To have two days a week to myself?

[twofulldays]

It’s been an intense few years and I’ve definitely taken on the lions share of parenting.

DS starts school in September, and am planning to stay 0.6, so three days a week. This obviously means I’ll have two days a week to myself if you like. But it also means on those days he won’t have to do breakfast / after school club.

The number of comments I’ve had about this has surprised me. AIBU to work part time with primary school aged children? I will have them all school holidays and I guess I feel I’ve earned a little time to myself in term time!

I'd say go for it. Not at all jealous 😀

But I earn 3x DH, returned to work at 3 months after both kids, and now at 55 I'm about to pay off the mortgage, DH gets to take a break from the job he's hated, and I'm hoping to be able to retire early at 60 (first will have finished uni, second will be almost done). So if you can continue to pay into your pension as if you were working 5d and you have a partner covering the mortgage why not?

It’s jealousy. Tell them to eff off

Why not working mornings instead of a 3 day week, so your DS doesn't have to go to afterschool?

(Oh and of course no one gets a vote! If this works for your family that’s the only conversation needed)

You won’t get two full days to yourself, only 9am - 3pm ish by the time you’ve factored in the school run and I expect you’ll find that time is taken up doing plenty of chores and admin. I speak from experience!

Statistically more women do more life admin and household chores. On that basis I think part time is reasonable if you can afford it.

If you can afford it, why would you NOT want to spend time at home looking after yourself and your family???

It's a good plan.
It means that when he's inevitably off sick, you have more slack to make up days (if your work is flexible on days like that)

It also means it's much easier to sort out the holidays as you have less days to arrange childcare for

I work 3, I couldn’t imagine working 5 again. I’d never have time alone to do anything - cleaning/shopping/me time!? I do have high needs DC though, I can’t take them to a supermarket nor do they go round friends or clubs etc.
In an ideal world, I’d do 2-2.5 days but that’s quite hard to find in my industry.

Full respect to the parents who do full time and remain sane.

But your husband has to keep working 5 days so you can work 3, what if your husband becomes tired and stressed working 5 days a week?

How do you split childcare at weekends? If you do most of the childcare at the weekends then I can see why you would want some downtime. But if childcare is 50-50 at the weekends then when does your DH get his downtime?

Could you both work 4 days a week? This is what me and DP did when our DS started school.

Do it!
You'll probably do a lot of house work etc then.
But if possible I'd spread the three days over four so I could do another school pick up or two while child is little

If he’s happy with the situation, then it’s fine. I honestly don’t understand what you’re questioning or why. Genuinely.

Then they can revisit their work schedules and find something that works for them. However, that is not currently the case. One can’t live life based on ‘what ifs?’

I was a SAHM for a while when my children were in school. Believe me those hours between 9 and 3 go in a flash! Cooking, shopping, cleaning and doing laundry for a family of 7 kept me busy - I also volunteered in the children's school a lot, listening to readers, doing crafts and cooking, gardening and endless walking with different classes to the library, swimming, churches etc and also did a couple of lunchtime shifts as dinner lady. It was a very busy life and there wasn't much downtime!

I wouldn’t do it, because my career is important to me and I couldn’t really progress in a part time position. I also wouldn’t want my husband to feel over burdened by being the main breadwinner.

But that’s me. If you want to do this and your husband is fully on board, why not?

I’ve suggested to my DH that he could drop a day and I could add one, so 4 and 4, but he’s happy working 5 days as he WFH and his job is pretty chilled and flexible anyway. I would happily (well maybe happily isn’t the word, but I would readily agree to) increase to 4 if he did want to drop down in future though. But he’s the one who convinced me to stay at 3 in the first place when I was feeling like I should increase, even though I didn’t really want to.

So as long as you are both happy with it, OP, crack on and enjoy. I find three days the perfect balance. My life has expanded beyond paid employment a lot, and I like having that time to fit in all the other stuff I want to do!

It's a change of circumstances so the only fair thing is to have an open conversation with your DH and work out together what you are happy with on working days / hours etc as between you for when DC starts school.

It shouldn't automatically be that your hours stay the same without your DH being given an option to review his working hours too

People comment on everything and sometimes the stuff they say totally go against the other thing they said!!!! Whatever works for you!

Single parent with zero childcare here due to DC both having additional needs, if they aren't in school they are with me so yes it absolutely does get overwhelming at times.

If you can afford it and DH is onboard then sod what anyone else thinks! I assume you can maybe switch it up in the future and change your hours to 4/5 days if needed and therefore this is what works for your family now?

Same situation, my DD is at college. I love it. I do do far more housework, which is fair enough to me.

I do 0.65, which works out as 2 full days, 2 shorter days of 8-2.30 so I can do pick ups, and 1 day off where I catch up on cleaning, sorting the house out etc. It works brilliantly for us, my MIL does 1 pick up and our girls do 1 days after school club. Having the day off means I can be flexible - if the girls have a sports day or a stay and play or Christmas play etc I can move my day off around to be able to attend without taking AL - which is needed to cover holidays. I know some have no choice, but I do feel sad for the children who don't have a parent at these events, I know their parents would absolutely be there if they could, and we are privileged that we can afford for me not to be full time, and that I have a skillset which means I can chose my hours.
So if you can afford to do this, then definitely do. Are you able to work 3 days hours over 4 days, so can do more pick ups?

Yeah, it’s a total tragedy. 🙄

Stop telling people

Nope I’ll be doing this too once my youngest starts school. Myself and DH have agreed that I can cover the ‘big’ clean, have food shop delivered and sort any adhoc errands on my two childfree days.
It will also give me the opportunity to go to the gym/hair appointments etc and I don’t feel one bit guilty!
We don’t have much help with childcare so it would be very difficult for us to cover the school holidays if I did go back full time.