Both of us work, but we have no after school childcare. How do you guys do it?
- Thread starter amyers3
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@tomm1 She teaches high school chemistry in a different school district (30 min commute) that pays better than where we live and has childcare for the toddler that's about half as much as the daycares where we live ($1k/mo vs $2+k/mo). Our school system is way better, the town is much nicer, and it's where I work. We're hoping she can eventually work in this school district, even though the pay is worse (everyone wants to live here so they don't need to offer competitive pay).
vierentwintig
New member
@amyers3 Do they have a school bus?
Last year when my daughter was in Pre K I had her take the bus to and from school even though we only lived 11 minutes from the school, because the extra hour on the bus in the mornings and afternoons allowed me to work a full day from 7-3 if I didn’t take a lunch. Not great but the school bus is free and my daughter liked it.
Last year when my daughter was in Pre K I had her take the bus to and from school even though we only lived 11 minutes from the school, because the extra hour on the bus in the mornings and afternoons allowed me to work a full day from 7-3 if I didn’t take a lunch. Not great but the school bus is free and my daughter liked it.
@vierentwintig Man, I would be so grateful if we had a school bus. We have 7 elementary schools, 4 junior highs, and 3 high schools in this town but no bus service. There's bus service for the people who were smart enough to live one town over where it's somewhat cheaper but still send their kids to the nicer schools, but not for the folks that live here. Bus service would be a game changer.
thedeconverter
New member
@thedeconverter I work in a lab at a research-focused university.
@amyers3 I have no idea how people do, let alone single parents.
I started real estate so two of us weren’t on the 9-5 schedule, but full time daycare helped with the timing. Dropped off at 9, picked up by 5 lulled us to a sense of security. The biggest issue dealt with timing sick time, which came in handy because I could adjust my time during the week for real estate. Rarely do people want to see homes during the week, and everything else I can do from home.
Then regular school started.
Schedule is all screwed up now. Wife drops off in the morning, but I pick up in the afternoon. So I can only work until 2:30, at which point I have to take off. If I’m outside, then have to stop at 1:30 and drive back home. Then spend time with son until he goes to bed, because what’s the point if I can’t spend time with him? Then back to work after he sleeps, setting up emails (set to be sent at like 9:07 the next day so people think I woke up early lol) and sleep by like 1 am.
I’m going to remember all this when he grows up and says “You guys did nothing for me!”
I started real estate so two of us weren’t on the 9-5 schedule, but full time daycare helped with the timing. Dropped off at 9, picked up by 5 lulled us to a sense of security. The biggest issue dealt with timing sick time, which came in handy because I could adjust my time during the week for real estate. Rarely do people want to see homes during the week, and everything else I can do from home.
Then regular school started.
Schedule is all screwed up now. Wife drops off in the morning, but I pick up in the afternoon. So I can only work until 2:30, at which point I have to take off. If I’m outside, then have to stop at 1:30 and drive back home. Then spend time with son until he goes to bed, because what’s the point if I can’t spend time with him? Then back to work after he sleeps, setting up emails (set to be sent at like 9:07 the next day so people think I woke up early lol) and sleep by like 1 am.
I’m going to remember all this when he grows up and says “You guys did nothing for me!”
mylenelise
New member
@baniwho
My son is only 2.5, but I already think about these things in the future. Kids are so ungrateful, like I was. My dad ran a business, coached all my sports, took me skiing all the time, took me to Mexico every year...and I was still an ungrateful dick as a teen. As a father now, it's like, buddy I have literally sacrificed my entire life for you, every day, every hour. I hope you understand that some day...
My son is only 2.5, but I already think about these things in the future. Kids are so ungrateful, like I was. My dad ran a business, coached all my sports, took me skiing all the time, took me to Mexico every year...and I was still an ungrateful dick as a teen. As a father now, it's like, buddy I have literally sacrificed my entire life for you, every day, every hour. I hope you understand that some day...
@mylenelise Yeah, I heard this somewhere and it always stuck with me. In regards to fathers, “we idolize, we demonize, and then we humanize our fathers as we grow up”.
I don’t think I appreciated my dad as much as I should have growing up and I can already sense it in my 5 year old lol. Already has the attitude going.
I don’t think I appreciated my dad as much as I should have growing up and I can already sense it in my 5 year old lol. Already has the attitude going.
@mylenelise The only problem with this line of thought is that you chose this. Whether you really understood the level of commitment or not, you had the kid. The kid had no choice.
It's not the child's place to be grateful. It's your place as the parent to teach your child to be kind to others, including you.
