How do you work full time when the children start school?

[mummyclare]

It's a year off for us but I've been panicking for some time. We have had luxury of workplace nursery so far. I am going to try to reduce my hours - but that's only going to help with some drop-offs and pick ups and will do nothing for hols. Also local playscheme takes from 5. So what are you meant to do when they're still 4?

Help please. All ideas warmly welcomed.

loving THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES' frogs! I have to admit I'm terrible with family birthdays though.

dd started school this month, graduated start, three weeks of half days then f/t. Grandparents not involved and we both worked f/t Mon-Fri. Now I work f/t Mon-Fri and dp changed from f/t weekdays to working Sat-Sun.

I work one day of the weekend and every bank holiday except christmas and easter day; I was feeling very sorry for myself this week and wanting to swap to give us all two days off together each week as a family: having read this feel very humbled; didnt realise how hard it actually was. Will stay as I am feeling grateful we can cope as we are (just).

Littlebrownmouse - i am hoping to do teacher training next sept with a view to being a full time teacher, ie 5 days a week.

i am a single parent and will be doing all the child-ferrying myself. Am hoping to find a childminder who would have both children before and after school, who could also walk them there and back for me.

Am i mad?

(my mum is a full time teacher and was also a single parent to five kids, she did manage for years!!)

hmm I'm not sure about being 'lucky' enough to afford a nanny. I feel we are unlucky because we don't have a big enough house to have a spare bedroom for an aupair and in this part of London, to get another bedroom, we are looking at another $150k to $200k.

If I worked any less than full time, I couldn't afford a nanny so it's a vicious circle isn't it.

today poor ds went in in uniform because we didn't see the note in his bag about mufti day . Luckily his teacher was wonderful and helped him made a special little outfit made from paper and cardboad (don't ask). Perhaps now is the time to say how much I appreciate teachers like this!

Today, working fulltime caused me to shout at my children I shouted at the children because DS was moving in slow motion and DD's cat had been guilty of unmentionable behaviour. And I needed to leave the house and DH had already gone.

All shouting achieved was for DS to go from moving very very slowly indeed to stopping completely and crying.

The trouble with working full time is that every day is like this.

Bananas

it's hard, apart from all the above, it's the constant lurching from one role to another.

I used to (when they were younger) leave work, jump in the car...take my job hat off, put mum hat on, then, while driving, try to remember, which dc to pick up from where, who needed something picked up on the way home, what was for dinner...

...until one day I nearly mowed down a policman who was standing in the middle of the road with his hand held up....screeched to halt under his nose - he wasn't terribly impressed.

I think teaming up with another family is a good route if you are on good and sensible terms with them - work late as a share 3days one week, 2 days the next alternating houses with the children.

Childminder

Find out if the school is planning to accommodate to this as there is increasing encouragement for schools to provide after school paid for care in breakfast and after school clubs.

We cut our salary considerably after DS by both going PT. We have little money, and were both on reasonable salaries...goodness knows waht you do if you are earning less than 25k per year as a household...and many do. I guess one parent SAH.

A job I used to have let working parents have "school hours" contracts - basically 9,15 to 3pm ish during term time. works out about the equivalent of 3 days a week but spread over 5 days. Obviously requires a 40% pay cut, but could be worth it ?

I now work flexi time, with core hours 10am-3pm, which makes working parents very happy.

YES AND YES AND WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU DO WITH THEM WHEN THEY'RE 11+, ?? Too young to be left, but too old for any out of school clubs [even the out of school clubs they loathed anyway]. Please tell me I genuinely have no idea what we 'll do.We struggled through up to now (year 6) with leave/flexitime/holiday clubs but I now realise those were the EASY years!!

Oh god. I didn't think it would continue getting harder!

Secondary is okay, I find. They're home later anyway, and assuming you're getting home at a reasonable time I think it's okay for them to spend a couple of hours in the house by themselves doing their homework.

This thread is depressing isn't it?

I am so excited about having Nov and Dec off and NOT struggling to attend school plays, carol concerts, fayres etc etc. And I will be able to organise dd's birthday + party and Christmas and we will all be calm and happy.

That's the theory anyway.

i am lucky in that i relied on family for infant and part junior
then dh had a job where he could tak and pick them up in junior until year 6

when they occasionally made their own way home - and i relied on my then 14 yo boy to tell me about imminent death or danger - needs must and all that.

once in senior school, i expected then to join as many after school activities as they could - and not come home much before 4pm most days. that leaves them for an hour and a half. each day
however i work to rule and i work from a local office one day a week - to enable me to attend doctors appointments and dentist appointments and also any appointments with school - this is my appointment day where i can get from a-b locally within 10 mins.

if i have worked in London 3 days a week that week i might take two local days.

inbetweent his my dh and i until two years ago, both had flexible jobs.

now dh in the period of two years has risen from a lowly pleb to a senior manager after previous redundancy as a manager - becuase he has to dedicate himself to his job becuase of its location.

that means all the parenting is left to me - appointments etc - me. and its really hard.

i have no illusions here - even if i was capable ( i might not be) even if i was, i have a serious lack of dedication to my work - as it is v. much secondary to my life
recently got a promotion - but it took 5 years and a narrow knowledge base for me to get it

After 18 years of parenting,with DCs from 18 to 3,I now work just one day per week,and fully intend to continue this trend until retirement!
It is harder when they are at school,9 until 3.15 or whatever is not very long at all.
Over the years we have had
Grandparent help
Me working weekends,off in week,a killer for 'family time' and didn't do our marriage much good either...
Me working one night per week
Now work one day,elder 2 at high school/sixth form so sort themselves out,DD2 goes to breakfast club on schhol site,DD1 collects her after school,or she goes to after school club. Grandparents look after DD3.
Have to say reading that,thank heaven for grandparents!

