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Enthusiast
10/06 Thread (BC):
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100%. Just see how much you can squeeze in unnoticed by work, how much actual vacation you can take. Balance with partner, hire a part time nanny or mother’s helper - stitch care. Take calls while putting on an iPad or during a sick nap. Ask families around or at your school to pick up your kid if you are running late. It’s all on us. It’s all too much. It’s all meant for the 1 full time worker family. Google stats of how may women with young children are actually employed as a %. It’s a SHOCKER! But then again how else would you do it?
Enthusiast
It’s insane the balance it takes. I have several back-up sitters for when my kids get mildly sick to make sure I can keep my job which provides our health insurance to take care of the sick kids. 😣
Working in healthcare is almost impossible as a single parent with small kids! I was a paramedic for 10 years and walked away from the ambulance when I had to choose between my child and my career. Of course I chose my kiddo! I am also a single mom and have very limited help in a pinch. No grandparents to help and her dad isn’t in her life so I rely on friends when I have no other choice. On the ambulance, I worked 12 hour shifts and there’s not a daycare on the planet (or one that has any openings) that is open for the odd hours healthcare workers have to work. I never had attendance issues until I became a mom. The struggle is so real and it shouldn’t be!
And functioning on little sleep when they get sick and are up at night … it’s a really tough balance with two parents working. But, I would not trade being a parent for anything, I will do whatever I have to do to give them the love and attention they deserve, and somehow get the work done too.
Yes, I think about this every day. I am a single mom with no family near me, no friends bc I just relocated and still trying to find a village. It’s extremely difficult…my daughter is in daycare full time but not sure what I’m gonna do when she goes to school and afteschool activities.
Thank you so much! Yeah I feel like I’m always in the middle of having a mental breakdown but keeping it together for my baby 💕. I’m also in public accounting which is an extremely demmanding job and trying to find a less demmanding one with good pay to still be able to afford daycare and save for college🤷🏻♀️
Rising Star
No idea. I'm on a reduced schedule (avg 35 hours/week) and have a ton of flexibility, a spouse with decent flexibility, and a really supportive mom and I STILL feel like we're barely making the schedule work most days.
My wife is a SAHM. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be, at least until the kids are older. The idea of both parents working full time is a sin, not just inefficient and suboptimal.
Our government honestly does NOT care much about anything we “commoners” grapple with in life. Otherwise, like other countries, we’d have made some form of universal healthcare support a priority, protected some form of social security as we age (SS appears to be in jeopardy as it’s headed toward insolvency), support working families that carry the US economy on their breaking, stressed-out backs.
Life in the US is making less and less sense. With less and less opportunities within reach, with less to be hopeful for. Skyrocketing COL, lower salaries, and AI threats we don’t even yet fully appreciate yet, threats we don’t seem very concerned about as long as massive data centers keep promising greater power and trust in AI making the rich richer.
I’m so done, spent, exhausted, and emotionally/financially beaten. Life and livelihoods feel more precarious than ever despite working harder than ever.
For me it is striking a balance between career progression and motherhood. I have 2 under 2 and I found a fully remote job before they were born. That helped a ton in terms of doctors’ appointment and daycare sicknesses. Time management is key and I remind myself that kids are my priority at this stage so I don’t need to be perfect at everything. Like OB no parents’ help and my husband and I are living and learning the parenting every day.
It's absolute insanity. My in-laws live with us, and as much as I despise it and want to rip my hair out (let's just say we're not the best of friends), I DO acknowledge and appreciate how much easier they make life when it comes to my son. My husband and I both work M-F, full time, and his parents drive my son to school, pick him up, and watch him until we get home. I'm able to go to the gym, run errands, etc. and my husband usually works pretty late (rarely gets home before 7pm), and this is only possible because we have his parents. I honestly don't know how we would do this if they weren't around to help. I know we'd figure SOMETHING out (millions of parents do), but it definitely wouldn't be easy.
That’s the point I’m making.
You have it great right now because you have the help that allows you work focus and self-care, worry-free.
But what if one parent had a fall or gets sick? That coverage is compromised. Eventually your in-laws will no longer be capable of helping. Even if you think by that time the kids will be older, it won’t be as difficult…you’ll still need school pickups, driving to after school activities etc. And on top of that now you have an ailing parent to help out too (after all they have done to help you). It is a precarious situation.
And many people don’t have the resources to pay for the support that replaces grandparents.
Pro
Work needs to evolve. We are at a massive inflection point in society.
The future of work is more goals based and less time based. The workforce needs to band together to change this culture bc the more we accept it the more we’re lowering the bar for employers. It’s not an outcome shift, it’s a design shift to make parents feel psychologically safe enough to work and parent.
Leaving the workforce is not the solution. It’s working effectively on your time.
My spouse took a job as a teacher for this exact reason, and I took a lower paying position close to home. Sure, I still have got to be in a position to take off if our kid gets sick, we’re just scraping by financially, but I am thankful all the time and I am 100% empathetic and sympathetic towards anyone with kids. As anyone should be provided they have the capacity to do so (some industries don’t even have that flexibility).
For appointments, just take PTO or flex your time if you're only going to be out for 1 hour at the end of the day -- like take a working lunch and jet out an hour early. We're not hourly, and we work plenty of "overtime" where it matters, so if an employer hassles me for taking an hour here and there, I'm out.
For days off of school, wfh or preplan your PTO based on the calendar that gets published 6 months to a year in advance.
Not sure what school you're going to that "constantly" changes hours, deviating from the published calendar.
There are drop-in daycares around me that are open when school is out on staff development days/spring break/holiday breaks.
It's that simple for me. I'm actually surprised by this post and others like it. I don't have parent friends, so I don't know what it's like for other parents. You're a manager. I'm an IC, so I may just have more flexibility built in to my role as it is! Coupled with only working 4-6 days in office a month (we wfh during demanding weeks, not the other way around). Helps to have a boss with a 6th grader (and our director has a 7-year old), so they get it.
Oh all the changes are in the calendar alright, but it seems like every week there’s an early dismissal, day off, or teacher development afternoon, parent volunteer event, or school assembly your kid is presenting in…and if more than one child, multiple schools.
When I went to school it was not like that at all. I don’t understand how schools can expect parents to take all this time off and leave early almost weekly.
OMG, it’s an issue despite 2 parents, even when my kids were young and grandparents were alive, and could help a bit, it seemed an impossible juggling act without expensive dedicated ongoing help. And I had a flexible work-from-home job, my husband was an independent contractor with flexibility. We were not the standard corporate onsite workers and it was a constant challenge.
Just as bad in the UK. Unless people have children that are happy to be in breakfast and after school club, and who are happy and robust enough to go into school even when they are poorly and added to that, are happy to go to holiday camps during half terms and summer holidays, it is impossible for both parents to work and I'm always amazed by single parents who manage to do it all on their own.