To think it’s not possible for both parents to work demanding full-time jobs while DCs r preschool?

[JustWondering1234]

I’m struggling to see how this works. I think it’d put a lot of stress on the whole family including the kids and I think we’re underestimating all the things that a SAHP does to keep the family happy. I can see it working if one parent was part-time or at a minimum one parent has a less demanding job (very flexible, no overtime, no currently looking for promotion etc etc). But both working full-time and aiming to further their career sounds impossible without home life becoming unhappy. Doesn’t something have to give? If you’ve done it, how did you do it? What tips do you have? What worked well, what didn’t work well?

Or do you wait until the kids r a bit older? If so what age?

We did not resent the sahp/breadwinner divide at all.
Neither our careers were compatible with being a parent ,I breastfed long term, and OH felt he did not have the skills to be a SAHP.
I enjoy homemaking and all the creative stuff that people do with children . OH would have struggled.

It really is much easier when they are in nursery.

Teens need you a lot more. A child doing their GCSEs needs far more emotional support than a 3 year old in nursery does. Not sure I buy the first 5 years thing.

And then there's the practical stuff. As kids get older they have hobbies and need ferrying around and it may not just be at weekends, it may be swimming lessons at 5pm on a weekday or football practice or anything. At least one parent needs to be around at least some of the time unless you have flexible childcare outside the standard 8-6 hours or relatives who can help.

Seriously, the pre-school years are the easiest time to work full-time.

We both worked full time in professional jobs (city lawyer and accountant), both commute, two kids.
I agree with everyone who says the nursery years are easiest for work. Atm we have one at secondary and one at nursery and it's great. Gonna get complicated come September when littlest is off to school!

I think how and if you can cope depends a lot on your personalities and that of your children.
We are very resilient and i thrive on challenges/adrenaline and work achievements. Id be a terrible SAHP but that's not to say i don't recognise it's a very valid and attractive choice for some.

My children are very confident, energetic and need a lot of stimulation. They go a bit berserk if we stay at home too much!

However if they'd been timid/ clingy we might have made other choices for us all.

Easier when DCs are preschool, harder during primary.
Can be done, and actually often senior jobs are more flexible. Longer hours, but no-one to ask if you want to leave early, lots of evening/weekend catching up though!

They also need taxi service- even without extra curricular stuff they have late study clubs.

What? I went everywhere by bus/train/bike as a teen because my parents categorically refused to be taxi drivers when we lived in a very well connected town.

You don't NEED to be a taxi driver unless you live in a remote village, it's a choice.

We do it. I am a teacher, my OH an architect.

My grandparents provide most of our childcare though.

YoloSwaggins you don't need to live in a remote village to struggle with transport.

My parents gave me no lifts either and is severely limited my ability to do any kind of extra curricular activity.

We have shit public transport, but live in a town just 7 miles from a main city.
My DD is at school 3 miles away. She gets free school transport but that does not extend to transport home after school.
There is no easy bus route, and I wouldn't want to walk home 3 miles in cold and often wet conditions.

If me or OH were at home with a car and the other was in need of a lift 3 miles away we would have no hesitation in picking the other one up.
Teenagers deserve no less family support.

I am not into this " toughening them up attitude".

OH and I had no family lifts or support as a teen and it was shit.

3 miles is a 10 minute bike ride!

I think its perfectly possible but it depends on your personality. I think the more you do the more you can do and juggling becomes second nature. Ive always juggled in my job. Now i juggle my family life as well. We used a nursery not a nanny. We have no other help.

We do have a rule that one of us is in our home city. Not easy on me as dh works a 2.5 hour commute away 3 days a week so im restricted on travel options 2 out of my 4 working days.

Our dc are 3 years apart which gives a bit more breathing room. I have a cleaner who helps with laundry. Dh does as much as me domestically. I have a team at work who i delegate to so i can be flexible. Sometimes if someone is working all day on a project they wont need your input until the evening. Its good to be flexible .

