Two parents with “big” jobs - how do you juggle it?

[overgrowngrass]

We are going to be starting TTC soon and I’m freaking out a bit about how we’re going to make it work.

We each have a commute of over an hour, both not normally home much before 6.30-7pm, and leave for work at 7am in the mornings. We have little to no family support available, at least not regularly.

My work does have an on-site nursery but commute is long and motorway based which I wouldn’t be particularly happy about doing with a baby in the car. I don’t think I’m being OTT about this?

I do 4 days a week, but my day off changes week to week which means I still need to have childcare for 5 days. Partner doesn’t think he will get a 4 day week approved but will make the application if/when we have the baby. If so, that would be a big help.

How have other people managed kids when both parents have full on jobs with long hours?

Agreed. The person who earns the least needs to go part time / find another part time job after maternity/paternity leave ends.

And don’t commute an hour with the baby. Unless absolutely essential it’s just cruel

Honestly - it's really difficult! Our DC are now at Uni so we have come through that period but it was tough. When our DC were born (twins) one was very ill after a few months and we were advised to not put him into nursery - this meant our plans went out the window. DP was then a SAHP, but his company wanted him so he was able to return part time and work evenings from home. I continued to work full time and with a lot of intl. travel.

All you can do is be supportive of each other, buy in as much help as you can including a nanny, investigate and sign up for holiday clubs in advance etc. but you do need to remain flexible (as you never know when/how they will need you). You do come through what feels like years of making arrangements to get cover but in my view it's worth it in the end. We both have our careers still and whilst you do go through the "is it worth it?" question many times I can say on balance it is. Now our DCs are away at Uni, thinking about jobs etc and support of them has been relatively easy, plus we don't feel bereft when they go. We obviously love them hugely and love seeing them, but because we are still focussed on work I don't believe we've felt the loss as some other parents have when their DC move out.

That’s not the case though.

I have people in my team who are able to leave the office on the dot of 5:30pm on their 2 days a week in, and log off on their WFH days, and that’s them done til the following morning.
They can take a full hour for lunch, they don’t even need to have a work phone because they’ll never be contacted other than at their desk

That’s a different world away from being told 5 mins before you’re leaving that the shit has hit the fan and can you come to a briefing. And then prepare a presentation on it for the following morning.
Or being told in your appraisal that you are being shortlisted for a promotion and need to spend the next year stepping up and learning XYZ new skills and demonstrating your leadership
Or being told the shit is going to hit the fan in Hong Kong and you need to be there on Monday, or being needed on a call with the US at 9pm Uk time

And obviously having a work phone so the other people with big jobs who are too busy to speak to you during the day can email and phone you in the evenings and weekends…

Obviously post-pandemic, some of these are different but the mental load of a ‘big job’ is very different and all-encompassing
And also obviously, the trade off for taking the stress is the extra money but there is still a lot of extra stress that junior roles don’t have

Some utter rubbish here. First nurseries don’t have a restriction where you go - in London many many people work an hour from home and nursery.

Second, you are still a child’s parents, you will spend insane amounts of time with them anyway. we have two inflexible jobs and are both pretty driven. Childminder did extra hours when needed for baby 1, now we have a nanny. Have hugely invested in relationship with both people. Kids happy. Nanny does 730-630 4 days and one of us home for bath and bed from 615 almost all the time. Day 5 elder is in preschool, younger with me and when she’s one she’ll go to nursery or CM that day and I’ll WFH.

My parents both worked FT plus with no WFH and we had a nanny and grandparents. I have a good relationship with my mum; she used to be great fun at weekends, and if she had a random day off would sometimes take us out of school one at a time for some mum time.

You mention partner and not husband.

Are you married?

If not, please do not consider doing anything that impacts your salary or pension unless he does the exact same thing.

Do not jeopardize your financial security to provide unpaid childcare for your boyfriend.

We each have a commute of over an hour, both not normally home much before 6.30-7pm, and leave for work at 7am in the mornings. We have little to no family support available, at least not regularly.

Are you both commuting in opposite directions, so that you live in the middle? If so, can one of you look for a closer job or a job in the same direction as the other partner’s commute, so that you can move?

Little to no family support doesn’t sound like you are rooted in that sense so why do you live where you live and can you think about moving?

Basically, when you have a baby then everything can’t just carry on as before, not for most people. Everyone makes different choices but yours seem to be one or both of you move jobs to more family-friendly employers or convenient locations, you love house closer to cut commute, you carry on as you are but accept a high cost of childcare and added responsibility of managing that in the form of a nanny, or you both negotiate with your employers for flexibility (fixing your day off etc).

@GappyValley you're making a lot of assumptions with no information. There is no definition for "big job" how are we defining it? Yes some senior roles will be incredibly difficult to manage, but without getting more detail from the OP there's no point talking about Hong Kong and promotions.

Whilst all the things you say might be true, in terms of logistics and childcare the ‘big important job’ people and the ‘small regular job’ people still have the same issue, but the big job people have more money for flexible solutions like a nanny, rather than inflexible nursery hours that require you to leave on the dot or take days off when the kids are sick.

I think that’s all the PP meant. More money = more childcare options.

Career break/s financially possible? Much less stressful, if so.

What's a 'big job'?

Ultimately if you're both out of the house for that long you'll need a nanny if one of both of you don't want to change jobs.

We don't have family support but we have both chosen jobs based on being able to spend time with the children. This means we may not be earning as much as we could but we like the work life balance.

