OMG, this is so hard and exhausting!
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Anonymous
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1. I have a long commute so I leave the house by 6:30 am. Lunch for 1st grader is packed night before. 2 yo eats all meals at daycare.
2. I get the kids up at 6 and get 2 yo ready while DH is in the shower. 1st grader gets himself ready. I leave, DH does the drop off. We pay for before and after care so DH gets to work by 8. 3. Groceries are a combo of the following: some stuff at TJs during lunch break, some stuff at HT while 1st grader is in activity for 30 minutes in the same shopping center, some stuff at aldi that’s right next to 2 yo daycare, grocery delivery. I keep a running list of things we are low on in my phone so it’s always ready. 4. I make a big pot of soup and some meat/veggie entree in the instant pot on Sunday. We eat this most of the week. Occasionally supplement with takeout. 5. Key thing that helps: we both work 40 hrs a week and can wfh 1-2 per week except during really busy times. |
Anonymous
| Some of the comments on this thread are pretty dramatic. Yes, you can survive without a nanny. Daycare drop off/pick up is stressful, but Jesus, no one is dying. Kids are in bed by what, 8? How long does it take to prep for the next day? |
Anonymous
Later elementary school students stay up later than 8. And if they do go to bed that early it is likely because they have to get up very early and their parents need to be up even earlier. I have to be driving to work by 7 or I end up with and hour-and-a-half commute from Alexandria to downtown DC. DH leaves even earlier (6:30). DH leaves work at 4:30 to relieve the nanny By 6 and I don’t get home until 8:00. Without our nanny, we might not die but we’d probably wish we had. I would have to get up at 5:00 to get myself ready, pack lunches, etc., get the kids ready and take the kids to before-care by 7:00. The kids would do before-care, then school, then aftercare until DH could get them at 6, try to throw dinner on the table and get everyone to bed by himself since they would need to go to bed at like 7:00 to wake up the next day at 6am. Hope they did homework at aftercare because otherwise we are screwed! Instead my kids sleep in until 8, wake up to a hot breakfast on the table, and the nanny drives them to school at 8:45 then tidies up around the house, runs errands and preps dinner. She picks everybody up and they do homework with individual attention and get to either go to an activity with friends or just relax around the house. DH walks in at 6 to find kids bathed, with homework mostly done and dinner on the table. They have a meal together, do the dishes together, then get to hang out at play until it’s time to get ready for bed. I get home and we read for half an hour then say goodnight. I have leftovers for dinner in my clean kitchen and watch tv with my husband for an hour then get a full night’s sleep most of the time. It’s not a breeze but it’s doable and it doesn’t suck the joy out of our lives. |
Anonymous
+1 This, this, this. The FT WOHPs of elementary schoolers I know who aren’t still totally overwhelmed have nannies. You basically have to either have a very engaged SAHP or hire a nanny if you want to both work FT and have any quality of life. |
Anonymous
The trade off, of course, is that you miss some of the really critical moments in your kids days, i.e., right before school and right after. They may seem mundane, but as a parent who prioritizes those, you get SO much from your kids then. I'll take that, even if it means being more harried in some ways, than missing out on that time. I have plenty of joy in my life, and I also have the chance to be there for my kids in ways you miss when you outsource this much of the daily parenting. |
Anonymous
I think you misunderstand how it works with a nanny. First off, part of what people are outsourcing is cleaning/meal prep/laundry when they have a nanny. That doesn’t bond me to my kids at all. And second, a lot of the time my nanny and I are parenting side by side. She’s handling the baby while I’m getting the 3 yo ready for preschool, or vice versa. It’s not really “outsourcing” the parenting the way you describe, at least not in our household. |
Anonymous
Oh, FFS. I know dozens of families with two working parents who are not totally overwhelmed and don't have nannies. It's a combination of not living somewhere stupid that requires 3-4 hours of commuting for one parent, having jobs with regular hours and perhaps some amount of flexibility and/or telework, and not holding one's family hostage to an insane schedule of travel sports and multiple activities. Of course you need a nanny if you're going to be gone for 13 hours a day like the PP, but plenty of us manage to hold our families together just fine. I mean, eating leftovers in a clean kitchen after only having seen their kids for 30 minutes in the entire day is not a life goal for most parents. There are literally hundreds of threads where people post their morning and evening routines, weekly meal plans and time saving strategies. |
Anonymous
| OP if one or both of you can get a regular WFH day a week, it is game changing. Best of luck - it will get easier! |
Anonymous
The bolded is the type of comment that really gets me angry. What you are essentially saying is that only parents who work the exact amount you do are parenting properly. So parents with long commutes or long hours are bad parents and parents who SAH or work only part time are bad but only parents with the exact set-up you have are doing a good job. And I’ll bet you can’t even see why that’s a problem. |
Anonymous
DP, but that's not at all the message. It's so not the message that it's bizarre that's what you take away from the post. There are so, so many ways that privileged people can get things done. Privileged people who chose very specific lifestyles and then whine about them get no sympathy from me. And there are so, so many ways to be a present parent. Working, not working, working part time--there are myriad options to be there for your kids. If you dig deeper into the ones who insist they need a FT nanny for school-aged children, it's a choice they made to maintain or afford a certain lifestyle, which has very little to do with things that actually matter for parenting. |
Anonymous
Eh. I don’t know if that’s universal. I work from home 4 days a week and have a short Friday (already home and relaxing!) so I see my kids before and after school 4.5 days a week. I don’t get much out of them after school by any means. They just want to come home and crash and in the morning, sometimes, if we are very lucky, they sleep in and then it’s all go go go to get to breakfast in them and off to school. My kids are 9 and 11. |
Anonymous
If some of the blue collar and low wage workers you see every day saw all the fretting around stuff like this, you all would have an earful about the realities of the exhaustion. You realize there are single mothers who take public transport, with more then 2 kids, at 2 different schools, bad credit, no extended networks and somehow will survive. DCUM bubble is real |
Anonymous
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Husband went part-time so he gets Wednesdays off. He does all md/dentist/etc appointments on those days, plus lots of cooking (freezes items for grab and go later) and the vacuuming. We all get ready together in the morning. Most things are done the night prior.
It's all about priorities and sanity. The changes and sacrifices will save your marriage. It has bought us more together and we really feel like a team in our parenting. No more arguments. |
Anonymous
I agree PP. The whining of the wealthy DCUM parents is like nails on a chalkboard. No abilities to organize and run their own lives. Throw money at other people and still whine about how tired they are. There are people who work, do drop offs and pick ups every day, spend time with their kids and spouses, clean their own houses, do their own laundry, and even still have time to come on DCUM. Honestly. |
Anonymous
Ok but that’s your decision to be unmarried, have 2 kids and bad credit. |