Anonymous wrote:When I suggested to my big banking sister in law with two kids that they should get a dog she said they didn’t have time for a dog. Shortly thereafter they decided to have a third. Dunno how you don’t have time for a dog but you do have time for a child? Two nannies and a cook. Kids are nice but I don’t really get the point.

Anonymous wrote:When I suggested to my big banking sister in law with two kids that they should get a dog she said they didn’t have time for a dog. Shortly thereafter they decided to have a third. Dunno how you don’t have time for a dog but you do have time for a child? Two nannies and a cook. Kids are nice but I don’t really get the point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I used to have a very demanding job and was on the road for over half of the time. I was concerned about having kids with a demanding career, so I crowdsourced feedback on another forum from adults who had parents who had jobs that often kept them from their children. I received comments from around 40 people and nearly all of them said it was the quality of time (being present, not distracted with work calls etc) and not the quality of time that mattered. Some people had a parent who was home all of the time but not a good parent and their relationship today is non existent. Thankfully now my career is more manageable but still can be busy at times so I always on quality over quantity of time.

Quantity without quality is bad, but quality without quantity is also bad. I agree with a PP who said you’re not going to be able to emotionally connect with your kids during Sunday brunch. You have to do some of the physical grunt work too. The morning and evening routines, thinking about their needs and knowing the little details in their lives.

Case in point: SIL and BIL worked crazy hours until their kids were in ES. Only then did they realize their kids had autism (one severe) and so they’ve cut back a lot to spend more time with them. But it’s a little too late unfortunately.

Really nasty of you to accuse them of this.

That aside, I grew up with very hard working parents. Both my parents had very big careers and spent little (but lots of quality) time with us. My dad was his own boss and took longer vacations... so we had him for that... my mom had very little time off. I never EVER felt neglected. Compared with my friends (many with stay at home moms) I have the closest relationship with my mom. I speak/FaceTime with her 3-4 times a day, she spent the first 5-6 weeks with each of my 3 kids with me and always helped me a lot. My parents gave me more in terms of experiences, values, love and money than any of the friends I grew up with. We are very very close... We had several baby sitters and my mom had several cleaning ladies. It was a great experiences growing up that way... I knew that they were working so hard for US so that we could travel to Africa, US, other European countries, etc. I went to very expensive schools and my parents never said no to any experience or anything related to education (they said no to cellphones, cars, clothes plenty of time)... they always made me understand the value of money and I did nit grow up spoiled... they were amazing parents and they spent little time with us, but plenty of quality time...
Imagine that nowadays we vacation together every summer (for weeks/months) and my kids think of my mom as their second mom... I hope I will be half the parent my parents were and my kids will be lucky!

PP, as entangled with your parents as you are, how close are you to your spouse? How does he/she feel about the situation with them? Are you more married to your parents than your spouse?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I used to have a very demanding job and was on the road for over half of the time. I was concerned about having kids with a demanding career, so I crowdsourced feedback on another forum from adults who had parents who had jobs that often kept them from their children. I received comments from around 40 people and nearly all of them said it was the quality of time (being present, not distracted with work calls etc) and not the quality of time that mattered. Some people had a parent who was home all of the time but not a good parent and their relationship today is non existent. Thankfully now my career is more manageable but still can be busy at times so I always on quality over quantity of time.

Quantity without quality is bad, but quality without quantity is also bad. I agree with a PP who said you’re not going to be able to emotionally connect with your kids during Sunday brunch. You have to do some of the physical grunt work too. The morning and evening routines, thinking about their needs and knowing the little details in their lives.

Case in point: SIL and BIL worked crazy hours until their kids were in ES. Only then did they realize their kids had autism (one severe) and so they’ve cut back a lot to spend more time with them. But it’s a little too late unfortunately.

Really nasty of you to accuse them of this.

That aside, I grew up with very hard working parents. Both my parents had very big careers and spent little (but lots of quality) time with us. My dad was his own boss and took longer vacations... so we had him for that... my mom had very little time off. I never EVER felt neglected. Compared with my friends (many with stay at home moms) I have the closest relationship with my mom. I speak/FaceTime with her 3-4 times a day, she spent the first 5-6 weeks with each of my 3 kids with me and always helped me a lot. My parents gave me more in terms of experiences, values, love and money than any of the friends I grew up with. We are very very close... We had several baby sitters and my mom had several cleaning ladies. It was a great experiences growing up that way... I knew that they were working so hard for US so that we could travel to Africa, US, other European countries, etc. I went to very expensive schools and my parents never said no to any experience or anything related to education (they said no to cellphones, cars, clothes plenty of time)... they always made me understand the value of money and I did nit grow up spoiled... they were amazing parents and they spent little time with us, but plenty of quality time...
Imagine that nowadays we vacation together every summer (for weeks/months) and my kids think of my mom as their second mom... I hope I will be half the parent my parents were and my kids will be lucky!

Anonymous wrote:

I used to have a very demanding job and was on the road for over half of the time. I was concerned about having kids with a demanding career, so I crowdsourced feedback on another forum from adults who had parents who had jobs that often kept them from their children. I received comments from around 40 people and nearly all of them said it was the quality of time (being present, not distracted with work calls etc) and not the quality of time that mattered. Some people had a parent who was home all of the time but not a good parent and their relationship today is non existent. Thankfully now my career is more manageable but still can be busy at times so I always on quality over quantity of time.

Quantity without quality is bad, but quality without quantity is also bad. I agree with a PP who said you’re not going to be able to emotionally connect with your kids during Sunday brunch. You have to do some of the physical grunt work too. The morning and evening routines, thinking about their needs and knowing the little details in their lives.

