Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amy Coney Barrett and her husband both work with 7 kids.

Didn't they have a family member living with them to help with the kids? Someone like that can make a huge difference. It's basically a SAHP who's not actually a parent.

They had family members, church members and hired help. Those kids didn't get much attention from their parents and they are show pieces.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have three with lots of (hired) help. My job has always been somewhat flexible, my husband's has varied but is currently extremely flexible - pre covid though, he was either home and extremely flexible or traveling, so we still needed help. My husband is also a great parent and can handle everything with the kids, I wouldn't suggest having three plus if your partner can't pull their weight.

This is the best piece of advice I have read on this thread: “I wouldn't suggest having three plus if your partner can't pull their weight.“

“We have three and both parents have demanding careers. My husband and I are true equals at home and with the kids — no default parent here. I see so many of my friends who have husband’s who are useless! That might work with 1/2, but not more than that. Ours are still young (oldest 6 and youngest 18 months). We have lots of hired help too — no family in the area. It works for us, but it’s exhausting and I do worry that we should have stopped at 2 due to just lack of time in the day!

I would take it one kid at a time. No need to plan it all out.

You may be true equals but with all that help, how much is the help doing vs. you?

As a doctor and lawyer, how much time can you devote to the kids. 1-2 max or if you are going to hire help, as many as you want but parents should raise their kids, not the help.

One, if you plan to do it all on your own. Two or more only if you have local family in the area or are able to afford a nanny.

Anonymous wrote:We have three with lots of (hired) help. My job has always been somewhat flexible, my husband's has varied but is currently extremely flexible - pre covid though, he was either home and extremely flexible or traveling, so we still needed help. My husband is also a great parent and can handle everything with the kids, I wouldn't suggest having three plus if your partner can't pull their weight.

This is the best piece of advice I have read on this thread: “I wouldn't suggest having three plus if your partner can't pull their weight.“

“We have three and both parents have demanding careers. My husband and I are true equals at home and with the kids — no default parent here. I see so many of my friends who have husband’s who are useless! That might work with 1/2, but not more than that. Ours are still young (oldest 6 and youngest 18 months). We have lots of hired help too — no family in the area. It works for us, but it’s exhausting and I do worry that we should have stopped at 2 due to just lack of time in the day!

I would take it one kid at a time. No need to plan it all out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amy Coney Barrett and her husband both work with 7 kids.

Didn't they have a family member living with them to help with the kids? Someone like that can make a huge difference. It's basically a SAHP who's not actually a parent.

I actually hate examples like her. She always talks with pride about balancing kids and a career but it’s all a lie. They have an aunt come daily to “help” with the kids. It sounds more like the aunt functions as a SAHM for Amy abd her husband. I’ve seen this work with live-in grandparents too.

People like Amy are basically relying on another person’s unpaid labor and further undervaluing that labor by pretending they can do it all.

Yup.

And it particularly annoys me when you point out that having family support like this obviously helps make it all work, and people will dismiss it out of hand, like "Oh, we don't rely on my mom that much, just a couple afternoons a week and when we have date nights." Which, one, is a TON of help (equivalent to several hundred dollars worth of childcare per week)l. And two, it's never just that. It's also having someone who can spend the night with the kids in an emergency. It's having a childcare option for whom you never have to worry about a background check or whether your kid is going to freak out about them. It's having wiggle room in everything from school drop off to having someone around to watch your older kid when you go into labor to having someone to call if someone is running a fever and you are debating the ER. People dismiss this kind of help as minimal because it makes them feel good about themselves. But for those of us who don't have it, it's like a cheat code. Sure, we're both "working parents" but our circumstances are not really even comparable. It's like pretending you and someone who makes half your salary are in roughly equivalent economic situations. You're not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amy Coney Barrett and her husband both work with 7 kids.

Didn't they have a family member living with them to help with the kids? Someone like that can make a huge difference. It's basically a SAHP who's not actually a parent.

I actually hate examples like her. She always talks with pride about balancing kids and a career but it’s all a lie. They have an aunt come daily to “help” with the kids. It sounds more like the aunt functions as a SAHM for Amy abd her husband. I’ve seen this work with live-in grandparents too.

