To think 2 x full-time parents and no family support is quite unusual?

[bluepurpleangel]

I have read a lot of threads on MN recently where juggling life, work, childcare etc with both parents working full time and no family support seems to be the norm.

Is this really a reflection of real life? Thinking of people I know with younger children (say primary age or younger), I don’t think I know many two-parent families at all in this situation. In the vast majority of cases at least one parent works part-time and I also know quite a lot of families with a SAH parent.

Of those families where both parents work full time, they usually have some grandparent support with childcare or school pick ups etc.

Just seems a really sharp contrast to the situations I seem to read about on MN. Are my circles unusual or do others also find that 2 x FT working parents juggling everything on their own is quite rare?

Two full time parents, no family support. We live far away and only had elderly fathers each.
It sucks. And sucks worse when people accuse you of attachment parenting because you always take your child with you everywhere (except when in work - and when in work, the SAHMs say that you are being neglectful and why did you have kids etc).

People I know fall into three categories

two full time parents - grandparents or/and other relatives provide substantial childcare.

one full time and one part time - no relatives to help with childcare.

one full time and one sahp - no relatives to help with childcare

This is exactly our situation. Both work full time (5 days a week each) in professional jobs that don’t pay a fortune but luckily since covid, both of us no longer need to go to the office full time. grandparents are abroad as we’re immigrants so no family help at all.
All childcare has always been paid for. 70% of our friends are also in the same situation so we have 3 friends we could call on in an emergency and they also have us. So far, we’ve only ever used one person when I went to give birth to DC2 and it was on a Sunday so school and ASC was closed.
Never had a date night (always take annual leave together for days when children are in sch/childcare), always decline invites to weddings that are child free that falls on a weekend when we have no paid childcare.
It’s also the norm among our friends to have at least a 4 year age gap between their children g
for this reason. One family have a parent working part time but no sahp at all in my current circle.

i only have one friend who is a stay at home parent and virtually none of DCs school friends have stay at home parents. Some of us have grandparents around but all are very much pinch hitters- available for a date night or two a month but if the kids are sick, we’re handling it. All in professional roles (average family incomes are probably £150-£300k. No one has grandparents who are doing regular drop offs/childcare.

Also we’re all full time, bar a couple of uni professors who get summers off. And DH and I who just don’t work very much but are technically full time 😂.

It’s a bit of a mix in my community (affluent town SE) but majority are 2 parents working with no family support. In my area local people who are immigrants often have limited family support as GP overseas.

For myself, we are two parents working FT and we have limited family support from time to time by pre-arrangement eg next week in half term kids having a day with GP. I had loads of help from my mum but sadly she passed away and PIL are not as helpful (they adore the GC but just want fun at weekends).

However I do know quite a lot of mums working compressed hours or 4 days a week or at least one parent mostly wfh or flexible hours to help accommodate school runs.

We have no family support. We've set up our working lives (both caring roles) to be 4 on 4 off opposite each other. Never see each other but we're obviously on low wages so couldn't afford childcare yet can't afford for either one of us to be a sahp or go part time.

Oh also our 4 days in are 12 hour shifts minimum and can be days or nights

Two teachers here and no family support. In emergencies we take unpaid leave and if we want to go out (rarely) we hire a friend’s DD to babysit.

Oh, so childcare is always paid for (nurseries and out of hours club). DD now in high school so she leaves the house after us and returns before us, sometimes we use her to collect DS!

Well, we both work full time and have no support although everyone thinks we do because my mum lives in an annexe of our house. You may well not know the full story of the people you know.

When I had my dds 20 years ago. Dh mum gave up work to look after them my parents were both working.

When I had ds 6 years ago my parents had died and (new) dh parents were both working full time. We used childminder and wrap around care. But I did end up going part time.

We both with full time, no family help at all. One able grandparent who isn't interested in her grandchildren.

All my friends and most of the parents in class have loads of grandparent help and/or work part time. I admit to being jealous as it means they don't need to spend £500+ on childcare and have more leave to take holidays together whereas we get one week off together a year if we are lucky,

In our case both work full time. No help from family. One of us is studying for a master's while working full time too.
I think it's a fairly frequent situation even if not the majority.

Think it depends where you live.
We never had support as our families lived between 4 and 8 hours away.

We don’t have any help. My partner’s family live nearby but have never helped in even the slightest way and my family live on the other side of the world.

I know my partner is disappointed in his family, but I’m unsurprised. They only come around to get pictures to pretend they are grandparents of the year then leave after making a barrage of nasty remarks, commenting on my choice of clothes for my baby, the house etc. Wish I could tell her that she has no taste and is trashy, but I
won’t rock the boat.

We just get on with it. We have had multiple surgeries of mine to contend with as
well which makes it more difficult but that’s life. Some people’s lives are harder than others.

I think you’re more likely to know other people in the same situation as you- most of the parents I know, I know from school pickup, so naturally more likely to be part time or have grandparents around (lots of shift workers too). I assume there’s a whole contingent of full time working parents collecting from after school club but I don’t see them as much because I don’t use it.

Likewise people living in London are often not from London, so less likely to have grandparents around. Where I live in Northumberland, the majority of people are local so tend to have grandparents (people tend to have kids younger too, so more likely to have living/healthy grandparents)

@bluepurpleangel TBH I am surprised you know so many families with a SAHP and school age children, I would have thought of that as quite unusual.

In fact I think the lates ONS stats have only 9% of mothers as SAHMs and you would think a lot of them are SAHMs to children under 5, not school age

This was always us, closest family member lived 300 miles away with half my family also living overseas.

Again, this is area dependent. About 50-70% of my child’s class were picked up by their mother every day (I only discovered this during my maternity leave) - it’s not a very affluent area; therefore I’d assume that they were unemployed rather than SAHP’s living off their partners wage.

We both work full time (and always have done) and had no family support at any point.

DS was at private day nursery until he started school. At primary he was in breakfast and after school club. Since he's been at secondary - early years were mostly through pandemic and lock downs - and now, at 15 yo, he can take himself to school and get himself home afterwards.

We know a mixture of families - some where both work full time, some where one parent is part time (usually the woman) and even a few where the mother doesn't work at all or has a "mum job" like cake making for friends and family or selling stuff online.

Yes it clearly is very area dependent. I was just making the point that statistically it's more unusual to know so many SAHPs

Yes but what I mean is that the definition of what a SAHP is will vary depending on many factors. In a wealthy area, a SAHP would be someone who opts out of the workplace due to a household income meaning they don’t have to work (eg family wealth or a husband with a well paying job) however in a poorer area a SAHP could well be in a household claiming out-of-work benefits. And there is no way to tell what category someone comes into.

This was my situation when mine were young
My parents had died exh was NC with his
No one to help or even babysit

@Waspie do you think it's been more manageable to have both of you working FT because you only have one child? Asking, as I have toddler DS, and am leaning towards staying one and done.