Quite agree with Motherinferior about school age kids being even more dlightful and wonderful than younger ones. I never used to mind to much about work as long as i was home for bath and bed mlst nights. But now they're older...and Im still travlleing a lot..it's much harder.

But back to the op - I have always worked ft. Before school dd1 went to day nursery fulltime, then once she started school we had au pairs (we are lucky enough to have a spare room). That was great.
Now dh is more or less not working - or only sporadically - so dd2 is in nursery part-time (full days) and dh picks up dd1 from school at 3.15 everyday.
If his work picks up we will go back to having an aupair agan. It works fine for us.

DTS are 4 years old and have been at school for three weeks. They go to a breakfast club and afterschool club at the school and they love it. This morning, they ran into the arms of one of the ladies who runs the breakfast club.

ATM I work part time (24 hours spread over 4 days) but I can now log into work so I plan to only go into the office one day a week during holidays. Considering I a run a team of 16 scientists and engineers in a high tech organisation, I feel very lucky and privilege that my organisation allows me to work this way because they do not want to lose me. Even last week they asked me to consider applying for a post to run a team of 80 engineers/scientist knowing full well that I have no intention of working full time until the boys are older.

DH works full time and his leave end date occurs 6 months before mine so this really helps with covering all the holidays (especially the 6 week holiday holiday period. I get 19 days plus 5 days public holiday and he gets 30 days asw well as all public holidays. So for the summer holidays, as well as taking the equivalent of 3 weeks leave, I plan to go into the office one day a week but will work 10 hours and then spread the remainding 14 hours over the rest of the week by working from home. We also plan to send the boys to their grandparents for a week so I will work all that week and take time of in lieu so giving me a free week at home! Well that is the plan so it will be interesting to see if it works out in practice.

gawd but this is depressing.

I literally have an application for a FT job open on my laptop ready to fill in tonight. I have been a SAHM for over 3 years now, and after reading this, I think I must be clinically insane to apply for this job.

I knew this would be a nightmare in the termtime, but hadn't considered holidays. I am luckier than most because DH is a teacher, think I'll wait until OFSTED have finished with him before I tell him to enjoy what holiday he has for the next couple of years because it will be an end to his lie-ins, online gambling and paper reading!

With 6 and 11 year old, I have had this experience. I found a great chilminder who looked after a few kids from the local school. I dropped them at 8 am for Breakfast and collected a 6pm. You should have a local register of police checked child minders to review.My kids were in a nice home envirnoment with similar age kids and got a hot meal every evening. Not all holidays matched up but that was when family and friends came in handy or my husband and I took the odd day when needed.

Now my career has taken off I can afford a nanny who also helps out around the house. But before I could afford this the child minder was great support for a reasonalbe fee. I have many friends that presently do the same and agree.. Good luck.

Have a house husband! Think how brainy your kids will be with a hands on Dad (for those of you who saw that in the news this week)!

This thread is brilliant - so at least now I know I am not the only SAHM not by choice but by circumstance.

My tip - make sure you live in a town near a secondary school or that your kids can get to/from a secondary school on their own. You may be able to muddle through primary (unless like me you end up somewhere devoid of childminders, nannies and after school clubs - and anyway middle child had already rebelled against the latter at our old address) but at secondary they have their own views and may not want to get on with the nanny/housekeeper/childminder even if you can find and afford someone who is remotely interested in children over the age of 10.

Private schools - watch their after school and transport arrangements. What if your child is in teams/orchestras and needs someone to collect them at times when the bus does not run? My experience has been that private schools whatever they say EXPECT you to be a SAHM available at the drop of a hat to do stuff for your child - and woe betide if one or more children goes to a different school, because they will not allow for that either.

I would also add don't have your children fathered by a man who works in the type of business where 12 + hours days are expected unless you really do want to be a SAHM.

Ohmigod - i'm having major nightmares working part-time with my 1 year old due to complete employer inflexibility and blatent discrimination at work...and its just going to get worse.

I work in a male-dominated industry so have little chance of it being better eleswhere.

I trained for nearly a decade to get where I am. So remind me why we encourage our daughters to work hard for years and strive for careers that they can watch disappear within months once they have kids?

VanB I totally agree with you. I too have trained a long time to get where I am and yet would have gladly worked part time when I had dd but employer would not allow this so I am working ft with some flexibility but am now completely disregarded and sidelined in the workplace and have no promotion chances because I need to leave work before 4pm to get collect dd from afterschool club. This means I am no longer part of the inner circle who are able to get in at 7am and stay until 5pm and get to know all that's going on.
It's not just about a male dominated industry either my boss is a woman but is childless/childfree or whatever you want to call it and in some ways that is worse, whatever happened to sisterhood!
I hate myself for saying this but my dd is very clever and wants to be a dr and a mum (God help her she's 4!) yet I think don't bother darling just find yourself a rich partner and stay at home.