Reply to Two Parents WOH Full-Time No Local Famiily -- Show of hands

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "Two Parents WOH Full-Time No Local Famiily -- Show of hands"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Two WOH parents here with no local family and that's the case with most of the families we know in Arlington.

I did SAH until our two kids were in K & 2nd.  Now DH and I earn about the same (combined $250K), we each WAH once a week all the time although DH's job is shifting so he won't be able to do that anymore.  I can also WAH whenever I need to if school is closed and can flex hours as needed.  Generally, I'm in the office around 7:30 and leave by 4:30 to pick up kids at 5pm.  DH handles the mornings and then gets home later.  We both have about a 30 min commute.  At least one parent with some flexibility plus short commutes are key.

We limit afterschool activities to things that work with our schedule (no travel sports), take advantage of at-school extracurriculars as much as possible, rec sports that only have 1-night/week commitments.  Cleaner every 2 weeks.  DH does the grocery shopping while I cook dinners.  Kids have their cleaning chores too.  Helps that the house isn't very large.  Minimize clutter so there is less to keep clean.  Minimize errands by using Amazon a lot.

If a crisis comes up we have good friends we can rely on to pick up and watch kids if needed.  It would be nice to have my parents here but I don't feel like we need more help.  They live near my sister in CA and she really does need them -- because of inconsistent work hours, a few years spent getting a master's degree which would have been practically impossible without her help, unreliable DH who is now an ex-DH, and doesn't have the network of friend support that we have (although maybe I wouldn't have built that up if I had family here).[/quote]

Our kids are still preschool age ,  just one is an elementary. Maybe we just wait till the age up? Is that the  lesson here?[/quote]

I think it depends a lot on how you set up your life.  Just see the other thread about SAH w/ older kids.  In some ways the work/daycare balance can be easier than work/elementary+ school because you don't have to deal with the school breaks and random days off and some families choose to have their kids in time-intensive extracurriculars.  But it can be easier with older kids because they can contribute more - or just stay out of your way while you cook dinner! --  and they also can stay up later so it's not the same time crunch.  I never dealt with the daycare round because I was SAH when the kids were little but I don't find WOH with ES and MS kids that difficult.  BUT I have flexibility to WAH when they are off school and they don't do heavy-time-commitment after school activities.  Figuring out summer camps is probably the most stressful aspect of WOH for me.  [/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