People like Amy are basically relying on another person’s unpaid labor and further undervaluing that labor by pretending they can do it all.

Agree two is your sweet spot. On thing I would think HARD about is on work flexibility. Do you both have it? This is key if you want to keep one of you from becoming a SAHP.

If one of you has a very demanding job with little flexibility, and the other has flexibility, there will be a lot of pressure on the flexible parent. Depending on the job and the personality, this might be okay, but it is a lot to be the primary parent and hold down a full time job. Especially if the spouse is never around due to long hours, demanding clients, work travel, or all of the above. Even with a nanny (the nanny will need to be managed as well) and other help. Maybe a very supportive family member could make it work, but this is rare.

Meanwhile, if you both have very demanding jobs, you may be constantly at war with each other. Nanny can accommodate the day to day, but what about all the one off stuff? The violently ill kid? The last minute work trip? The death in the family? This stuff comes up all the time, especially once you both hit 40 and your careers are in a specific place and your life is in a specific place. The pressure for one of you to scale back will be intense unless, again, you have a close family member who can offer intense support. Again, rare.

And finally, how do you each feel about your jobs? Do you love them? Because the more kids you have, the more stressed you'll be. And while being a SAHP has some very well-known drawbacks, it can start to look very appealing if you hate your job, you miss your kids, and your spouse makes enough money for you to technically live on.

Anyway, I would be prepared for some middle ground options. For instance, I took a year off for maternity leave, and then worked part time for three years, and then went to full time. My career took a knock, as did our finances, but it got us to the place we wanted to be. We originally both wanted to work straight through (and have a second kid). The reality of parenthood changed things. No regrets, but it's not easy.

Anonymous wrote:If you have two, have them pretty close together so they are at similar stages in terms of school, napping, activities, etc. and get a nanny if you can- more flexible than daycare.

Eh. We had one, and didn’t have our second until 6 years later. Double biglaw. This worked much better for us. Our first is now 8 and more independent, which is good since our 2 year old is, you know, a two year old. I think if we’d tried to have two toddlers at once we would either be divorced or I would have quit.

Two with a nanny and very flexible schedules.

We have three with lots of (hired) help. My job has always been somewhat flexible, my husband's has varied but is currently extremely flexible - pre covid though, he was either home and extremely flexible or traveling, so we still needed help. My husband is also a great parent and can handle everything with the kids, I wouldn't suggest having three plus if your partner can't pull their weight.

DH and I have six kid and both work full time. But we work from home.

I think you can’t plan like this. You may have the desire of having many kids, but may find yourself not able to cope with more than 1. I don’t know anyone that was sure about the exact number before even starting. My DH thought he wanted 1, I thought I wanted 2 and now we have 3 (and we are done). We both work, husband (used to) travels quite a bit. I work from home mostly with a very flexible job. We have a live in nanny and a cleaning lady once a week. We never work on weekends and spend plants of time with the kids (though there is always the guilt on my part that I could spend more time with them). I am teaching (or helping through DL) 2 of the kids every day now. I spend 1-2 hours with them at night and 1 in the morning before school start. We also never spend time away from them during the weekends or holidays, but sometimes it still feels like they need more (and they say so often “mom I want to spend more days just with you”).

3 kids is a a lot of successes, failures, flaws and talents. I want to be able to help and cheer all 3 and that is a lot of work (even with all the help I have).
So... you may not like being a mom or like me you will feel like you need to do more all the time. I love my 3 kids, but personally I feel I would be happier and feel less guilt if I had stopped at 2.

Anonymous wrote:We're stopping after 2 with no family help but lots of other help, and flexible schedules so we get "face time" in.

This was me. I also advise to never plan on having family members help. Parents burn out, parents die, friends move away—all this happened to me in the lead up to having kids. We were a solo operation but we knew that from day one. I’m really glad we didn’t revolve any decisions around help from family members. I also advise serious outsourcing of every possible household chore.

If you have two, have them pretty close together so they are at similar stages in terms of school, napping, activities, etc. and get a nanny if you can- more flexible than daycare.