To ask how many kids you have, their age, and how many hours you work a week?

[TemporaryPosition]

I'm curious how normal it is to work full time, 40+ hours a week with kids. I feel like everyone's life would be so much better if I did even just one day less. What do you do for an evening meal? I find this hardest and spend a fortune on convenience food (not take aways, but super easy comfort food) for the family. Does it matter if its a career? As in its worth it because it will pay off long term or if its just a job and you simply need to.

Aibu unreasonable to try and work out what is normal?

I have a 16yo and a 12yo. I'm not currently working at all as I'm caring for my youngest who has severe OCD and rarely leaves the house. So, while I'm not officially working and seem to have endless hours in my day, I'm 'on duty' all the time, including at night. I would much rather be juggling work and family life🙁

35 hours with work at home as well. 2 primary aged children. It's full on!

Pressed post too soon.
Batch cook, slow cooker etc to make sure we eat well.
They have a packed lunch tea on a busy night with clubs.
There is at least one club of theirs each night during the week!
Do homework as making tea or straight after tea.
Try and do one washing load a day, put washing away when we can. Try and clean when time but in between clubs, my work to be done in evenings and volunteering one evening a week, I struggle to fit it all in!

We make sure we catch up properly at some point in the evening as a 4. Weekends tend to be for us 4 unless they are invited out or we have a friend around. Spend extra money we earn on little extras to make life nicer for them, days out and (uk) holidays. We go on walks or taking them out on bikes when we can, at least once over weekend but sometimes in the week.

One ten year old. Busy full time job but DH doesn't work.

Kids are 3 and almost 6. I’m a teacher, 45 hours a week currently. I don’t do as much work at home as I used to, not enough hours!

Husband is freelance so has some flexibility in the week which helps.

Two children - 1 & 5. I do 22 hours over 3 days. I’ll go up to 4 days once the youngest is at school but definitely not full time

@LaundryPond I'd say the opp in real life, friends with unforeseen circumstances aside, my pals are a mix of choosing not to have dc because they didn't want to have them in a nursery from babies to further their career/ part time because they didn't want young non verbal dc in nursery and full time with extenuating circumstances.

The ones who were sahms are back at work at nearly 50 all fine

It's only on here I've heard the mantra focusing k on soley what works for the parents with little thought to the child in a nursery for a huge proportion of time in their young life.

I work full time 37.5hrs, kids ages 12, 4, 3 & 1. Latter 3 are all in day nursery. I wish the balance between work and home was better. Not well paid but trying to build a bit of a career so hoping the pay off will be worth it long term

Between 25.5 and 31 a week term time only. 3 kids 8, 16 & 18.

About 24 hrs - 3 formal days (8-5, 8-1, 8-3) where I can’t WFH, plus some evening/weekend work/logging on from home. 3 kids 6/8/11 at primary school.

I was FT last year and it almost broke us (husband works 50+ hrs and we have no family help). The holidays are a bit of a nightmare still as no clubs start at 7.30-one of main reasons I dropped hrs. I actually love my job but it was unsustainable.

2 children age 15 & 12, I work 16 hours over 4 days. I’ve never worked more than 20 since they were born

2, 5 and 7 year old. I work up to 30 hrs. But I'm also currently doing a full time nursing degree. 40 hour a week placements. Wife is also in care sector. Works full-time and long shifts. Cook dinner every night. Not always fully from scratch. Life is busy.

I have a 12yo & 10yo and work 'part-time' -totalling 36 hours a week, 4 days instead of 5.

A complete rip off to be honest. But I need the extra day to keep my head above water.

Our kids are 12 and 9 and both dh and I work full-time. I probably total about 50 hours a week on average, sometimes more, sometimes a bit less. Dh often does even more. We’re both in education so some of these hours are evenings and weekends at home, but most is at school.

2 children aged 10 and 6.

I work full time which is 35 hours a week at my company. Hybrid working with 2 days in the office and 3 days at home, I have an hour commute each way to the office. I’m senior enough to manage my own diary and I am selective about school events. Nativity plays and sports days, I’ll make every effort to be at, but I’ve stopped feeling guilty about not helping on the PTA or attending the endless workshops about phonics and long division.

DH also full time and usually does about 45 hours a week (mainly through his own poor time management and inability to delegate, but that’s another thread).

We are very fortunate that our school has excellent wrap around and my mum picks the kids up 3 days a week and takes them to a couple of their clubs.
My kids are fussy buggers and eat chicken nuggets more frequently than I’d like, but that would be the same if I was a SAHM.

I do all of the laundry on WFH days and use my lunch breaks to clean the bathrooms, hoover and generally tidy.

35 hours over 4 days with a one year old and sixteen year old.

I have a 5yr old and a 1yr old. Both myself and DP work full time over 5 days. I would loved to have dropped to 3 even 4 days but we cannot afford to.

2 primary aged DC. 32 hours (4 days worth).

Oh and 32 hrs isn't including extra in evenings or weekends, its contracted hours.

I pay a cleaner once a week. DH works full time and does his share of pickups/drop offs. We each have a couple of days working from home and will run an odd load of laundry. We will stick a casserole etc on during lunch break. We do a lot of meal prep or batch cooking on weekends to save time. We take turns making pack ups in the morning. A couple of days a week the kids eat tea at wraparound.

Summer holidays are the biggest issue.a lot of childcare provision is 9-3 with no wrap and if you use any time together as a family for holidays you get nowhere near enough time off to cover the rest. We piece it together with a mix of family help, clubs, odd days off, swaps with friends. Its a real pain in the arse. I wish we'd normalise parents actually using the unpaid parental leave they are entitled to - i could afford to use it and it would make life so much easier but work/my boss would be pretty pissed if i requested it.

Single parent, 4 kids 15, 12 and 8. I work full time but have recently changed jobs from NHS shifts (needed an au pair for that) and it’s more manageable now, I work 8.30-4.30 officially but can manage my own diary and do some of the documentation etc at home. I worked 50 hr weeks for years but I did have time off in the day when they were at school, now I’m either working or with the kids so although in theory I work less abd irs flexible I feel more burn out

I do my laundry at 6am or 10pm

DC is 3 months old. I’m returning to work from maternity leave in autumn and have requested to do 3.5 days in 3. If they decline, I will ask for either 3 or 4 normal days. I haven’t decided which. I don’t want to be at work more than I’m home and because DH works 3 weekends on and 3 off, if I went back full time we’d sometimes go 3 weeks without having a matching day off. There’d be no fun in that.

1 child and work 3 days. I don't ever see myself going back to full time, I don't think I'm cut out for it anymore. The difference in money is not worth the inconvenience to our family life.

1 child (plan for 2) who is 3, I work 22.5 hours a week. Worked full time until mortgage was paid off and son came along!