Case in point: SIL and BIL worked crazy hours until their kids were in ES. Only then did they realize their kids had autism (one severe) and so they’ve cut back a lot to spend more time with them. But it’s a little too late unfortunately.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People make snarky comments about having 3+ all the time but it’s been a life saver for these kids to have each other during the pandemic. They haven’t been lonely and still get tons of play. So we’re quite happy with having gone with more than the norm

YES. I have three (and a fourth on the way) and I say all the time that lacking any one of them would have made this much much harder. The oldest is old enough to loosely supervise the younger two when I'm in a different part of the house, the middle bridges the gap because the oldest and youngest are awfully far apart to play together, and the youngest entertains the middle when the oldest is doing schoolwork or reading a book. It's worked out beautifully, and having three is really honestly easier than having any two of them. So of course we're doing it again.

It’s easy as your oldest is a free bsbysitter. Not their job, it’s yours. Hire help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People make snarky comments about having 3+ all the time but it’s been a life saver for these kids to have each other during the pandemic. They haven’t been lonely and still get tons of play. So we’re quite happy with having gone with more than the norm

YES. I have three (and a fourth on the way) and I say all the time that lacking any one of them would have made this much much harder. The oldest is old enough to loosely supervise the younger two when I'm in a different part of the house, the middle bridges the gap because the oldest and youngest are awfully far apart to play together, and the youngest entertains the middle when the oldest is doing schoolwork or reading a book. It's worked out beautifully, and having three is really honestly easier than having any two of them. So of course we're doing it again.

It’s easy as your oldest is a free bsbysitter. Not their job, it’s yours. Hire help.

Anonymous wrote:

I used to have a very demanding job and was on the road for over half of the time. I was concerned about having kids with a demanding career, so I crowdsourced feedback on another forum from adults who had parents who had jobs that often kept them from their children. I received comments from around 40 people and nearly all of them said it was the quality of time (being present, not distracted with work calls etc) and not the quality of time that mattered. Some people had a parent who was home all of the time but not a good parent and their relationship today is non existent. Thankfully now my career is more manageable but still can be busy at times so I always on quality over quantity of time.

Quantity without quality is bad, but quality without quantity is also bad. I agree with a PP who said you’re not going to be able to emotionally connect with your kids during Sunday brunch. You have to do some of the physical grunt work too. The morning and evening routines, thinking about their needs and knowing the little details in their lives.

Case in point: SIL and BIL worked crazy hours until their kids were in ES. Only then did they realize their kids had autism (one severe) and so they’ve cut back a lot to spend more time with them. But it’s a little too late unfortunately.

Anonymous wrote:

I used to have a very demanding job and was on the road for over half of the time. I was concerned about having kids with a demanding career, so I crowdsourced feedback on another forum from adults who had parents who had jobs that often kept them from their children. I received comments from around 40 people and nearly all of them said it was the quality of time (being present, not distracted with work calls etc) and not the quality of time that mattered. Some people had a parent who was home all of the time but not a good parent and their relationship today is non existent. Thankfully now my career is more manageable but still can be busy at times so I always on quality over quantity of time.

Quantity without quality is bad, but quality without quantity is also bad. I agree with a PP who said you’re not going to be able to emotionally connect with your kids during Sunday brunch. You have to do some of the physical grunt work too. The morning and evening routines, thinking about their needs and knowing the little details in their lives.

Case in point: SIL and BIL worked crazy hours until their kids were in ES. Only then did they realize their kids had autism (one severe) and so they’ve cut back a lot to spend more time with them. But it’s a little too late unfortunately.

Anonymous wrote:Status is part of it if I’m being honest but I wouldn’t have three only for status. I love being a mom but it feels good to project that we have enough money for three.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People make snarky comments about having 3+ all the time but it’s been a life saver for these kids to have each other during the pandemic. They haven’t been lonely and still get tons of play. So we’re quite happy with having gone with more than the norm

YES. I have three (and a fourth on the way) and I say all the time that lacking any one of them would have made this much much harder. The oldest is old enough to loosely supervise the younger two when I'm in a different part of the house, the middle bridges the gap because the oldest and youngest are awfully far apart to play together, and the youngest entertains the middle when the oldest is doing schoolwork or reading a book. It's worked out beautifully, and having three is really honestly easier than having any two of them. So of course we're doing it again.

It’s easy as your oldest is a free bsbysitter. Not their job, it’s yours. Hire help.

I used to have a very demanding job and was on the road for over half of the time. I was concerned about having kids with a demanding career, so I crowdsourced feedback on another forum from adults who had parents who had jobs that often kept them from their children. I received comments from around 40 people and nearly all of them said it was the quality of time (being present, not distracted with work calls etc) and not the quality of time that mattered. Some people had a parent who was home all of the time but not a good parent and their relationship today is non existent. Thankfully now my career is more manageable but still can be busy at times so I always on quality over quantity of time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People make snarky comments about having 3+ all the time but it’s been a life saver for these kids to have each other during the pandemic. They haven’t been lonely and still get tons of play. So we’re quite happy with having gone with more than the norm

YES. I have three (and a fourth on the way) and I say all the time that lacking any one of them would have made this much much harder. The oldest is old enough to loosely supervise the younger two when I'm in a different part of the house, the middle bridges the gap because the oldest and youngest are awfully far apart to play together, and the youngest entertains the middle when the oldest is doing schoolwork or reading a book. It's worked out beautifully, and having three is really honestly easier than having any two of them. So of course we're doing it again.

Anonymous wrote:People make snarky comments about having 3+ all the time but it’s been a life saver for these kids to have each other during the pandemic. They haven’t been lonely and still get tons of play. So we’re quite happy with having gone with more than the norm