick it out. I found the absolute hardest time was when my second was a baby and my oldest not very far from the baby stage herself. This will improve and you will have a different perspective in only a few more months because they change so fast. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible. It will buy you more flexibility when they're older, which is when they really start to need YOU the parent not just you the caregiver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I felt that way both times after maternity leave, but for my kids it was a short window until 18mo when their bedtime got a bit later. When they are tiny, they sleep so much it is hard to see them a lot.

IMO, children younger than 5 need to go to bed by about 7 (AAP agrees). OP would still not see her kids much.

It's tough, OP. I had a nanny, too, but my kids went to bed at 7, so if I would've come home at 6:30, I would've hardly seen my kids, too. Luckily, my job was flexible, so I would come home by 4:30, but then I would go back online after the kids went to bed. I hardly spent any quality time with DH. These are tough years.

[Anonymous]

I posted about this in some other post. The truth is you can't have it all, that is a myth. Your job pays a ton, and you have a nanny with the kids. Most people are in your situation, just can't afford a nanny or any help than daycare. How much does your DH earn?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: You know, pretty much every woman I work with over the age of 60 took 10-15 years off or mostly after having children. It used to be pretty common to take a break in your career to focus on raising your family while your children are small.

If your husband is on board, I say quit your job and find something very small to keep your toe in the water.

Your experience is not universal.
There were many more barriers to women's employment in the past.
I'm guessing you work with mostly white women, as this is not the typical experience of women of color.

What field are you in? Is it a traditionally dominated role by women? I think returning to a competitive professional career after 15 years at home is a pretty unique feat. I’d suspect OP could quit for 10 years, and would return to a full time job maybe paying $60k.

I am a neurologist.
No. It isn’t dominated by women. It certainly wasn’t back then. And I am not sure if it’s unique. I certainly have quite a few patients who did something similar. It really wasn’t common back then for women to keep working full time after having children.
You have no idea what the OP does, whether or not she can return, or what her salary would be if/when she does. She must have a skill that is so highly compensated.

Medicine is pretty well known as family friendly, and has a huge barrier to entry

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/upshot/medicine-family-friendly-profession-women.html

Now if we opened immigration from India etc there may be a problem.

I agree physicians, nurses and teachers have a pretty good setup in terms of easing back into the workforce--however, I know both physicians and teachers who've had a rough time re-entering the work force due to letting their licenses/certifications expire.

OP, I'd stay at it for a year or so longer, and see how you feel at that point. It's weird in the short-term to not see your kid--sometimes my 6mo would be in bed even before I got home from work some evenings--but I think continuing to do work I like and that financially benefits our family is better for our family in the long-term. I went from making 50K when my child was first born to 90K to now 140K. Part is just dumb luck, but part of it is maintaining a solid work history so that I was poised to jump to new, higher-paying positions with more responsibility. I think it's great that my daughter sees that both mom and dad work and have fairly equal roles in the household, and research has shown that daughters of working moms are more likely to work themselves and have higher-paying positions. Also, with my income, we're able to afford private school, trips abroad, and are in a better place for college and retirement planning.

I just want to point out that research only applies to single parent families. Kids are better off having that parent work than being on welfare.
The opposite is true in MC and UMC families. Kids are more likely to have behavior problems and less likely to do well in school, particularly if mom works during that first year of life.
I mean, do what you need to do, but that research gets misquoted on here all of the time, and it drives me crazy.

Huh? Direct quotes:

https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/working-mothers-raise-more-successful-daughters-amp-empathetic-sons-harvard-stud.html

In their study of the International Social Survey Programme and the results of two surveys called "Family and Changing Gender Roles," conducted in 2002 and 2012, the group found that working mothers may be doing a far better job than they thought.

Among their surprising findings:

- Men with mothers who worked outside the home are just as likely to hold supervisory positions in their adult life as those with stay-at-home moms. Women with mothers who worked outside the home, however, are more likely to supervise others at work.
- Being raised by a mother who worked outside the home had no effect on a man's adult income, but women raised by working mothers had a higher income than their peers whose mothers stayed home full-time.
- Men whose mothers had worked outside the home at any point were more likely to contribute to household chores and the care of family members.
- Women raised by a working mother spent more time, on average, with their children than those raised by stay-at-home mothers.

I will take a look at this!

I was referring to a huge meta-analysis of 60+ studies that was published by the APA a few years ago.
I forget what it was called, and I’m at work right now and don’t have time to look it up. Maybe someone else can link to it.

