Anonymous wrote:I wish I could have kept working, but this thread is one of the reasons why I SAH. If both parents have demanding jobs and can't be there for the kids, they have to hire a lot of help - but kids don't want hired help, they want their parents.
One of you has to become the default parent whether you really want to or not. If both of you can't be flexible, one of you needs to be.

Anonymous wrote:
Posters here are crazy - OP is saying she works long hours and has difficulty accommodating frivolous requests for last-minutes changes in schedule.

You're all raising spoiled brats if you think OP should bend over backwards to fulfill all these capricious whims.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I feel your pain. Attorney here and widower with two kids.

I feel pulled in so many directions between working (I work in-house, thankfully) and getting my two kids places. I've thrown money at the problem (afternoon sitter/driver), but there are still times they need me to be there and I have to figure out how to divide myself between kid 1's sport, kid's 2 recital, and my job. Oh, and then deal with the boring stuff that it takes to run a house hold. I've been doing this alone for 10 years and despite people saying that things will get easier, it doesn't. It's just a different kind of difficult.

It's hard, OP. I feel for you.

I'm sorry PP. It's got to be hard going it alone.

I do think it's interesting in the OP bashing no one noticed that single parents are forced to deal with this all.the.time. It's a part of life. We can't be everywhere and everything at every moment possible.

I think that most people are rational enough to appreciate the difference between a single parent who has to work more to support their family and simply cannot be in more than one place, and a two-income household where people are choosing to work harder than they need to at the expense of their family. That said, if PP were a single mom by choice with no dad in the picture, I suspect that would have gotten more snark than a sympathetic widower (no disrespect intended, PP, I was raised by a single parent so I've seen how hard it is to juggle everything). Also, I've found that single parents tend to be more likely to acknowledge they can't do everything and find a support network to help like a nanny/sitter, reaching out to other parents for carpools, etc. I see the kind of hand-wringing refusal to do that more from two-income families who are typically in a better financial position to do so but seem to insist on figuring out how to do it themselves.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you choose careers that make it difficult to be involved in your kids lives and have a detrimental effect on them...and you have the money to have options, hire someone who can be involved and present for your kids.

They need a stable, reliable person in their lives. Hire an evening nanny who meets them at the end of the day and does all the things a parent would, if they had a parent who was involved. Make them dinner or take them out, help with homework and extracurriculars, and do the on the spot parenting they need.

Then you can focus on your career without interruptions from your kids and they can have someone who is there for them and invested in them.

This is spot-on.

Anonymous wrote:if you choose careers that make it difficult to be involved in your kids lives and have a detrimental effect on them...and you have the money to have options, hire someone who can be involved and present for your kids.

They need a stable, reliable person in their lives. Hire an evening nanny who meets them at the end of the day and does all the things a parent would, if they had a parent who was involved. Make them dinner or take them out, help with homework and extracurriculars, and do the on the spot parenting they need.

Then you can focus on your career without interruptions from your kids and they can have someone who is there for them and invested in them.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:SAH moms get bashed on DCUM all the time for being lazy, unmotivated, or worse. The reality is often much different.

Imagine that you met your spouse in grad school when you were both young and ambitious. You fell in love, got married, and decided to take the next step and have a family after a few years on the job. Baby arrives and Mom is instantly Mommy-tracked by her bosses. Dad's career takes off and he feels pressure to work more. Travels more, takes on more responsibility at work, and income continues to rise. Moms career gets stalled because she can't travel as much or work til 10 pm. Baby #2 arrives and Mom SAH because she makes a fraction of spouse and DH is working all the time. Add in taking care of aging parents. Life happens, and not always as we planned.

Allowing this model to continue is terrible for both the future of our sons and daughters.

Men need to raise their kids and stop using work as an excuse.

I think that's easy to say, but sometimes harder to put into practice. My situation pretty closely tracked what PP laid out, except that I was the big law associate who was very openly being groomed to make partner in a couple of years while my husband was struggling to find a place professionally. After baby #1, I was very explicitly mommy tracked no matter how hard I worked, while DH finally found a firm that looked promising. We were killing ourselves working, he started making headway while I continued to stall, and when baby #2 was on the way I looked at our lives and realized it wasn't worth killing myself for something that wasn't going to happen and that it would be better for everyone if I gave up, stayed home with the kids and supported DH's career instead. I don't think that's a decision I ever would have made if my career had continued on its pre-baby trajectory, it was directly the result of pretty blatant discrimination at work. Sure, we could have decided that DH would be the one to step back and I'd keep beating my head against a brick wall in the name of gender equality, but neither of us would have been all that happy.

It's not about gender equality at work, it's about your children having 2 parents at home.

You chose 1 huge income instead of 2 reasonable incomes that accommodate your children having 2 parents.

Again, things that are easy to say from the cheap seats. We got into those careers before kids were even an idea for us, and we didn't have a realistic understanding of what it would take to balance those careers and kids at the time. By the time reality hit us, we were in the thick of it and basically took the clearest route to sanity, which was for me to quit and DH to keep working. Trying to figure out two simultaneous career changes (that probably would have required a lot of extra work time on their own to make the transition) when no one was sleeping enough and we were stressed to the hilt just wasn't happening. Or smart.

Since then I've gone back to work, I run my own business from our home that lets me control my own schedule and be available to my kids when they're not in school (but I still don't do 7 pm Target runs). Now that he is a mid-level partner, DH has been able to reclaim some control over his professional schedule and has made adjustments so that he gets meaningful time with our kids every day. He puts the scout meetings and soccer games in his calendar and schedules work around them as best he can so he's there most of the time (and when he can't, I make sure I'm there). We have 1 big income, one significantly smaller income, and kids who know they can count on us because we've made it a priority and structured our lives around making sure they don't get the short end of our choices.

Your choices were exactly that choices. Your H chose to miss a huge chunk of his kids life for money, it was a choice nothing that was put upon you. I am glad he is finally engaging in his kids life, kids should have 2 parents when there are actually 2 parents.

You can color code it any way you want but you children missed out on a bond with their father for parts of their life. Nice to see he is making up for it.

You are reading a lot into my posts that isn't there. My DH has always been engaged, and they didn't miss out on a bond with their father for parts of their life. Even during the periods when he had less control over his schedule and less time at home during the week, I viewed part of my responsibility as SAHM as getting all of the household work and errands out of the way during the week so that when he was home with us, we were all present as a family and not distracted by yard maintenance or trips to Target. Through this whole discussion, I've never said that OP's kids weren't bonded to her and their dad, that's a separate issue from whether the kids have an adult who's present and engaged at any point during the week. We don't always get it right (no parent does), but we make a conscious effort to pay attention to what's happening in our household and to make changes when we realize things are off balance.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am a SAHM of school going kids. I think no parent or any caregiver should feel guilty about turning down a last minute request to run to the store for project supplies at night.

Usually ample time is given by teachers to complete a project and students should learn not to procrastinate as well as plan better. Weekend is completely appropriate time to shop for supplies. One can also shop at Amazon and order project supplies and can get it in 2 days. I buy extra supplies during back to school sales and usually have extra supplies of commonly used supplies.

I suspect that your child needs more attention and time from you and the things that she is complaining about is not really the crux of the problem. Your lack of time with her is. She is missing you.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:SAH moms get bashed on DCUM all the time for being lazy, unmotivated, or worse. The reality is often much different.

Imagine that you met your spouse in grad school when you were both young and ambitious. You fell in love, got married, and decided to take the next step and have a family after a few years on the job. Baby arrives and Mom is instantly Mommy-tracked by her bosses. Dad's career takes off and he feels pressure to work more. Travels more, takes on more responsibility at work, and income continues to rise. Moms career gets stalled because she can't travel as much or work til 10 pm. Baby #2 arrives and Mom SAH because she makes a fraction of spouse and DH is working all the time. Add in taking care of aging parents. Life happens, and not always as we planned.

Allowing this model to continue is terrible for both the future of our sons and daughters.

Men need to raise their kids and stop using work as an excuse.

I think that's easy to say, but sometimes harder to put into practice. My situation pretty closely tracked what PP laid out, except that I was the big law associate who was very openly being groomed to make partner in a couple of years while my husband was struggling to find a place professionally. After baby #1, I was very explicitly mommy tracked no matter how hard I worked, while DH finally found a firm that looked promising. We were killing ourselves working, he started making headway while I continued to stall, and when baby #2 was on the way I looked at our lives and realized it wasn't worth killing myself for something that wasn't going to happen and that it would be better for everyone if I gave up, stayed home with the kids and supported DH's career instead. I don't think that's a decision I ever would have made if my career had continued on its pre-baby trajectory, it was directly the result of pretty blatant discrimination at work. Sure, we could have decided that DH would be the one to step back and I'd keep beating my head against a brick wall in the name of gender equality, but neither of us would have been all that happy.

It's not about gender equality at work, it's about your children having 2 parents at home.

You chose 1 huge income instead of 2 reasonable incomes that accommodate your children having 2 parents.

Again, things that are easy to say from the cheap seats. We got into those careers before kids were even an idea for us, and we didn't have a realistic understanding of what it would take to balance those careers and kids at the time. By the time reality hit us, we were in the thick of it and basically took the clearest route to sanity, which was for me to quit and DH to keep working. Trying to figure out two simultaneous career changes (that probably would have required a lot of extra work time on their own to make the transition) when no one was sleeping enough and we were stressed to the hilt just wasn't happening. Or smart.

Since then I've gone back to work, I run my own business from our home that lets me control my own schedule and be available to my kids when they're not in school (but I still don't do 7 pm Target runs). Now that he is a mid-level partner, DH has been able to reclaim some control over his professional schedule and has made adjustments so that he gets meaningful time with our kids every day. He puts the scout meetings and soccer games in his calendar and schedules work around them as best he can so he's there most of the time (and when he can't, I make sure I'm there). We have 1 big income, one significantly smaller income, and kids who know they can count on us because we've made it a priority and structured our lives around making sure they don't get the short end of our choices.

Your choices were exactly that choices. Your H chose to miss a huge chunk of his kids life for money, it was a choice nothing that was put upon you. I am glad he is finally engaging in his kids life, kids should have 2 parents when there are actually 2 parents.

You can color code it any way you want but you children missed out on a bond with their father for parts of their life. Nice to see he is making up for it.

Anonymous wrote:OP, lots of attorneys are on this board. My spouse and I are both lawyers that work full time at firms. We have a nanny and we generally make it work. I do get really aggravated by the "Oh, you need to go out tonight to get supplies for X that is due tomorrow." That is not what I want to be doing at 10 pm at night after the kids goes to bed (and is not always even possible, depending on what you need).

If OP is not a troll and is real, I do wonder why he or she can't do the late night work at home. That's what we do -- take it home and use your firm's VPN to work remotely. You're not really having in-the-office meetings at 11 p.m on a regular basis, are you?

Is part of the issue that you take the only car to work? If so, that seems ridiculous. We use bus/metro to get into work, and our nanny has the car to do those pickups and drop offs.

But the larger lesson may be that a it is not uncommon for a 12 year old girl to have unreasonable expectations. And expecting you to drop everything and run out to do some last minute errand for her is probably unreasonable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- I didn't disappear, I was getting school stuff ready for my youngest. I really try not to say no, and if my husband can take her he will, but he does travel(attorney as well) several times a month, and when he is gone, it's hard for me to load everyone in the car at 7pm to take her target. I truly try and spend as much one-on-one time with her as I can, I already have my youngest in daycare until 6:30 just so I can take her to her dance lessons. I am stretched thin and she flips out when I tell her no and starts going on and on how she never gets to do anything.

What made you decide to have three kids?
Neither one of you scaled back?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:SAH moms get bashed on DCUM all the time for being lazy, unmotivated, or worse. The reality is often much different.

Imagine that you met your spouse in grad school when you were both young and ambitious. You fell in love, got married, and decided to take the next step and have a family after a few years on the job. Baby arrives and Mom is instantly Mommy-tracked by her bosses. Dad's career takes off and he feels pressure to work more. Travels more, takes on more responsibility at work, and income continues to rise. Moms career gets stalled because she can't travel as much or work til 10 pm. Baby #2 arrives and Mom SAH because she makes a fraction of spouse and DH is working all the time. Add in taking care of aging parents. Life happens, and not always as we planned.

Allowing this model to continue is terrible for both the future of our sons and daughters.

Men need to raise their kids and stop using work as an excuse.

I think that's easy to say, but sometimes harder to put into practice. My situation pretty closely tracked what PP laid out, except that I was the big law associate who was very openly being groomed to make partner in a couple of years while my husband was struggling to find a place professionally. After baby #1, I was very explicitly mommy tracked no matter how hard I worked, while DH finally found a firm that looked promising. We were killing ourselves working, he started making headway while I continued to stall, and when baby #2 was on the way I looked at our lives and realized it wasn't worth killing myself for something that wasn't going to happen and that it would be better for everyone if I gave up, stayed home with the kids and supported DH's career instead. I don't think that's a decision I ever would have made if my career had continued on its pre-baby trajectory, it was directly the result of pretty blatant discrimination at work. Sure, we could have decided that DH would be the one to step back and I'd keep beating my head against a brick wall in the name of gender equality, but neither of us would have been all that happy.

It's not about gender equality at work, it's about your children having 2 parents at home.

You chose 1 huge income instead of 2 reasonable incomes that accommodate your children having 2 parents.

Again, things that are easy to say from the cheap seats. We got into those careers before kids were even an idea for us, and we didn't have a realistic understanding of what it would take to balance those careers and kids at the time. By the time reality hit us, we were in the thick of it and basically took the clearest route to sanity, which was for me to quit and DH to keep working. Trying to figure out two simultaneous career changes (that probably would have required a lot of extra work time on their own to make the transition) when no one was sleeping enough and we were stressed to the hilt just wasn't happening. Or smart.

Since then I've gone back to work, I run my own business from our home that lets me control my own schedule and be available to my kids when they're not in school (but I still don't do 7 pm Target runs). Now that he is a mid-level partner, DH has been able to reclaim some control over his professional schedule and has made adjustments so that he gets meaningful time with our kids every day. He puts the scout meetings and soccer games in his calendar and schedules work around them as best he can so he's there most of the time (and when he can't, I make sure I'm there). We have 1 big income, one significantly smaller income, and kids who know they can count on us because we've made it a priority and structured our lives around making sure they don't get the short end of our choices.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids want to feel loved, it is that simple. Think about how many wives are posting(yes, it is almost always women posting here) about DH working too much, spending too much with ILS, never being there for them, and a 12 year old is supposed to be all rational and understand that mom can't spend some time with her, when many grown ups feel resentful in the same situation? And yes, 12 year old will be disorganized and forget to pan a week ahead, that is how most teens are. OP, your DD wants you, she wants to spend time with you, and all the rest is just her lashing out in the only way she knows.

Nobody wants a 12 yo to plan a week ahead. But 4 hours would be nice. Not expecting her to think, hey I need to make a plan and not drop stuff on my mom's lap is raising a good kid instead of a brat. Even if I can just drop everything to take my kids somewhere, I expect them to think about it, and take timing/location/etc into consideration.

The problem is that teaching this to your 12 yo takes parenting time/effort, which is something OP and her husband aren't prioritizing.

To me it looks like the SAH moms are not doing it either they just jump.

It takes no time to say, I need 2 hours notice. It's not that the OP is not present it's that she is not willing to get in the car and drive around for an hour or so for a poster.

Take your SAHM bashing elsewhere, it's irrelevant to the this thread. Even if your statement were true (which it isn't as a sweeping statement), it doesn't change the fact that even if OP's kids gave her two hours notice, or even two days notice, it wouldn't matter because the answer they expect to get from their parents is "No, I have to work." This problem most likely could be largely solved by OP and her husband committing to at least one night a week where one of them was home and focused on the kids, rather than home but working with the kids in the background. Then the kids would know they could count on their parents, and could learn to plan their requests around their parents' availability. You can't plan around something that doesn't exist, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAH moms get bashed on DCUM all the time for being lazy, unmotivated, or worse. The reality is often much different.

Imagine that you met your spouse in grad school when you were both young and ambitious. You fell in love, got married, and decided to take the next step and have a family after a few years on the job. Baby arrives and Mom is instantly Mommy-tracked by her bosses. Dad's career takes off and he feels pressure to work more. Travels more, takes on more responsibility at work, and income continues to rise. Moms career gets stalled because she can't travel as much or work til 10 pm. Baby #2 arrives and Mom SAH because she makes a fraction of spouse and DH is working all the time. Add in taking care of aging parents. Life happens, and not always as we planned.

Allowing this model to continue is terrible for both the future of our sons and daughters.

Men need to raise their kids and stop using work as an excuse.

I think that's easy to say, but sometimes harder to put into practice. My situation pretty closely tracked what PP laid out, except that I was the big law associate who was very openly being groomed to make partner in a couple of years while my husband was struggling to find a place professionally. After baby #1, I was very explicitly mommy tracked no matter how hard I worked, while DH finally found a firm that looked promising. We were killing ourselves working, he started making headway while I continued to stall, and when baby #2 was on the way I looked at our lives and realized it wasn't worth killing myself for something that wasn't going to happen and that it would be better for everyone if I gave up, stayed home with the kids and supported DH's career instead. I don't think that's a decision I ever would have made if my career had continued on its pre-baby trajectory, it was directly the result of pretty blatant discrimination at work. Sure, we could have decided that DH would be the one to step back and I'd keep beating my head against a brick wall in the name of gender equality, but neither of us would have been all that happy.

It's not about gender equality at work, it's about your children having 2 parents at home.

You chose 1 huge income instead of 2 reasonable incomes that accommodate your children having 2 parents.