Tips on parenting and living with two “big” jobs

[Chicci1]

Would love advice from anyone in a similar position. Myself and dh work full time in “big” jobs and have two dc in primary school. Dh has just accepted a promotion which is going to mean longer hours and more stress but is a big step forward in his career. At the moment we’re managing using wrap around care and a cleaner once a week but life is hectic. I find the extra curricular stuff particularly hard to manage. We’re both full time with no chance of reducing days and can usually each work from home one day a week. The other days we take turns to drop and collect. I’m not sure what sort of magic wand I’m looking for but any tips would be welcome!

So how do you manage your job and kids and a boss that asks at 4.55 for a meeting?

Virtually everyone I work with who has children has this sort of arrangement.

Good luck, OP. So refreshing to read about women not abandoning their career after having children on MN!

I sort of get what you mean but in reality people mean more than just long hours when they use the term ‘big job’ because it typically also denotes a certain level of responsibility and an expectation to be flexible with your working hours, be ‘on call’ to an extent.

This an interesting article which develops the point to some extent - https://www.ft.com/content/7f9c726e-5682-4330-bae9-31b07144f12e

An au pair is a cheaper solution than a nanny in some cases.

An unoccupied bedroom is pretty expensive most places. Also no good for preschoolers. Also Brexit pretty much killed au pairing.

@SylvieLaufeydottir if Brexit has killed au pairing, nobody's told my friend who's had au pairs constantly since 2021? It's clearly different now but it still happens.

You still can get au pairs in central London as Aussies, New Zealanders and Canadians can come on a fairly expensive VISA. But unless you hire someone illegally, that's it. There are less than 10% of the au pairs now compared to 2019.

OPs kids aren’t preschoolers

Ime you need to throw more money at it:

cleaner / housekeeper and make sure you advertise the job as this, 3 times a week minimum, including washing, ironing, chores, collecting dry cleaning etc

nanny or au pair or grandparents plus back up friends you can call in emergencies - you need iron clad childcare

online shopping for everything, get housekeeper to put it away

dh needs to pull his weight, don’t let your career suffer because it’s easier

be very very organised and realise 2 at primary is hard, it gets easier and with more seniority comes even more flexibility so keep your jobs and it will pay off

good luck, ignore all the critics on this thread. To them I say a big job aint a lorry driver, it’s presumably 2 six figure salaries.

A decent private school where they can do pretty much any curricular they want to at school (after hours) so just one pick up and all extra curriculars taken care of.

Mine would have to go to a childminder/ASC anyway because of our work so if they can do swimming/gymnastics/basketball/drama/horse riding/ballet etc. at school it's less stressful for us as less running around, and less tiring for them because it's earlier and they still get down time once home.

A nanny / housekeeper is the way to go.
We’ve managed to stagger our hours so that one starts very early (pre-7am) and the other a bit later. The early starter leaves earlier 3x per week to be with the kids for dinner and bed. 2x per week they work late to catch up on work commitments.
Lots of advance planning for work travel and some support from family for those weekends when returning from long haul work trips.
Now all the kids are in primary school, during the day our nanny manages food, washing, cleaning basically everything to do with the household. It’s worth the outlay for full time help to know any sickness etc is covered. She’s also flexible for when we need to work late.
Every minute counts in terms of organisation and a good shared calendar is essential. I find myself spending spare moments on the commute or work travel planning play dates and birthday parties etc.
Hire carefully and take very, very good care of your nanny! Good luck OP and congrats on the promotion.

Are you joking? All I see on here are women continuing their careers and moaning that the cost of child care is a 'pita'! SAHMs are looked down on, on here, and told they are making themselves vulnerable. I'm not saying it's wrong that women continue their careers, of course not, but it is wrong that parents who choose to care for their own children at home are looked down on.

So true!

For me a big job means, amongst other things: big responsibilities that mean I cannot stay home if a child gets ill; I do not get to pick where I live, so not near any family; I spend my days making decisions that highly impact others and I cannot slack off during work hours; I do my holidays as it suits work and not as it suits my family.

We have three kids and two big jobs.

A live-in au pair (used to have a nanny) + a fixed babysitter + a cleaner + choosing a daycare and school that cater to those kinds of families, so they allow us to go on holidays when it suits my schedule, even during term time (and they make the forms so that this is legal) + occasionally taking a kid into work + Amazon & HelloFresh.

Throw money at problems.
Never mention the kids at work.
Leave work early every day and make up for it in other ways - figure out how to cut corners and never ever make it about my private life or kids.

I’m curious about what a “big” job is too.

To me the biggest job I can undertake is raising my own child. I don’t understand why people have children and both parents still work silly hours. Having kids is a sacrifice, a rewarding one, but you have sacrifice things if you want to raise them.

We held onto our childminder by paying her as though the DC are there full time. She runs them (and her other charge…she only has DC from two families at any time) to activities, reads with them and feeds them. One of us rolls through the door for 6pm and we have a couple of hours with DC. We then eat after DC are in bed and sit with our laptops in front of the TV.

(Probably not proper ‘big’ jobs but both senior professionals where you do not clock off when your hours are up…a proper big job would mean we had a live in nanny!).

Oh, also agree with the people who say pick a school that organises its own wrap-around and holiday care, and does hobbies on the school grounds. Our school and daycare also give the hot school lunches, not sure if that's typical in the UK.

Meh, arguably you don't have to sacrifice as much as many people think. I sacrifice a lot of life admin and chores by outsourcing them, and I sacrifice going out with friends, and the idea of hobbies, and all television time.

I don't sacrifice the job I like that gives us great money, or the weekly dates with my husband while the au pair takes the kids to the park. And I still have a couple of hours with my kids each day with absolutely no housework to do, the flexibility to go to school plays during the middle of the day if work allows (it doesn't always, but regularly), an entire Sunday with no housework, kids in great schools, nice teachers that are not overworked.

Honestly, my mum had a job not a career so she did a lot of household work and I don't think I had much more time with her.

I am not saying it's perfect, but if you're the kind of person who is really good at relentless prioritising you'd be surprised how much kid time a big job allows - even when the agenda is set by the job.

Mine was more of a genuine question about what qualifies as a big job, it’s been answered now… means 6 figure salary basically. I work full time, my job is important and matters etc but I don’t earn enough to outsource anything so it’s not a ‘big’ job. I’d love to be able to undertake your version of the ‘biggest job’ and be permanently with my kids but alas I can’t afford that, many can’t. Can’t even afford to go part time. If I could afford to outsource household stuff I absolutely would though. Hopefully OP has got some useful stuff from this thread.

We both had the busy, long hours jobs with regular commutes and frequent trips overseas.

We didn’t have a nanny, but always made sure one of us was available to collect at the end of school so that we could take them to clubs and do homework. We would then make up the rest of our working day by working once they had gone to bed, and at weekends. For us, ruthless organisation was the key. And also recognising that, with four children, the early years were always going to be difficult but it would get easier* when they got to secondary school.

*no, we hadn’t predicted the Covid years.

The people I know who make it work have a live out nanny or au pair.

I'm in so much awe of these people doing bigger jobs rather than just big jobs. I aspire to be like all of you. 18hrs a day on minimum wage is my ultimate life goal.

What?

I think this is your answer.

Read some of the posts earlier on.