[Anonymous]

I lot of closed minded people here who go on about "I have a flexible job,"I" this and that. Open your mind, your reality is not OP's reality not the reality for many people. Plus, many are posting that you too didn't see your kids when they were babies. The ignorance of privilege.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t read the whole thread, but as a nanny, here is what I find helps parents connect during those early years:

1) Put more stock in AM time. Little ones need early bedtimes, so trying to push bed later so you can hang out with them often ends up being a devil’s bargain: you may get more time, but the kids are overtired and cranky and you will be tired and short-tempered and no one is really enjoying that extra time. Instead, do everything you can to make mornings a special family time. Get your lunch packed and makeup done and shower before the kids get up, then throw on your work clothes as soon as the nanny walks in to take over. Then you get them up, nurse, eat breakfast as a family, read books or color, etc. Then it is built-in time that you can’t get sidelined and everybody is in a happy mood.

2) relatedly, accept that you won’t make it home for every bedtime and plan for that. What I usually recommend is that one parent plans to do bedtime Monday/Wednesday, one plans for Tuesday/Thursday and the plan to have a nanny or sitter for Friday. That means that instead of working until 6, rushing to get home by 6:30/6:45 and spending an hour parenting before bed, two nights per week you leave at 5, get home earlier and get to enjoy that time together and 3 nights per week you just work until you are done. If you finish early you can use that time for yourself—gym, errand, happy hour, whatever.

3) Have a monthly or weekly lunch date with your kids (whatever you can manage). Have the nanny bring them to a restaurant on the block near your office and pop down for half an hour. It gives the kids a sense of where you are and you get to see them outside the morning/evening rushes.

4) Record songs and audiobooks for your kids using a voice recorder app so they hear your voice throughout the day. And send one another videos throughout the day—this is more for toddlers and up but it helps remind them that you love them and will see them soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer and was formerly biglaw, so my current job that pays over $200k and has me in the office from 9-5:30 but rarely on weekends is a big improvement. It is flexible in the sense that I can take my kids for their checkups and come to their room parties and skip out early for soccer practice from time to time, but I pay for those things with my promotion track and questions about my "commitment" to the job even though my hours are the same as anyone else's.

OP, I would counsel you to stick it out. I found the absolute hardest time was when my second was a baby and my oldest not very far from the baby stage herself. This will improve and you will have a different perspective in only a few more months because they change so fast. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible. It will buy you more flexibility when they're older, which is when they really start to need YOU the parent not just you the caregiver.

+1. Really, infants don't *need* you; they just need a trusted family member/caregiver to meet their physical needs. I only have an elementary-aged child, but parents of teens say that that's the stage where they need their parents emotionally/psychologically, and that it's actually pretty important to be available at that stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer and was formerly biglaw, so my current job that pays over $200k and has me in the office from 9-5:30 but rarely on weekends is a big improvement. It is flexible in the sense that I can take my kids for their checkups and come to their room parties and skip out early for soccer practice from time to time, but I pay for those things with my promotion track and questions about my "commitment" to the job even though my hours are the same as anyone else's.

OP, I would counsel you to stick it out. I found the absolute hardest time was when my second was a baby and my oldest not very far from the baby stage herself. This will improve and you will have a different perspective in only a few more months because they change so fast. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible. It will buy you more flexibility when they're older, which is when they really start to need YOU the parent not just you the caregiver.

Agree with sticking it out and hanging on to the high-paying job. I'm also a lawyer and formerly biglaw, with a job that pays over $200k. I leave the office by 4:15 pretty much every day and how early I get in depends on what I have going on...it can vary between 5:00 AM and 9:30 AM. I sometimes log on in the evenings after bedtime or on the weekends, but it's not the norm. I prefer to get to the office at the crack of dawn and bang things out when the office is quiet. I have never considered reducing my hours (which I definitely could do) because I am quite sure I would have the same obligations and the only difference would be that I'd get paid less. I treated my need for flexibility like a man would and just did it without making a fuss or asking permission. Never complain, never explain. I got promoted to partner while I was out on my second maternity leave in a two year period, so I don't think my needing flexibility has harmed my prospects much.

I am really glad I stuck it out, because the flexibility I have now is worth it, and my income allows us to have lots of luxuries like a full-time nanny, a nice house with a 10-15 commute, private school and international vacations. My kids are still little, but looking ahead, it seems like it only gets more difficult as they get older and have independent lives and holidays/summers off school to contend with. I will admit that coming from a REALLY intense work environment has skewed my perception a bit -- where I am now feels pretty darn reasonable, and my colleagues who have never worked a truly horrendous job complain more than I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer and was formerly biglaw, so my current job that pays over $200k and has me in the office from 9-5:30 but rarely on weekends is a big improvement. It is flexible in the sense that I can take my kids for their checkups and come to their room parties and skip out early for soccer practice from time to time, but I pay for those things with my promotion track and questions about my "commitment" to the job even though my hours are the same as anyone else's.

