Reply to Are you offended when someone says they “didnt want someone else to raise my kids”?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare.  But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.  [/quote]

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.[/quote]

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent. [/quote]

I don’t believe you’re a working parent. My toddler is at preschool 9-4. During which she sleeps 2 hours. So 5 waking hours. She has a parent with her 7-9 and 4-7:30. So 5.5 waking hours. Plus weekends. Plus they close every single federal holiday, spring break, summer break, Christmas break, teacher workdays, and add in illnesses. I’d be shocked if she ever actually goes more than 25-30 hours/week and this is pretty standard for most dual working parent households I know. Plenty of us have 2 spouses with lots of flexibility and WAH. I work 7-3:30 and DH works 9-5:30 (sometimes earlier and he catches up at night if I need help getting a kid to an after school activity).

Also while our kids are at preschool/school I can squeeze in laundry, gym, grocery shopping etc. on breaks so we can prioritize family time during the evenings/weekends.

I really don’t care whether someone chooses to work or not, but I think it’s provincial if you envision most kids of working parents being in daycare for 10-11 hours, 5 days a week. This is not the norm for a single dual income household I know. I’ve thrown my kids birthday parties in the middle of a weekday off school and there’s tons of working parents able to shuttle their kids to laser tag at 2 pm on a Wednesday. Lots of moms and dads hanging out at the playground when school gets let out.

Being a working parent in 2024 means you can earn 6 figures, attend your kid’s school events, chaperone the field trips, and coach 5 pm soccer. Many of the DCUM working parents fall into this category.[/quote]

First off, I don’t believe you are full time working parent because if your child is in preschool 7 hours a day and you have any sort of commute and do a bunch of errands and work out you during that period you are working a much shorter workday than a full time employee. You’re working part-time.

I’ve only worked in tech and finance, but in those industries it’s really common for people who say they work full time to work a full work day. That’s because you generally get fired if you’re not able to do your work in a timely manner on a regular basis, and anyone who only has 3-4 hours of work each day is not someone who is likely to advance or remain employed in the long term. That generally means that people who I work with either have nannies or decline laser tag invites in the middle of the day when their children are in preschool.

I have three children and I make $365K. I have a very flexible job that allows me to be present for my children a lot and allows me to minimize the number of hours that I’m not with my kids during the day, which is great because even though my husband earns significantly more and has significantly greater upside with comp, he has a far less flexible schedule. And we have an amazing nanny.

Working full time is a trade off. I’m very comfortable with that trade off because we have an amazing nanny and because I really love my work and don’t want to be a stay at home parent. However, I understood and understand the trade offs and I’m not offended when someone tells me that they also understood the trade offs particular to their situation and decided to stay home. Most working parents do not coach soccer at 5 if they have a demanding job. Most working parents use daycare for 10 hours a day (most working parents have commutes and work a standard work day of 8-9 hours so using anything less than 10 hours of childcare would be really hard). Life is full of trade offs: no one can have it all. Deal with it instead of trying to police what people say to you or what people should hypothetically say to you about something you already know. [/quote]

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