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!

Sorry about all the judgement you've had on this thread.

You urgently need a good nanny, for the reasons mentioned above. Extend your cleaner's hours/hire a housekeeper. I can't stand Sheryl Sandburg's book but the one good point she did have was that you should outsource everything possible so that you can maximise your time with the kids when you're not at work. All of this involves spending serious post tax income but it's the only way to make it work.

Most importantly though you need to be v clear with your DP where your responsibilities are allocated. They also need to take time off if kids are sick, share the 'life admin', do the thinking about clubs, play dates etc - it can't always be you.

By the way, in my experience this doesn't really get better once they're at secondary. Just so you know for budgeting purposes....

No it's not, my question was only rhetorical.
Like I say, I'm senior myself and I'm ex-Big 4, so know the sort of role being described here. A Big 4 partner is on £1m a year.
The term 'big job' just makes me do a massive eye roll when there are parents out there working 2 jobs each to survive, without the cash to buy in help.

What OP is describing sounds like a pretty normal work set up. You don't need a nanny. Surely after school club runs until around 6 pm each day? Problem solved. Our kids do 1-2 activities each, one on the weekend, and one before school (e.g. choir, football). We both have big jobs in my household, I really don't think it's unusual.

I think you’d do well to identify the actual pinch points on each day. Once you’ve done that it’s easier to say what the answers could be. (For example, our school has an after school club - if I was in your shoes that would be my first port of call.)

Make sure your own career goals aren’t going to be sacrificed because of this.

We had a nanny. She was great. Tidied kids bedrooms and their laundry, cooked a meal, did school drop off and pick up, took them to park after school, didn't do as much h.w. with them as I would have possibly liked.

I decided it wasn't the lifestyle I wanted and threw it all in. Nanny was amazing, nothing to do with her. I just still felt wrung out at the end of the day/week even with her help AND a cleaner. I also didnt want to be missing so much of my kids lives and only having the dregs of my energy left when I did fonally get time with them. Probably a housekeeper/mother's help all rolled in to one full person (who could have also walked the dog) would have been even better.

If I think of the parents of my kids' classmates, there are higher-ranked diplomats, management consultants, some bankers, some lawyers, high-flying tax advisor lawyers, big business owners that kind of thing.

Why are you only pissed off with your mum and not your dad too?

A good mobile data package so you can work in the car outside extra curriculars

Shared to do lists so if one person gets a chance to nip to the supermarket they know what to get without asking (we used todoist)

Share all dates into both work calendars, don't bother with a Google family calendar as you won't look at it unless it's your work calendar.

Do favours when you can for other parents so you can haul in the return favours when things get hectic

Befriend other parents who go to extra curriculars who live locally so you can alternate weeks or share drop offs and pick ups.

Get a robot hoover and clear the house every night so it can whizz round. Make this non negotiable, it really keeps on top of the mess and really only takes 5 mins of chucking toys onto the sofa worst case.

Agree.

Reading for tips since we manage just fine at the moment with one child under school age + full time nursery but I'm pregnant with twins and we'll soon have 3 under 2.

Of course it's turned into judgement about women who dare to have careers. 🙄

So far, the plan is to get a cleaner and use Hello Fresh etc more often than we currently do. Of course, mine won't be school age and I know the juggling gets harder then.

We both can be flexible and I almost always WFH which will help.

Fwiw my DH and I both work full time (I work 50 hours minimum) and we make all drop offs and picks ups, we spend at least 6 hours a day with DC around school and have made every single performance/sports game between us. We are very lucky to have flexible work, so we push work into evening/early morning to do so but having two working full time in any jobs (big or not) is v doable and does not mean you're some kind of distant parent who is pushing the dc into boarding school at 3.

and the comments from pp's judging working mothers are conveniently ignored/missed. Funny that.

I do big jobs on the toilet

I agree with this, can you not both tag team so one takes a step back for a couple of years, then the other. Why is money so important? Surely a few more years won't make a huge dent for finances?

We both have high pressure jobs with long hours and travel and find it a real struggle. Sometimes id love a nanny, but If you outsource the kids care, you never see them and what was the point in having them?