OP, I would counsel you to stick it out. I found the absolute hardest time was when my second was a baby and my oldest not very far from the baby stage herself. This will improve and you will have a different perspective in only a few more months because they change so fast. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible. It will buy you more flexibility when they're older, which is when they really start to need YOU the parent not just you the caregiver.

+1. Really, infants don't *need* you; they just need a trusted family member/caregiver to meet their physical needs. I only have an elementary-aged child, but parents of teens say that that's the stage where they need their parents emotionally/psychologically, and that it's actually pretty important to be available at that stage.

PP again. As a clarification, I don't mean that they need Mom preferentially--I know it's not always possible if one parent works a lot, but ideally, both parents will be involved and there for kids/teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer and was formerly biglaw, so my current job that pays over $200k and has me in the office from 9-5:30 but rarely on weekends is a big improvement. It is flexible in the sense that I can take my kids for their checkups and come to their room parties and skip out early for soccer practice from time to time, but I pay for those things with my promotion track and questions about my "commitment" to the job even though my hours are the same as anyone else's.

OP, I would counsel you to stick it out. I found the absolute hardest time was when my second was a baby and my oldest not very far from the baby stage herself. This will improve and you will have a different perspective in only a few more months because they change so fast. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible. It will buy you more flexibility when they're older, which is when they really start to need YOU the parent not just you the caregiver.

+1. Really, infants don't *need* you; they just need a trusted family member/caregiver to meet their physical needs. I only have an elementary-aged child, but parents of teens say that that's the stage where they need their parents emotionally/psychologically, and that it's actually pretty important to be available at that stage.

Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer and was formerly biglaw, so my current job that pays over $200k and has me in the office from 9-5:30 but rarely on weekends is a big improvement. It is flexible in the sense that I can take my kids for their checkups and come to their room parties and skip out early for soccer practice from time to time, but I pay for those things with my promotion track and questions about my "commitment" to the job even though my hours are the same as anyone else's.

OP, I would counsel you to stick it out. I found the absolute hardest time was when my second was a baby and my oldest not very far from the baby stage herself. This will improve and you will have a different perspective in only a few more months because they change so fast. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible. It will buy you more flexibility when they're older, which is when they really start to need YOU the parent not just you the caregiver.

+1. Really, infants don't *need* you; they just need a trusted family member/caregiver to meet their physical needs. I only have an elementary-aged child, but parents of teens say that that's the stage where they need their parents emotionally/psychologically, and that it's actually pretty important to be available at that stage.

Wow.

My reaction exactly. A cat is a better mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lot of closed minded people here who go on about "I have a flexible job,"I" this and that. Open your mind, your reality is not OP's reality not the reality for many people. Plus, many are posting that you too didn't see your kids when they were babies. The ignorance of privilege.

Oh, stop your nonsense. OP wants a nanny, private school and nice vacations. That is the reality that she and her husband have chosen. You could argue that she is being close-minded by not entertaining a different job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ maybe you should tell us what you mean by flexible, since you think it doesn't exist?

Flexible DC jobs: web developer, programmer, graphic designer, physical therapist, head hunter, counselor, editor, event planner, sales rep, account rep. Anything where work is done by the job, not the hour.

It doesn't sound like OP is in any of those professions. Is she just supposed to switch to graphic design or physical therapy now that she has kids....?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ maybe you should tell us what you mean by flexible, since you think it doesn't exist?

Flexible DC jobs: web developer, programmer, graphic designer, physical therapist, head hunter, counselor, editor, event planner, sales rep, account rep. Anything where work is done by the job, not the hour.

It doesn't sound like OP is in any of those professions. Is she just supposed to switch to graphic design or physical therapy now that she has kids....?

No this was in response to the person who thought everyone who has a flexible job is a liar since there are no flexible jobs in DC.

[Anonymous]

OP, I would suggest trying to hang on to your current job. While the younger years are hard, things are also hard as kids age -- just a different type of "hard." Older kids have emotional needs that can't be met by a hired caregiver, educational needs that require direct parental involvement with the school, etc. Hang on to that high paying job and save as much as possible -- you never know when ageism sets in and you are "retired" not by your own choice. I have seen many women who leave the work force due to ageism, not just due to "mommy" bias. The income saved now will help for future needs -- school, college, extracurricular. Good luck!