Working full time with no family support?

[StressCoffee]

Is it actually possible? I started a new full time job last month after a year of maternity leave and I'm hugely regretting it. Already one of my children is unwell, and she's 9, so a little too young to be left for the day.

My DH works from home around 2 days per week, but the rest he has to be in the office.

I have no family support and I'm unbelievably stressed about how we juggle if one of the children is unwell. Worth noting my older two are not my DH's, so whilst he'll look after them if he's at home, it's not really his responsibility to take parental leave etc. Actual Dad useless of course.

What does everyone else do?

We have no fmaily support and both work FT,

Ds1 is 5.5 and in school, DS2 is 15 months and in full time nursery, so far any illnesses we have taken quite equally between us, either as WFH days or annual leave. DS1 has had to go to DS2 nursery over th summer holidays between our annual leaves,

I think we are both very lucky to have flexible employers - I was offered a job recently but the hours were strict, the flexibility was non existent so I turned it down even though the increase in pay would have made a huge difference to our lives.

Even though he's not her dad, in this situation the first solution should be for him to WFH unless he really has to be in the office, so you can go to work.

After all, an ill 9 YO shouldn't disrupt his work as she can sleep or watch TV and unless bed ridden/seriously ill, get her own drinks etc or wait until he is free to make them for her.

When I worked FT and if DC was unwell I’d normally use last minute annual leave. When you have kids these things happen so employers should be understanding in my opinion. Always have emergency days of annual leave sitting there for times like this, as tempting as it is to want to use it for yourself when there are kids in the picture it’s good to be prepared.

Take turns taking annual leave/family leave to care for sick child is what we did.

We both work full time with no family support. When DC is ill, we take it in turns to work from home or both work from home and each do half a day shift of looking after DC. As long as you split it between the two of you, it should be fine.

I think that the assumption on Mn that two FT careers are only possible with childminding/emergency help from family members is quite weird. I hardly know anyone who lives at all near family, often not even in the same country, and everyone I know with children works FT.

Yes to taking turns taking annual leave or family leave, and, when/if possible rearranging WFH if there’s an ill child.

We've never had any family support and always worked FT. DH and I both have had to take time off, juggle things around, and so on. In your case, your DH needs to take parental leave or WFH so the 9 year old can have an adult in the house. The fact that she isn't his biologically doesn't matter, he can't leave you to be responsible for 3 children and him for one

It is really hard, I sympathize OP. We used to take it in turns to take last minute annual leave depending on who was under the most pressure at the time. Kid is now towards the end of primary school and so we can handle it by working from home while the kid relaxes. I was also able to sacrifice some of my salary to buy 2 extra weeks of holiday, so between us we just about managed school holidays etc.

Is your DH saying to you that it's not really his responsibility to take leave to look after your 2 older kids, or is that how you feel?

I find that really strange given he's married you and is now the step dad to your children. How he could sit by and watch you struggle to balance your job with 2 more kids than he has to deal with? This should be equitable.

I agree IME most people don't have family support for stuff like this.

OP's situation actually sounds quite straightforward. If the youngest is 9, then the older ones are old enough to be left with minor illnesses. And DH can cover sickness on the days he works at home and you split anything else.
The average 9 year old doesn't have that many sick days.

Thank you for all the comments, you may tell I was pretty stressed this morning!

To clear something up, DH plays a very active step dad role. He has arranged to work from home tomorrow to be there for DD. It's just that his job requires a rotation of management on site, and he has to take his turn. As it is he's swapped with his colleague so he can be at home.

I think I was rather spoiled in my last job, I was free to work from home without question in these circumstances, even pre covid. My previous manager was very relaxed. Unfortunately my new manager appears to be far less so.

Yes we did it for years. Mine really didn't get ill enough for it to cause an issue, settling into nursery was a bit of a tough time but we took it in turns. In school mine only usually have 1 day off a year (autumnal stomach bug usually), but I suspect this winter will be trickier.

As he's your husband I disagree with you that he shouldn't be helping, but if the older 2 are older than 9 how often are they getting ill that it's causing such issues? DH and I have always tried to share it, we've never designated one person as the main carer, even when one was a higher earner etc, although DH does go away a lot for work (it can be months) so we even it out over a year rather than an illness if that makes sense?! I've always had very good employers who would just turn a blind eye, say I could "work from home" long before I ever really could work from home (no work laptop!) but as I say it happened so rarely it really wasn't an issue.

Unless your child has health issues I wouldn't expect a primary school child to be ill that much that it's causing you stress. Most people I know have both parents working with limited family support.

Yes, possible but stressful.

As a single mum, I worked full time since ds was 2+2, with a child minder, and then through junior school. I worked locally and irritated my boss for getting into work at 9.03 every morning. She fired me after two years. Then worked for another local co which was better. Thankfully DS was mostly healthy. Then worked for a third co. who were much better until ds went to senior school.

No family support at all. Every school holiday was planned and booked six months in advance. Still stressful.

To be honest covid and wfh has made life much easier and the older they are the easier it is. I could wfh with my 5yo watching tv but my 2yo would still need a proper day off as it would be impossible to get anything done. Hoping I can eek out wfh for as long as possible as it is making life much easier.

Me and OH both worked full time and couldn't rely on family support as our family members work/live far away.

Ive normally worked from home if the children have been sick. I could ask for carers leave, but I can work from home, so haven't needed to. OH has to take a day off.

Luckily, our children haven't been unwell very often eg once every couple of years, so it hasn't been much of a problem.