Instead we outsource basically everything else. The laundrette pick up our washing and bring it back same day, £50 a week. Shirts and stuff that really need ironing is an extra £10 to the great ironing lady. Gardener, cleaner twice a week, dog walker for when we need it as she is flexible, online delivery for shopping etc etc. It's still really difficult at times.

Agree that private school where extra curricular stuff is laid on is helpful, but mine are still pre school age.

Well the only answer is to outsource some of the organisation to either an additional person or to an institution. So nanny, private school (with holiday club on site) or boarding school. Essentially pay another woman/women/young people.

I'd be interested to know what conversations took place between you and your DH before he accepted the promotion.

So many dads seem to feel that this stuff is not theirs to think about.

I mean, you're the one on here posting, not the person who's had the promotion.

My recently retired friend is picking up the slack for her son and DIL who have "big jobs" (meaning they both work for a corporate law firm) and a toddler. Her choice but it's still an unthinking man leaving a woman to subcontract to another woman.

Your joint DC will learn stuff from all this of course.

On a practical note, if you're in London, Koru Kids could be worth a look.

Because in some industries, it would mean never getting back to where you originally were.
Because in some industries, working part time simply means working full time in less hours and would be the worst of both worlds.
Because some people work for many reasons, not just money.
Because working parents still raise their children so it isn't necessary.

Gosh sounds like you barely see your DC. I know someone who had this arrangement and the nanny was really lovely but the 2x DC defo defaulted her her as their 'parent' and the relationship with parents was & still is a bit odd. Parents are very pushy with the Dc to succeed at absolutely everything above all else

Be realistic about what you can and can't do. Don't sign up for swimming at 5pm on Wednesday - find a Sat morning class instead if you're adamant they need to learn to swim!

Similarly be realistic at work, you can't achieve the same as the guy with a SAHP without giving yourself a breakdown. Delegate and call it succession planning.

Cleaner twice a week, so one visit is cleaning and one is more housekeeping.

If you never see your children then you aren't raising them, it's fine if that's your choice but your prioritising your job and money over your children. I doubt there are any kids or adults who wished their parents worked more and spent less time with them.

Big jobs with big salaries - bite the bullet and get nanny/kids in private school with decent after school clubs/cleaner

Need to be more economical - child minders before and after school, juggle after school stuff so they do them on the same days etc. Activities outside of school stick to
weekends. Cleaners, box meals like Gousto. Grandparents if they are around to help. Car share school drop offs.

Not spending 24/7 with them doesn't mean that you 'never' see them. Providing for them financially is also part of raising them, amongst many other things parents do despite working full time such as caring for them in the night when they are poorly, planning for their futures etc.

I had a SAHM growing up. It's one of the reasons why I would never be a SAHM.

Private school with loads of extra curricular
Outsource garden, cleaning, laundry etc Maybe a housekeeper to literally run the house. Dog care.
But be aware that outsourcing the DC can have impacts on them.
DC want parents at school events, to talk through worries, to be there. This doesn't stop when they are teens - they need emotional support etc

'Never seeing your child' = 'seeing them every morning, evening and all day at weekends', of course.

I loved seeing my parents work. I think one of the simplest and most beneficial things a parent can do for a child is model getting up and going to work every day. No harm to teach them that different adults can love and care for them too.

Well, no, people wouldn’t say “big job” for those jobs because it means more than just long hours. It’s long hours, high responsibility, high stress but also high pay. That means people can make suggestions like sending children to private school for the extra-curriculars or employing a nanny. It would be ridiculous to suggest private school and a nanny to someone working long hours as an HGV driver.

Of course OP could have avoided the shorthand and just said the hours she works and what she gets paid, in which case she’d have got a load of replies saying “I stopped reading at £xk” and “How tone deaf, I earn a quarter of that and do the same hours”. Can’t win really.

Comments like this make it harder for people to ask for advice, which is a shame. She’s not claiming her life is uniquely hard, she’s just asking for some help from those in the same boat, which you could have given but chose to have a pop instead 🤷‍♀️