Reply to If you're professionally ambitious, do you feel you spend enough good time with your kids?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kids are in elementary school, and my answer is no. I actually felt better when they were little and in daycare—I was able to drop them off for a big chunk of time and work. I am actually considering taking a step back, which feels counterintuitive given I have done what’s logically the hard part (working fulltime while having babies/toddlers, working fulltime throughout online schooling). But I do feel like they need me more than ever.[/quote]

I actually think this is one thing people underestimate. I think late elementary and middle school are when our kids need our time the most. But it is hard to see that when they are little. I feel like I lucked out. I outsourced a TON when they were little. But upper elementary, I’ve made it to the top. I can now delegate, etc. in a way that lets me spend a ton of time with my fifth grader, etc.

Years ago, a friend of mine with older kids said “I think I need to become a SAHM now that they are in middle school.” At the time, I didn’t get it at all. Now, I get it.[/quote]

I thought I was in the home stretch when my oldest started kindergarten. I was not prepared for all the times we were asked to come to the school. Of course you can skip but then your kid will be the handful of kids whose parents don’t come to pastries for parents, thanksgiving lunch on a random day in November, Halloween, field trip to Cox farms, Halloween, meeting during the middle of the day to actually plan the Halloween party, pta meeting also late morning, book fair, fun fridays, etc. then there were the 10+ 2 hour delays and the 10+ snow days. Add on sick days, doc appointments, teacher work days, random holidays I never knew existed, spring break, winter break. It made it very difficult.

My third child just started kindergarten and my oldest is in middle school. I thought I could finally go back to work but they seem to need me more, not less. [/quote]

The majority of moms at your school likely work.  You pick a handful of days and have childcare for the breaks.  What you described isn’t a reason to not have a job.  If you simply don’t want to work, then fine.  But if you want to work and you’re truly not working because of pastries for parents then you’re doing it all wrong!   Just get a job and stop having anxiety about all of the reasons you can’t work.  Take it a day at a time and it will fall into place.  [/quote]

NP - agreed.  You don’t have to attend every school event for your child to feel loved.  One benefit of older kids is that you can have coherent conversations with them about these kinds of trade-offs.  “I would love to be there for pastries with parents, Larlo, but I can’t this time.  I’ll be chaperoning your field trip in two weeks, though, and I’m so excited to be with you!”

Tweens/teens absolutely need their parents, just in different ways than when they were infants/toddlers.  That requires a lot more emotional and logistical flexibility than when kids are very young, generally, and things are in some ways more predictable.  And some parents really struggle with that, especially if they tend towards perfectionism (as many professionally ambitious people do).

I’m moderately ambitious and took the perspective that parenting and careers are both long, ideally.  I tried hard not to burn myself out in either early on and have become skilled at setting appropriate boundaries and expectations.  I’m comfortable saying no to my kids about some things they want, in part because I’m also confident I can help them learn to tolerate disappointment and because I know they’ll have plenty of quality time with me in other ways.  I don’t have to do *everything* to be a supportive parent, even to older kids.[/quote]

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