DH and I both work in-person, but have wiggled ourselves into positions with enough flexibility that each of us can take 1-2 days a week to leave the office early, drive a kid to an activity, and finish working from the parking lot or waiting room.

Lots of quick or make-ahead dinners. I'm not above prepping a casserole the night before and asking Kid A to put it in to oven while I'm at an activity with Kid B.

We have a couple of carpools set up too.

Between all of that, we make it work. One kid has an activity literally every night of the week - 2 evenings each for two different sports, plus scouts one night a week. The other kid mostly has activities right after school and can take the late bus home (clubs or sport depending on the season), but does have 1-2 evenings a week booked also. We also have 1-2 weekends a month tied up in these activities, and DH and I are each a lead volunteer for one of them.

It sounds overwhelming even to me, but we really just decided to do it, added one thing at a time (only by kid request), and figured it out as we went. Kid A just started driving and I can already tell it's going to be SOOO much easier next fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We stagger telework days and hours, and we only have one kid. He does four things outside school, although two are after school at the school so theoretically only pickup is required that day. Except I am physically involved in half of those activities (coaching, or otherwise volunteering in a hands-on way). And remotely involved in a third (administrative volunteer).

I am exhausted. I think all parents are exhausted.

With all due, stop volunteering so much if you're so exhausted.

I will. If when I send out the email looking for coaches for rec soccer next fall, you step up and volunteer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I see people doing:

au pairs
stagger work days
carpools

I don't think it's true that no one carpools. We carpool for everything. We also carpool with families where my kid doesn't know the other kids or even like them. Oh well. Sit in the back with them anyway.

Maybe we are just not cool enough, but whenever we try to start a carpool there are no takers.

Is it possible everyone lives so spread out that a carpool doesn't really do anything for anyone? If you have to spend an hour going around picking up everyone in the carpool and then it's another 30 minutes to the location and then 30 minutes back and an hour dropping everyone off...or something like that?

I just don't get it. Where we live it isn't about cool or not...we all hate driving to sports practices and so if we can just drive once every 2 weeks (assuming 2 practices per week) we just care that you won't kill our kids, not whether anyone is cool.

Agree has zero to do with cool. I don't want more than 3 people in my carpool or else it gets too cumbersome and everyone should live reasonably close. Otherwise, I don't care who you are and I have carpooled with many people where I've never even met the parents face to face. Most teams/activities put out address info to facilitate carpools (and if they don't, ask them to) and I look at who lives close and then text/email the parents. If people decline, I move on to the next.

Same person again. Also, I've had people "cold contact" me for carpools as well so I'm not the only person doing this.

Anonymous wrote:We stagger telework days and hours, and we only have one kid. He does four things outside school, although two are after school at the school so theoretically only pickup is required that day. Except I am physically involved in half of those activities (coaching, or otherwise volunteering in a hands-on way). And remotely involved in a third (administrative volunteer).

I am exhausted. I think all parents are exhausted.

I forgot to add that like a previous poster, both DH and I are fairly senior in our organizations and have long careers of delivering results. This buys a lot of flexibility.

Also, we’re both the ones who are always there for the inevitable Friday afternoon or holiday weekend crisis. We’ve both been called back from PTO (not at the same time) when stuff blows up. If you are this person, your boss really doesn’t care when you log off 4 pm on a Monday.

Anonymous wrote:We stagger telework days and hours, and we only have one kid. He does four things outside school, although two are after school at the school so theoretically only pickup is required that day. Except I am physically involved in half of those activities (coaching, or otherwise volunteering in a hands-on way). And remotely involved in a third (administrative volunteer).

I am exhausted. I think all parents are exhausted.

With all due, stop volunteering so much if you're so exhausted.

