Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah good point! Forgot to add I don’t want to do before care. I feel like we’re hardly with our kids the way it is. They are so little and the days are so long. Want to avoid if I can. The Kindergartner could do before care if absolutely necessary. -OP

If you're going to be at work before school starts so you can't drop the kid off, how does not using before care help you spend more time with them?

This. I don't understand.

Anonymous wrote:My parents live with us.

We also have a cleaning woman who comes twice a week. And we have a woman who cooks and does meal prep for us, once a week. I have a person who also picks up our groceries and does outside errands. I also have a lawn/landscaping guy and another person who is my general contractor for any construction and repair work. I pay the first three anywhere from $25-30 an hour. The others are based on projects.

I also pay for some extras like coffee/tes/meals, gas, hand sanitizers, gloves, masks, and flu shots for their entire family as well as holiday bonuses. Finally All of this does not cost me more than $15K per year. Plus my parents are there to keep an eye and this keeps them engaged and healthy, plus they are looked after because they are with us. The savings when you have a good team of staff is amazing and worthwhile.

Are your family from another country because this level of staff and parental help is not typical in the US, even amongst the upper middle class. Cleaning ladies, nannies and yard work yes, but the rest seems excessive.

Anonymous wrote:We kept our nanny. There was no other way for us and so much better than extended care. It’s a financial sacrifice but worth it to have loving and dependable care.

Does your nanny cook, clean, run errands for you while kids are at school?

Single parent here. If you have the money, you pay for before care and after care. It's way cheaper than a nanny, and as others have said, if you're not available to take them, what is the 'together time' that is being missed? I only needed 10 minutes in the AM, so I paid for the slot. On the rare morning meeting I dropped him off extra early. After care I needed more because you never know when traffic will hit or a meeting.

My parents live with us.

We also have a cleaning woman who comes twice a week. And we have a woman who cooks and does meal prep for us, once a week. I have a person who also picks up our groceries and does outside errands. I also have a lawn/landscaping guy and another person who is my general contractor for any construction and repair work. I pay the first three anywhere from $25-30 an hour. The others are based on projects.

I also pay for some extras like coffee/tes/meals, gas, hand sanitizers, gloves, masks, and flu shots for their entire family as well as holiday bonuses. Finally All of this does not cost me more than $15K per year. Plus my parents are there to keep an eye and this keeps them engaged and healthy, plus they are looked after because they are with us. The savings when you have a good team of staff is amazing and worthwhile.

Mornings were impossible for us so I found a recently retired woman to work from 7:30-10:30. She loves the extra money and has most of her day free.

Nanny or auoair

We did pick-up/drop-off pool with a second family, which helped.

They picked up the elementary school kid in the morning and took her to school, and we brought both kids home.

We did it by using before and after care. We are also an elementary school that is 9:20 to 4:05, so I completely understand the late start. DH and I are feds and we stopped doing any kind of alternate schedule in order to reduce our work day as much as possible. The commute is long, unfortunately. I would start work at 6:45am and DH was responsible for getting them to before care. Then I'd be able to come home at a reasonable time and not have them in after care for too long.

I will say that when they were young, they loved SACC at our FCPS school and would ask to stay longer when I'd come to pick them up. Then a combination of them getting older plus losing good staff made them hate SACC and not want to go. I eventually started working from home almost full time so we pulled them. But, while their particular SACC was good, it was a wonderful resource.

Now I have one at 9:20am and a middle schooler at 7:30am and once all FCPS kids are back in (ha!), the disparity in schedules will get worse. The 5th grader will be 10:05 to 4:50pm and the 7th grader will be 7:15am to 2pm. Ugh.

DH and I do it (did it—now we’re all together all the time) by flexing our schedules so that I left for work at 6:30 and he left at around 10. He could have done earlier (kids’ schools started at 8:45) but the culture at his work is in late/leave late, so it worked.

Anonymous wrote:Ah good point! Forgot to add I don’t want to do before care. I feel like we’re hardly with our kids the way it is. They are so little and the days are so long. Want to avoid if I can. The Kindergartner could do before care if absolutely necessary. -OP

Im confused by what you are asking. You want to work FT but don't want to do before care?
What suggestions are you looking for then.

Spouse and I do shift work which is how we manage. So although that doesnt work for everyone, that's what we do....which is how we make it work, which is what you asked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:20 is seriously late. Is that when K starts? Ours is 9-2:30 which I think is ridiculous. 9:20 is even worse. I wish to god school times were at least 8 hours. I get that kids don’t need longer academic days, make the last hours PE or recess. Just stop the burden on working parents

To answer your question, I live 2 miles from work. Dh and I trade off drop off and pickup. Pre pandemic I could telework one day a week so Dh worked long hours on that day. Currently I telework full and telework until late at night most days. I work 11 hours a day and don’t mind picking up my kids. My boss only cares about my work and I put in way more hours than necessary.

Let's just make the workday shorter. 8 hours is a long time for kids.

I live in FCPS (not right next to the school) and if the kids take the bus, the day is pretty darn close to 8 hours already. At the bus stop at 8:50, dropped off at 4:20 ish. I WFH 37 hrs a week and don't need before and aftercare with these hours.

Super cushy job. I have full flex and full WFH, etc. I had been at the company for quite a while before kids and was able to keep a good salary/bonus structure.

DH also has some goo flexibility but will have to travel more post-covid (he's in sales).

My husband works from 6 AM - 2:30 PM (He's a Fed). Does chores/starts dinner prep when he gets home. He picks up the kids.
I work from home. I get up with my husband around 5 and start work before the kids wake up. Then I work from drop-off until 4:30 or 5. Kindergartener is doing school from daycare, but when he finally goes in person the plan is that my husband deals with him until my work day is "done".
Luckily we both have jobs that are fine with us doing just 8 hours a day. Otherwise we'd have to work nights to make this work.

We had a nanny, there was no other way we could make it work. Also, we needed the nanny for sick days, school closing, early release etc.