Nanny - but you push for 2 things, firstly for DH to push for 4 days a week as well, and you push to have the same week day off each week. (Not the same as DHs day!) that way your baby needs a nanny 3 days a week, one day just with you, one day just with dh, 2 days with you both.

id also look at moving house to being closer to work.

in your situation, I would also push like mad that DH takes the 2nd half of your Mat leave, if you are back in work and he is at home with the baby for 4-6months as sole charge, it will help you both see the baby as a joint responsibility, not getting childcare so you can go back to work, getting childcare so he can go back is a much better shift for you both.

when your dc is school aged and you just need wrap around care, I’d think about an au pair and holiday clubs.

We had a FT nanny. I don’t see how you can do it otherwise. With your early starts, you might consider live-in if you have the space.

Our nanny was happy to switch to nanny-housekeeper once the children were at school which worked really well. However lots would not be happy with this.

I agree your on-site childcare doesn’t sound suitable.

As others have said, you may find that once the baby is here you think about changing your working pattern, so worth giving your options some thought.

This, totally!

U mention that your day off is different every week. Take the same day off every week to establish a pattern. Monday would be good.

A 3 day weekend can stop you going crazy.
Not married to a man with a big job but I am a single parent with a job I value and cannot lose.

We both reduced our hours to 4 days a week, and shifted our hours so one could do nursery pick up and the other do drop off (so I went to work early and DH worked late). I had the 3DC in quick succession and took a year off each time so I was at home a lot when the older two were young. DH had the longer commute and spent a lot of time looking for a job closer to home, it took a few years to find something that was suitable, we didn't want him to take a job that wasn't interesting but when he got that job it made a massive difference. We've reviewed the hours we work repeatedly over the years and have used different solutions e.g. MIL came for long visits in the summer holidays and looked after the DC once they were school age and didn't need lots of personal care, just someone in the house to throw food at them. I now work FT (DC3 is 10) DH works 0.9 FTE but since he now WFH he can do the school drop off and pick up for the youngest. Me being home in time to take the teenagers to their millions of sporting activities is the biggest issue now.

For the OP I'd say don't have children with a man who isn't prepared to apply to go PT. You will only be able to do it as a team. Your lives will be ruled by the calendar and you BOTH must be willing to sacrifice career and social life for a short while. Although what we found was that DH was continually offered promotions despite being PT (he refused quite a lot of them) whereas my career stalled for a few years (there are still managers at my work who think some jobs can't be done PT) but once the DC were all at school and I increased my hours I then got several promotions in quick succession. We have always earn very similar salaries which helps.

Yes, you’re right. I’m looking at this through the lens of my and my friends big jobs, and obviously others will take a different definition and have different challenges

That said, a lot of it is going to be true whether you work in retail or education or law or banking.
Maybe not the travel, but the requirement to work outside the usual hours, and be available in a crisis and probably spending a lot of free time thinking about work

And I think it’s also fair to say that someone in their 20s or 30s, which OP probably is, who has already got a big job, has an appetite for career progression so will have been seeking out promotions on some level

but I was wrong to make so many assumptions

@GappyValley I'm guilty of the same looking at it from my perspective which may be too positive for the OP's circumstances. It would be good if OP could give more detail about nature of jobs and future plans.

for those saying when will she her kids - do you ask full time working dads that? She works 4 long days a week, 3 at home- if she was a man, that would be seen as having a great family /work balance.

OP - the big problem is the 1 day a week off changing. You need that set, most companies can do that as a flexible working arrangement for parents. If your dh can do the same, at least until your dc is school aged, that will make a massive difference to only have 3 days of childcare to cover. You both then can confidently work as late as needed on your day the other parent is at home to clear any work backlog.

We had a live-in nanny plus 2 full days per week of a housekeeper.

Nanny’s role included Ocado shopping etc.

We had an ironing service, gardener and various other outsourced services. Basically outsource, outsource, outsource!

My career mentor also recommended that my regular commute is always under 30 minutes which was crucial when the kids were tiny.

Going against the grain here both of us have big jobs (both c suite) and it’s doable.
it takes really good dairy management, a strong EA (really the person who keeps it together) and you need to stagger your hours.
DD is now 4 and at school and we do all drop offs (8:30) and pick ups (5pm and 2 on Wednesdays). We do a combo of office and wfh.
Employers care about outputs (well the good ones) not about the hours. Reframe this conversation to “can I generate the same value and outputs working around my child”. Also a good employer will work with you and find a way.

We have a nanny and a cleaner and just about cope. DH is often out by 5.30am and not back until DC are going to bed. My hours are slightly later meaning I can do the mornings but miss bedtime on office days. We alternate office days. Good planning, online food shopping and diary management is essential.

Which adds to my point about it being easier with a "big" job, not just financially.

You can't talk about outcomes & outputs if you work on a building site or in a full time 25k retail role ! It's being present full time. You can't decide to tweak your hours.

I'm not being snarky. I have a "big" job. I just recognise how much easier we have it!

We manage to make it work and have no family to help nearby. Find a nursery with a good reputation (low staff turnover, good meal provision etc) close to home so you can share drop off and pick up.

I tend to start very early so I can do pick up at c5pm. That gives me 2 hours before my DD goes to bed. I don’t do any other jobs in this time just focus on quality time. My DH does drop off but tends to work later.

Can you fix your day off? Your DH also going to 4 days would help too.

Shared leave also helps. My DH took the last four months of leave whilst I went back to work. If anything it’s helped accelerate his career rather than hinder it plus has made us equals in terms of childcare expectations.

To stick to those hours you'll need a full time live in nanny. I'd aim for a nanny / housekeeper and agree your day off is her cleaning / sorting day.

But if you don't want live in (we didn't have space for a live in nanny not to feel intrusive) then you could go live out. 8-6 or later is common. You'd need to rota the drop off / pick up between you but it should be doable & would give you more time with your child.