I do work PT but 4 days (always 5 days of hours which i dont get paid for!!) and often do long hours around family commitments. I figure flexibility has to work both ways so if i work from home and take an hour out for a school assembly or docs appt i will work the time elsewhere and work get a lot more out of me than i do from them.

My directorship got lost in the post and yes no doubt my career would have progressed faster if i hadnt had children. My promotion is taking me longer than i hoped but i keep at it because i have a longer term goal and that will take me into my children's adulthood. Id hate to be knocking around the house unless we were superwealthy and i could do what i liked!

I only have one school aged dc the other is still in preschool. I cant do all the after school activities that some dc do but he does 4 a week which is enough for 7yo. Ds2 age 4 has finally started one activity on a weekend. I think its enough but others see an endless round of activities as essential. Each to their own.

I find the school run a slog on the one morning a week i have to do it. Much more stressful than the orderly nursery/breakfast club drop off which is quivk and easy. Still ds likes that i go to school one day a week and i see his teacher if i need to.

Its also nice to be able to afford holidays or a nice car, meals out, clothes (not all at once in my case sadly!). Work facilitates this. Also being able to provide for the kid's future: tutors, university, music lessons, travel, experiences etc. I think thats worth it too. Some people are lucky enough to do that on one salary. Others are happy with much less.

I think do what suits you. We are all different and gain fulfillment in different ways.

Even within the parameters you specify, there are still so many shades of meaning to 'demanding full time job'. Doing a bit of overtime and looking for a promotion could mean an extra half hour a day to show you're keen, it could mean being able to leave whenever you want as long as you finish the rest in the evening once the baby's in bed, it can mean having to be available for the big deal at 3am and working weekends. There's at least as much difference between option 2 and option 3 as there is between part time work and a standard FT job, really. So it's really hard to say.

What I do know is that DH and I have never been even slightly interested in this model. We feel as you do about enjoying life- though saying that, I don't think there's any setup that allows both parents of young children not to be knackered a lot.

What? I went everywhere by bus/train/bike as a teen because my parents categorically refused to be taxi drivers when we lived in a very well connected town.

You don't NEED to be a taxi driver unless you live in a remote village, it's a choice.

You do realise there's a middle ground between remote village and very well connected urban area yolo? I know you grew up outside the UK but it's not big city or hamlet, there are plenty of areas where there are some services but not enough to allow a teenager to get everywhere they might realistically and reasonably hope to go. Not all of which are safe to cycle.

FaithHopeCharityDesperation I wouldn't allow my kids bikes.

The roads around here are death traps.

It's not impossible we both have demanding full time jobs. Dc goes to nursery full time. Dp does overtime and I dont. We just make it work. Our hours work in that I can drop off and dp can pick up so we each get a bit of time to ourselves wity ds.

FaithHopeCharityDesperation I also live in Scotland.

For many months of the year it is dark by the time after school study clubs are finished- not to mention usually atrocious weather.
I wouldn't expect my OH to cycle home in such conditions while I had a car available- I wouldn't expect my teenager to either.

I have 3 children (6, 3 and 1). DH and I both work FT. Eldest child is at school, middle is at nursery and toddler goes to a childminder. We make it work but we have to be ruthlessly organised.

We both work FT, 2 DC under 5 no school yet, we have an amazing CM who also picks up, arranges play dates, sorts out after school club (pre school).

Biggest challenge is having no time to ourselves, working in the evening and I have weekly travel, luckily not Monday-Thursday. My DH does huge amounts.

Chasing our tails- maybe. Yet being financially secure is something that is important to us both, and my DH would prefer not to be the sole income, he finds that idea stressful.

Both me and DH work full time with DH being abroad 2 weeks every month. We have 9am - 4pm nursery + live in au pair for wrap around care. She also takes care of them when sick. It works really well and means I don't have to stress about drop off, pick up or sickness. I'm home by 5.30pm every day and get to spend 2 lovely stress free hours with the kids before bed as they've been washed and fed by the time i get back.