We are lucky that school-based clubs mostly happen during the school day (ie lunch; sometimes after school for an hour), MS school sports practices are 3 days per week right after school, and we let our child do one extracurricular on the weekend. We also set up Fridays as defacto hang out times with MS friends. Sometimes they turn into sleepovers or they may turn into later nights so parents get a breather, either because they need to get their second child to another activity and/or they want to go out to dinner by themselves. We only have one child and live near the school, which makes it much easier than how other parents with multiples living far away from activities seem to be. We are therefore happy to be a backstop if other parents need it. Ask around and see if there are any carpool options or any friends living near school or activities. We always are flexible with parents and will gladly feed kids if it gets to be 6:30pm and their parent is running late. It takes a village!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I see people doing:

au pairs
stagger work days
carpools

I don't think it's true that no one carpools. We carpool for everything. We also carpool with families where my kid doesn't know the other kids or even like them. Oh well. Sit in the back with them anyway.

Maybe we are just not cool enough, but whenever we try to start a carpool there are no takers.

Is it possible everyone lives so spread out that a carpool doesn't really do anything for anyone? If you have to spend an hour going around picking up everyone in the carpool and then it's another 30 minutes to the location and then 30 minutes back and an hour dropping everyone off...or something like that?

I just don't get it. Where we live it isn't about cool or not...we all hate driving to sports practices and so if we can just drive once every 2 weeks (assuming 2 practices per week) we just care that you won't kill our kids, not whether anyone is cool.

Agree has zero to do with cool. I don't want more than 3 people in my carpool or else it gets too cumbersome and everyone should live reasonably close. Otherwise, I don't care who you are and I have carpooled with many people where I've never even met the parents face to face. Most teams/activities put out address info to facilitate carpools (and if they don't, ask them to) and I look at who lives close and then text/email the parents. If people decline, I move on to the next.

I have a tween and work 12s so not every day but spouse works evening shift hours so is never around.
We hired a driving babysitter and use her 8 days a month. My kid played her MS soccer team plus rec team this past spring so she was out 4 times a week just for that. If we didn’t have a driving sitter it would be so much harder.
We gave up on music because it was a fight to get her to practice a few mins every day.

We stagger telework days and hours, and we only have one kid. He does four things outside school, although two are after school at the school so theoretically only pickup is required that day. Except I am physically involved in half of those activities (coaching, or otherwise volunteering in a hands-on way). And remotely involved in a third (administrative volunteer).

I am exhausted. I think all parents are exhausted.

We are two professionals that have on call duties. We sent our kids to in-town boarding school. They played travel sports, had music lessons, we could often catch their school games and they were home every weekend! One of our jobs paid for it all. Kids are grown and flown and tell us they loved it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I see people doing:

au pairs
stagger work days
carpools

I don't think it's true that no one carpools. We carpool for everything. We also carpool with families where my kid doesn't know the other kids or even like them. Oh well. Sit in the back with them anyway.

Maybe we are just not cool enough, but whenever we try to start a carpool there are no takers.

Is it possible everyone lives so spread out that a carpool doesn't really do anything for anyone? If you have to spend an hour going around picking up everyone in the carpool and then it's another 30 minutes to the location and then 30 minutes back and an hour dropping everyone off...or something like that?

I just don't get it. Where we live it isn't about cool or not...we all hate driving to sports practices and so if we can just drive once every 2 weeks (assuming 2 practices per week) we just care that you won't kill our kids, not whether anyone is cool.

Anonymous wrote:What I see people doing:

au pairs
stagger work days
carpools

I don't think it's true that no one carpools. We carpool for everything. We also carpool with families where my kid doesn't know the other kids or even like them. Oh well. Sit in the back with them anyway.

Maybe we are just not cool enough, but whenever we try to start a carpool there are no takers.

What I see people doing:

au pairs
stagger work days
carpools

I don't think it's true that no one carpools. We carpool for everything. We also carpool with families where my kid doesn't know the other kids or even like them. Oh well. Sit in the back with them anyway.

Spouse and I are able to telework on opposite days and have set up carpools.

DH and I stagger our WFH days (I have 3 a week and he has 2). And we do lots of carpools -- it boggles my mind that carpools are "not a thing" where you are...everyone here can't wait to form them the moment an activity sign up is complete.

It's somewhat exhausting, but worth it to us.