First, OP, it's important to find out whether you're doing this for yourself or your DH wants you to. That will determine how much struggle you're willing to put up with, and how much you can put on him.

Second, have a serious talk with him about how it will work logistically. If he's having the fantasy of you walking into a well-paid, low-hours, super-flexible job, then you need to disabuse him of that idea.

Third, start socializing him to the realistic experience that he will have as the DH in a two-career family. Whenever a kid is sick, has an appointment, you need a tradesperson to the house, whatever, ask your DH if he can handle it. Anything he wants for the kids to do, you ask him if he'll be doing some of the driving. Make it a constant thing that he has to think about, because if you get a job it will be a constant thing for him.

Anonymous wrote:This is an honest question-
I am a Foreign Service Officer’s wife and for various reasons we are done with living overseas. I am facing a life back in DC which I am fine with but also starting to look for full time employment (which will be its own huge lift after many years overseas and no semblance of a career but that’s a different thread). I have two children and no family help. For those who have full time jobs, how on earth do you do it? If you work till 6 or whatever, who is making dinner? Who is helping the kids with their homework? Who is shuttling them from activity to activity that I keep reading is so vital for their personal growth and college prep. Do they stay in aftercare, making their days 11 hour days? I am not judging anyone for their choices and I acknowledge I am so fortunate to not have to worry about this till now but I honestly don’t see how it is done. But I know millions of you do it, so please tell me. Husband is helpful but has a demanding job that is not flexible. So sick days and doctor visits and figuring out extracurriculars will be on me, realistically speaking.
I’m starting to panic a bit about how much our life is going to change and how I am going to pull it off with only so many hours in the day.

You need to rethink this attitude. Presumably you have covered this all until now, allowing your husband to establish his reputation, progress his career, and build up a decent leave bank. Now it’s time for him to step up to the plate in pitching in on the home front so that you can do the same. (Signed one half of a tandem FSO couple who covers plenty of kids’ sick days, medical appointments, etc).

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, it's pretty grueling to both work full-time and have young kids. Especially if your DH is "not flexible" (and I bet he loves for you to believe that!). You gotta have some real talk with him-- if you're going to work, he's going to have to assert himself and claim more flexibility at work, as well as pick up a LOT more of the domestic load evenings and weekends. If he's not wanting to do this, then he's going to have to accept living mostly on his income. He can't have the income of a working wife and the convenience of a SAHM at the same time.

Are you wanting a job for your own career plans, or for the money, or does he want you to work and you don't?

Take this heart OP. I’m a working mom so haven’t experienced it first hand, but I have seen some SAH or PT working friends who have tried to ramp up once kids are in school. The dads get dollar signs in their eyes thinking about their wife taking on this new role of bringing home income. But they forget about the part where mom taking on more outside of the house = dad taking on more inside the home. So make very clear that it is not just your life changing, but his as well. It has to be a joint commitment to being a dual income household.

DH and I have been doing the dual income with kids thing for almost a decade now. He does doctors and dentist apartments, sick days, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. I know that if our situation ever did change where I could/wanted to SAH he would fully grasp the load I would take off his plate. I don’t think guys who have always had a SAH spouse appreciate the invisible things that are done for them.

Honestly I would not do anything before having a heart to heart with your husband about the fact you will not continue to do everything for the entire house if you start working again. The time you need to work can come from additional childcare but it’s not going to be all covered and so many people end up resentful of their spouse in that situation. The truth is many people’s jobs are a lot more flexible than they believe. It took me a while to understand that he would say he “couldn’t do” something that actually meant there was a chance it would make someone at works life less convenient or he would “look less committed” to his job. Meanwhile I was walking of meetings scheduled months ago with very important people because someone had get the sick kid who was throwing up at daycare. It’s slightly better now if I had realized I wasn’t going to have support from him I never would’ve agreed to go back to work.

My kids are old enough now and I have stayed in the same role I am overqualified for because everyone knows I will get my sh*t done regardless of what I have come up but I would not necessarily advise my daughter to do the same. It’s a hard but more than that it’s terrible for the marriage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these very thoughtful responses! I feel like I learned so much.
Also more people had nannies with older kids than I realized so maybe that is just an expense we need to budget for. My fear is with my likely low salary (from limited experience and no real career trajectory) may make paying for a nanny moot. We will have to crunch some numbers if/when I get an offer I guess.

How are you affording a nanny and a house in the DMV on one Foreign Service Officer salary?

FSOs can sponsor their nannies they had in developing countries so the nannies get paid a much lower rate than normal U.S. nannies but they have free housing and food and the salary is still good enough for them to send money back home. It is comparable to an au pair situation except it's a full-time employee, can work overtime for overtime pay, no cultural/education component, and there is the continuity of keeping the same nanny the kids already know from their overseas post.

Where did you come up with that free housing and food and a much lower rate than normal? Please show me the law for that. I am unaware that any consulate will approve a visa for a nanny that will not pay the minimum wage required by the state.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these very thoughtful responses! I feel like I learned so much.
Also more people had nannies with older kids than I realized so maybe that is just an expense we need to budget for. My fear is with my likely low salary (from limited experience and no real career trajectory) may make paying for a nanny moot. We will have to crunch some numbers if/when I get an offer I guess.

