Is the CEO of your fortune 500 your mentor? I am sure she outsources a lot. Probably outsources sex.

What is "concierge service" at a physician's office? Is there actually a price you can pay to be a VIP? With preferential treatment?

All the other outsourcing - do what works for you!

But if "concierge service" means paying a special fee so that you can oust some other sick person from having a prime appointment slot, that's not cool. Not blaming you, OP, but I am blaming the physician who set this up. And I sure hope I'm wrong.

Anonymous wrote:When we were kids, my parents had a housekeeper. She came in every day and did some cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping for groceries, other errands, and watched us after school. We carpooled to our activities. My mom did come to our dr. appts. and to the occasional school function. My father never did any of that stuff. I'm not sure how much she made exactly but I would imagine you could get someone to do that now for about 45-50k.

Yes no biggie, most of us have enough money to hire a person for 50k / year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this works well if you are rich

+1

ITA you are missing out on life by not doing many of these things with your DC.

Do you churn your own butter? Make your own soap? Weave your own cloth? Crush your own grapes for wine? No? Then, boy, your kids are really missing out on life.

We all outsource to some degree. Doesn't mean if you hire a housecleaner that you never clean your home. If you get takeout now and then, doesn't necessarily mean you never cook.

Totally 100% with this. What I tell myself is that there are only 24 hours in a day. My goal is to spend them in the best way possible.

So I agree entirely with OPs mentor. Why be mowing the lawn when you could be building block towers with your preschooler? Why make homemade jam if that's not my thing when the local farmers make amazing stuff with love that is great? Etsy is my friend -- I am not crafty but DS has had amazing Halloween costumes that make him feel special thanks to my wielding my credit cards.

And cleaning bathrooms? No way that competes with visiting a museum as a family.

To the PPs who are worried their kids won't learn how to do these things, you are thinking narrowly. I do cook and DS loves to help (I agree with a PP that I can't figure out how to eat as well and nutritiously if I don't do a little, but that will change if things get any crazier). But more importantly I grew up this way and I learned how to do laundry, iron, clean and other things from my live in nanny and housekeeper. We also do do some laundry sometimes and there is no reason he can't learn from those experiences.

As I said, the question you have to ask yourself is at each moment what is most valuable. Just have a kneejerk reaction that outsourcing is bad means that you are cutting out something else you could be doing. Sometimes that might be right, but sometimes it's really limiting, too. If you have the financial ability to, you should make every moment the best it can be for both you and your family. I realize that's not a possibility for everyone, but it doesn't make you a bad person.

I feel so much more relaxed in a clean house but really struggle to keep it up on my own with two kids and work. The money spent on a cleaning crew is so worth it.

As much as I can afford without guilt. Unfortunately I'm too cheap so it's not a lot. For example our house is not clean. I really should reinstate the monthly $100 cleaning. Sigh. But with a $140k pretax dual income with no house, I feel so guilty paying $100 for 3 hours of one person labor.

We have a house cleaning service 2x a month - time and marriage saver! And of course, our kids are in school/ daycare full-time as we both WOH. We also eat a lot of carry-out.

We also do a fair amount of cleaning together - sweeping, laundry, wiping down surfaces - so our kids learn about these things too. I never cleaned toilets growing up but I did once I got my own apartment. So there are plenty of opportunities to learn about the value of cleaning later in life, not just during childhood.

We also have a small vegetable garden so it's not like our kids don't realize that all food does not come in sytrofoam containers.

I outsource everything I can afford to and would do more if I could.

I say the exact same thing to people who ask and agree that if I reasonably can pay someone to do something, I hire them. I think every working mother should have a cleaning lady. It doesn't cost that much money and it's the most important thing I spend my money on, in my opinion, because it buys me time with my kids instead of scrubbing toilets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this works well if you are rich

+1

ITA you are missing out on life by not doing many of these things with your DC.

You're missing out that it isn't an all or nothing things for most of us. We cook together, we do some cleaning together, we grocery shop/run errands together, etc. But deep cleaning we outsource and lawn/pool care we outsource. Saves us a ton of time and we can do other things together as a family. Well I guess we outsource some of childcare too since DS is in daycare 3 days a week.

When we were kids, my parents had a housekeeper. She came in every day and did some cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping for groceries, other errands, and watched us after school. We carpooled to our activities. My mom did come to our dr. appts. and to the occasional school function. My father never did any of that stuff. I'm not sure how much she made exactly but I would imagine you could get someone to do that now for about 45-50k.

Anonymous wrote:this works well if you are rich

+1

ITA you are missing out on life by not doing many of these things with your DC.

this works well if you are rich

I have one child and I absolutely throw money at things. We have a weekly housekeeper and a part-time sitter who helps with laundry. I order lots of stuff online. I am a good cook, but don't have the time or energy to cook every night - so we eat some carryout. Our yard is small, so DH can generally manage to get it done on weekends. I would much rather pay someone to do things that I can outsource than have to do it myself and feel like I get less and less time with DS or that all of my spare time is spent doing chores I loathe.