If you have a spare room in your house and think you could have someone living with you then it's totally worth it.

I'd say it's much easier to do at pre school age than primary school. I'm dreading when DD starts primary next year it will make juggling everything a lot more challenging.

Depends on your job and the hours it expects. Even "get a nanny" is not a solution if you work really long hours.

Some jobs (eg City law, banking) require you to be there until 7 or 8pm and often later. Add a commute to that and you won't be home till 8pm earliest.

Most nannies will not work till 8pm every night, and most parents wouldn't be happy with a nanny doing bedtime very often. (Although I know one or two exceptions).

Yes you might be able to negotiate an earlier finish time with a bit of logging in after bedtime but IME this will dent your career progression and earnings significantly.

For this reason many couples where both have truly demanding, long hours jobs will pick one of them (usually the woman...) to step back at work while the other stays full time.

Depressing but true.

It wasn’t for us - we tried for two years - the first year with a nanny which was much much easier - but by the end of the second year I had a mini breakdown, I cried all the time, nothing got done, we hardly saw each other or our kids, I felt like I spent every single second trying to be in a thousand places. And now I just do ad hoc contract work from Home and it’s wonderful!

*FaithHopeCharityDesperation I also live in Scotland.

For many months of the year it is dark by the time after school study clubs are finished- not to mention usually atrocious weather.
I wouldn't expect my OH to cycle home in such conditions while I had a car available- I wouldn't expect my teenager to either.*

Entirely up to you - your choice, obviously.

I grew up in Scotland & lived on & off most of my adult life there btw - me & my friends used to bike everywhere in all weathers when we were teens if there was no bus.

JustWondering1234
Me and OH both had very demanding jobs. My OH felt he should not only not have to make any changes to his working life/social life once our eldest was born, but he actually worked more as he wanted to do better in his career because we had a family now. Our salaries were more or less the same. We tried both carrying on before and sent our daughter to nursery full time (7:30am-6:30pm). It resulted in a lot of stress and illness due to exhaustion. Our LO was also tired and didn’t bond with us very well as she saw other people more than us. In the end I left work and became a SAHM. It was a last ditch attempt by me to make things work as a family and also save my marriage (I was exasperated with OH’a shitty attitude and was at the point where something had to give). Luckily it all worked out a lot better with me at home and we had another child. I do resent my OH sometimes though as I feel if he had of even made a small effort me keeping my career might have been doable. He sometimes makes comments about how HE works (as if I’m sat around on my a*se all day). He works very hard, but literally doesn’t lift a finger at home, so when he makes comments like this it’s very hard not to hate him TBH.
So what I’m trying to say is while on a functional getting day to day tasks done everything is miles better and while my LO is definitely happier, I think my relationship with my husband has definitely suffered, as there will always be a part of me that resents him for forcing me into a situation where I felt I had no choice but to sacrifice my career. Good luck with your decision x

Thanks to everyone who has commented. This has been really useful. I think I’m going to look at the job market to see if I could move companies to make things easier for us (same role but closer to home, more flexible company etc). Will also think carefully about a nanny or an au pair. I think realistically one of us will end up being part time but it’s worth a try with both doing full time and we’ll see how it works for us all. Thanks again to those of you who gave your opinions and experiences

If it's something you are motivated to do you will find a way to do it. Don't forget that for most it's a choice. It might not feel like a choice when looking at the results of the choices but, when it comes down to it, parents can choose.

I agree it can be a matter of personality. We both wanted it to work and always worked full time. Not everyone is as committed to that. Ultimately I earned more but that was not an issue as everything was joint. Before we married we talked about all this and we agreed we would both work full time and both do as much at home, cleaning etc and did.

Some of our parents are full time for both partners and we have one who often works away and can’t pick up.

We therefore have children overnight and at weekends when needed (we’re childminders). We also accommodate extra hours at little notice, and surprise meetings (American firms are keen on scheduling these in the early evening!).

It’s doable, you just need very flexible childcare.