Anonymous wrote:We enrolled our kids in before and afterschool care offered by the school and drove the kids ourselves. It worked because we had the flexibility to drop off early and pick up late.

This is the ideal, but not all schools are offering before and after school care this year due to COVID.

Live-out nanny/housekeeper is your best bet here, OP.

Have you contacted the school for assistance? Maybe you could drive your kids to someone elses house which is closer than the school?

So your DH was spending 3 hours a day doing drop off and pick up during the workday?

Anonymous wrote:We enrolled our kids in before and afterschool care offered by the school and drove the kids ourselves. It worked because we had the flexibility to drop off early and pick up late.

Since OP's kids are in middle school, it's likely there is no before/after care option.

We enrolled our kids in before and afterschool care offered by the school and drove the kids ourselves. It worked because we had the flexibility to drop off early and pick up late.

We did $200 plus expenses for our college babysitter to pick my kid up daily from a week of camp. Involved maybe 20 min Lyft rides around NW DC per day (her place to camp location; camp location to our place; our place to her place). [Note: not a sustainable amount for our household if this were a regular occurrence.]

50 miles is $25 in car expenses/day. You need to pay the person as well.

We do this. They use our car, we pay $25 each drive ($25 for dropoff, another $25 for pickup). It's about an hour and 10 mins rt. We have been doing this for over a year with no issues. We hire a college student who lives in the neighborhood. While all of the criticism from people who don't need to do this and don't know your specific situation is obviously super helpful ( ) you should know from someone who actually does do this that it is very possible to find trustworthy people at a reasonable cost, and it doesn't mean you are an unfit parent.

Move or change jobs. This person driving your kids will get more quality time with them than you do. I can’t imagine doing that to children.

Anonymous wrote:OP here - my kids are in a private middle school with no bus service. I've been unable to find a carpool. We've considered an au pair, nanny, housekeeper -- all of the things you all have mentioned. I thought I would first try the simplest route as I am not too keen on having an au pair with us full time. Sounds like just for the car service it will be a minimum of $75 per day.

The $75/day estimate was for someone who is driving a maximum of 15 minutes each way. For 3 hours of driving per day? Nope, a lot more.

I pay a limo service a $140.00 a day.

I think even beyond the expense, it will be hard to find someone reliable that won't flake on you for this job.
The long break in between "shifts" will be hard to fill with another job.
I agree with another pp to hire someone with full time (or closer to full time) hours where the time in between driving is spent doing light house work, running errands, being home to let in repairmen/delivery men, etc.

OP here - my kids are in a private middle school with no bus service. I've been unable to find a carpool. We've considered an au pair, nanny, housekeeper -- all of the things you all have mentioned. I thought I would first try the simplest route as I am not too keen on having an au pair with us full time. Sounds like just for the car service it will be a minimum of $75 per day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$72 per day is a wild underestimate. No one will do this for $15/hour. You want someone to work, with their own car, from say 7:30-9 am and then again from 3-4:30 pm? The only possible person who might be willing to do this reliably would be a senior citizen neighbor with no one and no activities in their life.

Realistically, you'd be better off hiring a full-time housekeeper/nanny and paying them $25/hour + mileage. And then asking them to do other errands or housekeeping or whatever else you need during the 5 hours they aren't driving to/from school.

IME, rich people like us tend to say this all too reflexively, but it's just not the case.

I hired someone to do this for $15/hr for both of my kids. We provided the car. She drove to our house, picked up the car, then picked up the kids. She also cleaned during the PT hours (we only needed pick up). Started at $15/hr anyway, she did this for several years. That was in 2012. Hard to imagine the rates haven't changed.

Np. You say that but certain professions like restaurant work are getti g more pay. How desperate is op? This is a job for a parent because no one wants to do this job with such awful hours.