Reply to Advice Needed: parents who both work long hours

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Advice Needed: parents who both work long hours"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is OP again. I want to clear up the notion that I only spend 30 mins per day with my kids which is not at all true. They are up by 7am latest and we spend an hour an a half together until I drop the older one at school at 8:30 and our nanny arrives. I stop working at 5:30pm so I think have another 2 hours with my youngest who goes to bed at 7:30pm, and my oldest who goes to bed at 8 gets 2.5 hours. Where I struggle is that I then need to handle everything else too - cooking, clean up, laundry, schedules, projects, etc. And I choose to stop working at 5:30 and then go back online later most nights so I can spend the time with my kids.

I am genuinely curious - are there moms who work full time and get to spend more time with their kids than this? Even if you work 9-5 with commuting it’s probably about the same I would imagine.

We also don’t work for what would be considered biglaw firms (although my firm is bigger than DH’s). DH is already a partner and makes around $500K per year all in. He has even more earning potential with his recent promotion but isn’t there yet. I make around $250K and made it clear I don’t want to be on partner track because those attorneys work much more than I do.

We also don’t live an overly extravagant lifestyle at all. DH went to private school and is not open to public regardless of how good it is. That’s the only think that would make a reasonable different in our expenditures. So when you add that up, plus FT nanny, summer camp and classes, our families both lives across the country so 2X per year flights, one vacation per year, etc... it really doesn’t go as far as it should. We also save quite a bit as we want to make sure college and possible grad school are covered for our kids.
[/quote]
OP, I'm new to this thread, but what I find confusing is that you have a nanny from 8:30-5:30, yet you are spending your before/after work time with kids cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. Our nanny does basic tidying and dishes (we have a housekeeper for actual cleaning, as do you), kids' laundry, and meal prep. That's a huge reduction in day-to-day tasks. She enlists the kids (4 and 7 y.o.) in all of these things as well. While nanny is working, she helps with school projects and she keeps me informed of key schedules. Your nanny should be doing all of these things!

Beyond that, though, something has to give. DH and I are in tech, and he outearns me by 2-3x. He does work longer hours than me and travels more than me. I was offered a job that paid more than his, but it was more inflexible than my current job. DH and I discussed. He said, you should take it and we'll hire more help. I said I would only take it if he contributed more at home, since I didn't want 60+ hours/wk of childcare, and I didn't want to be working longer hours and cooking/cleaning in my non-paid work time. Now, I earn ~1/3 what I could. But, I've found a niche where I am invaluable to my employer, and I get to dictate a lot of terms about what I spend my time doing and how my schedule is structured. I don't have as prestigious of an employer as I could, and I haven't climbed the ladder as fast I might prefer, which are trade offs. But this works for me. If I were on a BigLaw partner track, I would hire a lot more help, because my mental/emotional/physical health is critical to my family's well-being. Life's way too short to spend your time barely surviving.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics