To ask how many kids you have, their age, and how many hours you work a week?

Oh and I'm much more of a freezer food mum than I thought I'd be

I have a 4yo (not yet in school) and a 7yo and I work about 30 hours a week self employed. I feel run ragged but don't earn enough so when DC2 is in school in September I'm definitely going to ramp it up to 36 hours min.

Full time (37 hours).
Two DC, aged 2 and 5.

DC are 10 and 7 and both DH and I work FT (35h for me). I'm mostly at home (1 day in the office) and can work flexibly to pick up at 3.30pm on Fridays. DH is hybrid, but tends to be in the office 3-4 days per week.

Previously we've had other work patterns and I would say how busy it is overall depends on age and stage of kids, whether you have to commute and how busy your job is generally.

The busiest thing for me at the moment is the evenings where we have activities - it's a rush to get them from ASC, feed dinner and get to activities for 6pm.

Career wise 4 or 5 days doesn't make a big difference for me. Main thing really is if I want to apply for a new job, it's helpful to be willing to work FT.

In terms of meals, our mid week ones are mostly quick: stir fry, quesadillas, fajitas, jacket potato with batch-cooked chilli, pasta etc.

I have three school age children and work 34 hours over 4 days from home. Would never go back to 5 days now to be honest!

I have four kids and work full time, though mostly at home now. I have been full time all through, bar maternity leave.

At times I have had 2 hour commute to work (each way) and had to start very early (DH dropping off at nursery/childminder) and leave work early, and the kids were in childcare from opening to closing. Covid transformed that, and now I can wfh a lot and save the travel time.

Some people choose to go part time, some people choose to stay full time, some people choose to stop working altogether, and some have very few choices in what they can do and just get one with it!

The young kids years are short though (while very exhausting!). If reducing work or giving up work would impact your security long term, factor that in with appropriate weight. Just getting your head down and buggering through the nursery/primary years can pay off massively in terms of career/finances later. There's a lot of years post-children to think about.

They’re adults now (18 and 21) but I worked FT since they were 2 and 5. They went to both sets of grandparents after school 1 day a week so those days they were fed by grandparents (albeit junk food!). I did a bit of batch cooking so maybe I’d cook bolognaise on Monday but we’d eat it on different days. They’d be up and dressed before going downstairs and I’d make packed lunches while they ate breakfast. There was a period of time where xh had a midweek day off so did the school pick up and made dinner that day but his contribution was minimal and when we split up it wasn’t really any harder.
I do think I have been catching up on my sleep for the last few years though! I don’t think the children missed out on anything but I never had any me time.
As Covid hit when they were 13 and 16, they were growing up, some of their activities stopped suddenly and they never restarted due to their ages, plus eldest passing her driving test in 2020, I suddenly had time for myself and no clue what to do, I’m still adjusting to that!

One child, aged 3 and I work 22.5 hours a week (3 full days). Pretty much everyone I know with children under school age works part time to some extent. Usually one day a week off, but it's not uncommon to work 3 days like I do.

Most people I know go back to full time when their kids are all in school. Some do 4 days hours in 5 days so they can finish early for pickups.

Two kids 7 and 4 and I work 37.5 hours per week. I worked part-time when they were younger but I’m a single mum now so don’t have the option anymore unfortunately, bills need to be paid! My employer is flexible and I work from home when I want/need to.

2 children. 10 months and 7 years. Currently on maternity leave but back next month and will be doing 12 hours (2 days in a school per week).

I have to say that in our area, my friends and parents of the kids friends the majority work full time or 4 days a week. There are a lot of WFH now too. I don't really know any SAHP now although did when they were primary age.

I think this is a bit of naivety tbh. I have a masters degree and a postgrad law degree and worked as a solicitor. Multiple postgrad quals then. I was highly invested in my work and my career and had an international career for a while. I did have to give this up as i was on my knees, but it was not because I was not invested in what I did. Where my Dcs go to school there is a large cohort of upper middle class parents (if we are going to talk in generalities about social class) of both sexes who have high flying paths but had to steps back in order to cope with the natural changes that life brings- be that pressure for caring for children or older family members.

There is a phrase I like that a friend of mine uses; 'In this phase of my life'. In past phases I had a pretty important job and career. In THIS phase I have significant caring duties for a significantly disabled child. My DH originally stepped back as he had caring duties for a very ill father. Those are phases of life that many people hit- where priorities have to change- and where if you are fortunate you CAN change in order to meet those stressors head on. It's not about 'being invested' or how many degrees you have- it's about the complexities that life chucks at you and what you need to do in order to respond to that.

I have done various combinations of working patterns.

I have 3 children - 4 years between the oldest and the youngest so they have all been at a similar stage at the same time.

When they were preschool I was at home all day with them and worked a couple of evenings
When youngest went to primary I worked a few hours each day, then after a couple of years changed jobs and worked 9-3 each day.
Then as they older two went to secondary I upped my hours so that I worked 3 full days and 2 shorter days and the younger went to afterschool club a couple of days and DH picked them up on the other.
Once they were all in secondary I upped my hours to full time. DH wfh most of the time so is around when they get home from school.

For anyone interested, the last time it was properly surveyed, 1 in 4 mum's were not in work. (They may have had disabilities or been looking for work or chosing to be sahm)

Then of the 75% in work, over a third had some kind of flexible or part time arrangement but this was more when concentrated on 2 to 8 year old only.

They concluded just under half of mums in that age group worked full time. It was a couple of years ago so I would say the trend for full time has increased, especially with hybrid working g being a big thing.

So it's pretty normal to work full time and it's pretty normal to not work full time with young children. Both groups are pretty equal.

In my experience no man or woman who has studied for multiple postgraduate qualifications and/or invested a lot in a career they enjoy would ever contemplate giving it up unless there was no other option. And no, they were definitely of a higher social class of origin than I was. But clearly not at all invested in whatever they had done for work.

One child, primary school age, always worked full time. Partner too.
Evening meals: a mix of planning ahead (cooking a bit more during the weekend), cooking fresh when we can and quick meals when we are tired/in a rush/can't be bothered.

There are quite a lot of variables to be taken into consideration: for instance, we can both work from home several days a week, so we take turns for school runs and we have the flexibility of disappearing for 20 minutes for picking child up from school, or do some quick cleaning/cooking during a lunch break. Also, we pay for a cleaner and we have our groceries delivered weekly. As my other half has a similar type of job, we can share the load when it comes to looking after our child/clean/cook etc.
It would be very different if one of us was out early/returning late/working away.

Three children aged 8, 6 and 4. I was self employed for a while then went back to full time work when the middle child started school. Cut down to be working equivalent of 90% of full time hours over five days but still found it too tough. Have quit all together and have work life balance again.

I have a nearly 3 year old and another on the way - I work 27 hours (over 3 days)

I work 37 hrs a week, my children are 17yrs and 14yrs.

I used to work less hours when they were smaller mainly trying to juggle childcare pickups and drop offs. Now now they take themselves to school which is a 5 minute walk away, I mainly work from home although do travel quite a bit with work.

I do find it interesting how different different areas are on this.

Of my group of friends, almost everyone is full time, only a handful of women I know with young children are 4 days a week and I literally don't know any SAHMs of school age children, just not really a thing in my experience

I have 2 children aged 5 and 14 and work 30 hours a week.

My ds is 19. I worked 3 days a week from when he was 11 months and until he was 2 years old then 4 days a week until he turned 3. I then worked full time after that but was on a longterm absence for a year when he was between the age of 5-6. Worth mentioning that i worked short days in a. school so had all the school holidays off which was great. Dh took ds to school before sleeping as he worked nights and Mum and dad and il's collected him from school. Continued in this vein until longterm sick from September 2023. I'm returning later this year, just working 2 days a week permanently.

This sounds like a slightly snobbish put down. You're assuming the poster and her friends are lower class than you.
You can also flip it around and say it's the richer families than can afford to have a SAHP.
I live in a well to do area. A lot of the mums from my children's primary school are doctors, lawyers, professors etc. Nearly all the mums worked part time when the children were very little. Some of the dads did, too, but mostly the mums. It's because they were well off that they could afford not to work for a while.
I work at a university and we have a couple of female academics who've gone part time since having babies.
I strongly support men going part time too/instead. My own father was a SAHD. It's good that more men are sharing the responsibility. However, there are still more women than men who stay at home, usually temporarily.
If both parents work full time that's also good, of course. I just didn't like your implication that only low aspiration, lower class women would be SAHMs.

Returned FT after mat leave and was able to take 1 day parental leave a week (not UK so system may be different). With 1 child it was incredibly difficult as he hardly slept. I did 90% nursery runs. Dh has a job with big career potential so it made sense for us to focus on that. I was moved to an admin team that had high work turnover so I didn't have to leave things on my desk, in that regard it wasn't too stressful but it paused any career progression. When leave ran out and I was back to 5 days FT it remained difficult and DH was under pressure to work longer hours and we were TTC and things were not going well. We made the difficult decision for me to give up and be SAHM. My employer had zero flexibility, if I had even had a half day a week I may have stayed but it was 40 hrs or zero. Money was tight but our risk paid off and Dh got a big promotion, I believe this is partly due to his boss knowing I was SAHM and dH was able to fully commit, the job involved staying late if there was a crisis or occasionally working in another city.

After 9 years at home and 2 more kids I work PT now after retraining, term time only. It's not a "career' job but as luck has it I love it. I have some regrets occasionally but on balance we both did what was best for all of us

One child, 4 years old, I’ve worked full time since September when she started school, previously 4 days per week.

Pretty common when I live, most parents I know work full time, a couple 4 days a week but anything under that, or SAHP, is rare.