How are you affording a nanny and a house in the DMV on one Foreign Service Officer salary?

FSOs can sponsor their nannies they had in developing countries so the nannies get paid a much lower rate than normal U.S. nannies but they have free housing and food and the salary is still good enough for them to send money back home. It is comparable to an au pair situation except it's a full-time employee, can work overtime for overtime pay, no cultural/education component, and there is the continuity of keeping the same nanny the kids already know from their overseas post.

Yes, they can. They also have to pay her the minimum wage and benefits and pay for her health insurance. The minimum wage in MD is 16 dollars per hour.

We do it by both having flexible schedules, a lot of work from home flexibility, and both sharing the load. Husband is remote with flexible job and I work from home 2-3 days per week. The biggest thing we did, even pre-covid when we had a LOT less flexibility but both still worked was I adjust my schedule to be earlier in the day. Luckily this works with my job as long as I keep a little bit of an eye on email in case. But I work 7 - 3:30 or 7:30 - 4. This has made a huge difference in not feeling like we are just rushing to and from work, dinner, bed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these very thoughtful responses! I feel like I learned so much.
Also more people had nannies with older kids than I realized so maybe that is just an expense we need to budget for. My fear is with my likely low salary (from limited experience and no real career trajectory) may make paying for a nanny moot. We will have to crunch some numbers if/when I get an offer I guess.

How are you affording a nanny and a house in the DMV on one Foreign Service Officer salary?

FSOs can sponsor their nannies they had in developing countries so the nannies get paid a much lower rate than normal U.S. nannies but they have free housing and food and the salary is still good enough for them to send money back home. It is comparable to an au pair situation except it's a full-time employee, can work overtime for overtime pay, no cultural/education component, and there is the continuity of keeping the same nanny the kids already know from their overseas post.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry one more thing — depending on where you want to be in the DMV, you can also scale up/down the costs. For ex - we have a nanny but we live in an apartment and don’t have a car. Our housing costs are higher because we are in the city but we are metro accesible so don’t have to worry about car, parking, gas. So depending on your lifestyle/where you want to be you can make some choices like that to reduce expenses

NP, this is a good point. Everyone is prioritizing somehow. We are not in DC, but a walkable part of Arlington. We chose a smaller home a couple blocks from the metro, which means we only need 1 car (paid off). We used to have 2 cars so we can really appreciate the savings (car payment, gas, insurance, maintenance, and property taxes really add up). Also a smaller home = lower utilities and upkeep. It’s cheaper to outsource cleaning of 2k sq ft than 6k sq ft. And after living in another state where we had a huge yard, we knew we didn’t want to continue dumping time and money into that again.

As for meals, they are basic. Last night we did quesadillas on the quesadilla maker with a bit of variation based on who wanted chicken, beans veggies. We order pizza at least once every 7-10 days. Sometimes we feed the kids early and do adult take out once they go to bed. Other times we’re packing subs for the pool after camp/work.

We also keep a rotation of sitters to help with the pain points during busy weeks.

No family help, in fact DH has a local parent that we help care for. Don’t recommend adding eldercare into the mix if you can avoid it.

Like nearly all of my friends, I scaled back to a different kind of job that has me home by 4. Between that, aftercare, and my husband working from home a few days a week, it worked. My kids are now almost grown and I don’t know any parents with two full-day, in-office jobs with commutes.

OP, you can bring your nanny back if your husband is doing a DC tour. That's what we did. She lived with us for several years, we paid her min. wage plus room and board, insurance, other benefits. It was a lifesaver and the only way we made it work.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these very thoughtful responses! I feel like I learned so much.
Also more people had nannies with older kids than I realized so maybe that is just an expense we need to budget for. My fear is with my likely low salary (from limited experience and no real career trajectory) may make paying for a nanny moot. We will have to crunch some numbers if/when I get an offer I guess.

This forum skews very wealthy so you’ll hear from people with nannies but many of us in the area don’t. We manage by staggering work schedules, carpooling, babysitters and aftercare.

Outsourcing. Most people have a few of the following, as needed:
After care and camp
Au pair
Full time nanny
Full time or part time housekeeper
Lots of car pools
Gardener and/ or lawn guy
Family manager who makes appointments and meets the repair guy and does camp signups and vacation planning
Meal prepping service
Tutor to help the kids with studying and homework

Look for a remote/hybrid job or a short commute if you have to work in office . That will help tremendously.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for these very thoughtful responses! I feel like I learned so much.
Also more people had nannies with older kids than I realized so maybe that is just an expense we need to budget for. My fear is with my likely low salary (from limited experience and no real career trajectory) may make paying for a nanny moot. We will have to crunch some numbers if/when I get an offer I guess.

OP, when I went back to work full time, the nanny took 100% of my take-home income. We weren’t willing to work with someone who would accept less (We were paying a living wage for our area, but nothing egregious), and we couldn’t afford more. I scaled back my hours, which was only possible because I’m an exemplary employee. When I was working full time, it was a hurricane. I did not have time for hobbies unless I let the house go. My kids are elementary age, so ymmv.