Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids, op? I have found that activities/practices start later now that my kids are upper elem school and middle school. Otherwise, your options are a nanny or carpool (maybe you could find someone who could always drive the kids to the activity, and you could always drive home). Also, and admittedly I have no idea what your husband's job is, but sometimes my spouse and I have had to cut out from work "early" one night a week to take a kid to an activity - we are both lawyers, so we have the kind of jobs where we can continue to work (on cell phone, laptop, etc.) while the child participates in the activity (and we work from home every night anyway). This took some convincing of my DH btw.

OP here. DH is a lawyer too. Face time is so important at firms, so I hear.

How old are your kids, op? I have found that activities/practices start later now that my kids are upper elem school and middle school. Otherwise, your options are a nanny or carpool (maybe you could find someone who could always drive the kids to the activity, and you could always drive home). Also, and admittedly I have no idea what your husband's job is, but sometimes my spouse and I have had to cut out from work "early" one night a week to take a kid to an activity - we are both lawyers, so we have the kind of jobs where we can continue to work (on cell phone, laptop, etc.) while the child participates in the activity (and we work from home every night anyway). This took some convincing of my DH btw.

Anonymous wrote:Reevaluate your life. I wouldn't want to live like that. I would quit.

Quitting is not always the answer for everyone. You do not know OP's financial circumstances so, to suggest something like this as the only option, is quite narrow-minded.

Anonymous wrote:So you currently pick your kids up at 6pm from after care and then take them to a community center for scheduled activities. You all get home around 7:30pm?? for dinner, you do all the cooking/cleaning/bathing/putting to bed in 1.5hrs and DH comes home at 9pm when they are all asleep.

Sorry but you need to re-evaluate what is important in life. Those kids not only need some downtime but time with their parents. Life is short.

OP here. At this time, we are only doing swim on Saturday. In the past, we tried football once and that was a MAJOR fail. I could not keep up! Since then, we have done karate on one weeknight but nothing more than that so... yes, my kids are getting downtime now. I just was trying to figure out creative ways to get back to having at least one weeknight activity without it being so stressful.

Weekends. I don't have the energy to do that stuff during the week anyway.

We have a full time nanny in part due to after school activities.

Reevaluate your life. I wouldn't want to live like that. I would quit.

au pair.

So you currently pick your kids up at 6pm from after care and then take them to a community center for scheduled activities. You all get home around 7:30pm?? for dinner, you do all the cooking/cleaning/bathing/putting to bed in 1.5hrs and DH comes home at 9pm when they are all asleep.

Sorry but you need to re-evaluate what is important in life. Those kids not only need some downtime but time with their parents. Life is short.

With a schedule like that you need to hire a driver.

My kids mainly do extracurriculars that are offered at school during extended day. In addition, DS does sports and we share driving with others parents at the school. For soccer, his coach is the mom of one of his friends and she has a big van so she just picks up most of the team directly from extended day. DD takes art on the weekends.

At my DC's activities, I see kids with college students who are "after school drivers" for the family. There are also groups of kids from same schools/neighborhoods who carpool together.

Nanny Another solution - martial arts centers. Those places are usually open late and many of them pick up directly from schools.

Nanny is really the only option.

That's a rough schedule on a family.

My DH does not get home until 9 pm most nights. I get home around 6 pm (picking up the kids from aftercare right around that time). I really want my kids to get more involved in extracurricular activities, but it is so tough with this schedule. I commute from DC and cannot get off any earlier so that is not an option. If others of you are getting home this late, how are you managing sports and other extracurricular activities? Where we are, most practices have already started by the time I pick my kids up! The only thing that has been flexible so far are community center lessons (e.g., karate, dance) and swim because they tend to start later.

Just curious about what others are doing to manage all this extracurricular stuff!