Reply to Being a working parent sucks

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "Being a working parent sucks"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Genuine question: all I read about online is how awful it is to be a working mom, but I look at my SIL (my main point of reference) and she seems to be doing well with a high powered ft job and two tween/teen kids. They have a nanny who shuttles the kids to/from school and does some basic chores at home. They make a combined salary of around 300k so it’s not like they’re super wealthy. Is this not doable for most families?[/quote]

Whether $300k is enough to afford a nanny into the teenage years depends on a lot of other factors (other costs/debt/cost of nanny in their area/etc), but contrary to DCUM talk, most families don’t even make $300k.  And even people who could afford a nanny don’t necessarily want one — for example, I love my job but I also really wish I could be with my kids the entire time they’re not in school.  By the time they’re teens I hope to be part time and fully responsible for ferrying them around myself.  So no, your SIL’s life is doable/desirable for most people.[/quote]

I would happily get some kind of housekeeper who cleaned and organized and prepped meals and grocery shopped. If we could afford it which of course we cannot. But I'm with you that it is not my dream to have someone to outsource all the parenting stuff. I would like to do that myself unless it's truly outside my abilities (like I'm not homeschooling or tutoring my kid in physics or teaching ballet or whatever). I want to drive my kid to school and activities. I want to be home with them at a reasonable hour and spend time with them at meals and on the weekend. I definitely don't want to be *working* instead of doing those things. And I like my job. But I like my kids more and they are home with us for a finite time.

So yeah -- outsourcing all the non-parenting home stuff so I can work and spend time with kids with less stress would be awesome but the idea of a nanny who is providing a SAHP type experience for my kids while I work makes me sad. What would really be great would be if DH and I could both work like 6 hr days (or work 8 hour days but only 3 days a week or something) and still together make enough to afford our mortgage and a pretty middle class lifestyle (1 car and a few moderately priced activities for kids and eating out once a week and two week long vacations a year with one being a road trip). But we can barely afford that with both of us working full time. So it is what it is.[/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