Working parents how much time do you spend with kids on workday

[Pandaghost]

Full time parents, how much time do you have with your kids on a typical weekday? Back to work after leave and feeling the hit after going from constantly being there to an hour (ish) of a morning and maybe 3 hours before bed of an evening

This eats me up. I’m working full time and I get from 6-7:30/8 with my kids in the evening and 6:30-8 in the mornings. It is upsetting. I’m looking for a part time role so I get more time with them. I’d choose time with my children over having more money than we need any day.

My husband works full time. He gets about 40 mins in the morning and thirty mins in the evening. Kids are two and four. It's a lot for all of us.

On an office day 50mins in the morning and 1hr /2hr in the evening (one’s bed time is earlier). I don’t feel im missing a huge amount. They are getting ready for school in the morning and after school it’s homework or they play together. There’s a lot of screaming at them to get things done. Appreciate the age of the child might change ones feelings but I think as parents we think we need to constantly be interacting with our children- we don’t. I read stories at bed time, chill with the eldest for a 20min show. We have phones, face time when in the office and wfh flexibility on some days.

Two days a week, I see them for two hours in the morning (when they start school and I start WFH), then I see them for four hours after school – two of those hours I’m working.

Three days a week I see them very briefly in the morning as I leave at 7:30 for the office. I then see them for an hour when I get back at 6:30.

It doesn’t bother me. After school they are very tired and chilling out with down time anyway. They get a second wind when I see the after work. Then our weekends are full of quality family time – days out, cooking together, games, cinema etc.

Daughter is 3. Its about 1h in the morning and 1 in the evening. She's at nursery about 8.30 til 5.30. I work about 8.45 til 5.15.

The rough days are when she falls asleep in the car on the way home around 6pm. End up transferring her straight from the car seat to bed, and our only time is trying to chivvy her out the foor in the morning. It's noticeable how much more difficult her behaviour if that happens more than once or twice a week.

On days I collect from school early . I collect them at 2:30 and work for a few hours at home so I see them (they are in and out to me) for the evening until bedtime at 9:30.
other days I collect them at 4:45. Other days dh collects them. It depends on the day and what is going on at work.

and then an hour or so in the morning.

I get an hour in the morning and between two and three hours in the evening; a bit longer on a Friday as DS doesn’t go to wraparound. Maybe it makes me a terrible parent but I don’t find that it’s too little time really. For most of the day, I’m just focused on work and happy to be doing that.

When ours were babies, we both went part time and each had a day a week with them. The days we were both working and they were at nursery, then it was pretty much collect, tea, bath, bed.

When they were at school, we juggled our hours around so we both worked all week but had a couple of short days each. One of us would do the school drop off, and the other would do the pick up (they didn't go to after school club), so whoever was on the short day had longer with them in the afternoon.

Im a lone parent - usually 630-730 then drop them to before school childminder - If try and pick them up around 5pm - sometimes earlier if I can finish work earlier - then bedtime starts 730 - eldest asleep for 9pm. Youngest around 745pm. But the time is eaten up with cooking cleaning tidying so it’s not quantity time - might be a snatched 15 mins here or there wit each one for a snuggle on the sofa before something needs doing or someone else needs me

Now I leave for work the same time as children leave for school and i return 20 mins after they get home.
When they were younger i started work after i dropped them at nursery/school and finished before they needed picking up. They have never been in breakfast or afterschool childcare since going to school.
I have worked full time (30+ hours) throughout, and spent quality time, taking them to activities, bathtime and reading with them when they were younger, cooking their dinners, chatting about their days, helping with homework, watching tv together etc. Ive been very happy with my work/child/financial balance.

Two hours in the morning and 3.5 hours in the evening. We eat breakfast together in the morning and dinner together in the evening, and have time to play and read together and do homework and music practice.
We live 5 mins from school and 8 mins from work, so commute time is minimal - a choice we made when deciding where to live so we could maximise family time. DCs have later bedtimes than some as it suits our family better, I'm not desperate to get them to sleep early every night so I can have child-free time in the evenings.