It's not the child's place to be grateful. It's your place as the parent to teach your child to be kind to others, including you.
thedeconverter
New member
@thedeconverter Being kind? Lead by example and redirect their rude behavior. A toddler won't get it all the time, but it builds the foundation for when you can have those discussions with an older child.
Kids are going to take things for granted. They don't have any other experiences to compare. As they gain those, they'll make up their own minds on how they feel about those experiences. All we can do as parents is lay the foundation.
Kids are going to take things for granted. They don't have any other experiences to compare. As they gain those, they'll make up their own minds on how they feel about those experiences. All we can do as parents is lay the foundation.
leestephen
New member
@amyers3 A lot of people on here saying "this is life." I don't think they understand you're trying to make full time work happen with only 25-30 hours a week slotted for your job.
I have an extremely flexible set of 3 jobs (all three involve writing, which is deadline driven, with flexible hours). I'm the carpool dad for my 4yo preschooler, who gets Pre-K from the hours of 9am to 3pm. I'm the sick day and snow day parent. I'm also the nanny parent when the sitter for our 1.5yo can't make it. If there are important family errands to make - groceries, banking, post office, etc., - I'm the one to do them.
Many weeks, I'm up till 1-3am trying to be a good parent/husband/employee. Just recently I told my wife we needed to make changes to our schedule or I would end up in a psych ward for a week recovering from a mental health breakdown. (To her credit, is really making strides to take on more of the mental and logistical burdens of the family - It's life's fault. Not her fault). Which is to say, I'm with you. It's unsustainable.
There are a couple of really interesting things I noticed in your schedule. The kids take baths at really interesting times. Is this because you only have one bathroom in the house? Is there not a school bus in the district that can pick your kids up? Any way you can deputize some of the bigger kids to watch the toddler during afternoon screen time so you can work on other things? I'm only asking because these are all things that stuck out as different than I have experienced in my frame of reference as a dad. I don't hear of too many kids taking showers at 2:00 in the afternoon, for example. I'm just curious now how much of your schedule is informed by your house, your hot water heater, or your number of bathrooms.
I have an extremely flexible set of 3 jobs (all three involve writing, which is deadline driven, with flexible hours). I'm the carpool dad for my 4yo preschooler, who gets Pre-K from the hours of 9am to 3pm. I'm the sick day and snow day parent. I'm also the nanny parent when the sitter for our 1.5yo can't make it. If there are important family errands to make - groceries, banking, post office, etc., - I'm the one to do them.
Many weeks, I'm up till 1-3am trying to be a good parent/husband/employee. Just recently I told my wife we needed to make changes to our schedule or I would end up in a psych ward for a week recovering from a mental health breakdown. (To her credit, is really making strides to take on more of the mental and logistical burdens of the family - It's life's fault. Not her fault). Which is to say, I'm with you. It's unsustainable.
There are a couple of really interesting things I noticed in your schedule. The kids take baths at really interesting times. Is this because you only have one bathroom in the house? Is there not a school bus in the district that can pick your kids up? Any way you can deputize some of the bigger kids to watch the toddler during afternoon screen time so you can work on other things? I'm only asking because these are all things that stuck out as different than I have experienced in my frame of reference as a dad. I don't hear of too many kids taking showers at 2:00 in the afternoon, for example. I'm just curious now how much of your schedule is informed by your house, your hot water heater, or your number of bathrooms.
@leestephen Yep, I'm also the default parent/kid logistics person due to the flexibility of my job. I'm trying to figure out how to do this without drinking myself into an early grave or giving myself early onset dementia from the lack of sleep (to say nothing of the short temper it causes).
Our schedule is definitely bat shit. It mostly represents a lot of the factors you're mentioning. We've got 2 bathrooms, but only 1 bathtub. The master bath has a shower stall, but we've had issues with the kids fucking up our bathroom in the past. We might have to bring that one back into rotation though. The lack of hot water is the main issue. We also found that if we have the big kids wait until after dinner to bathe they had little incentive to do so, so we structured screen time access around getting hygiene and chores out of the way. The big kids can sort of keep the toddler busy, so we may go back to having them do supervised babysitting, but mostly the 4-5 p.m. screentime keeps them out of the way so we can snack up the toddler and let mom do her thing without them being up her butt the second she walks in the door.
Our schedule is definitely bat shit. It mostly represents a lot of the factors you're mentioning. We've got 2 bathrooms, but only 1 bathtub. The master bath has a shower stall, but we've had issues with the kids fucking up our bathroom in the past. We might have to bring that one back into rotation though. The lack of hot water is the main issue. We also found that if we have the big kids wait until after dinner to bathe they had little incentive to do so, so we structured screen time access around getting hygiene and chores out of the way. The big kids can sort of keep the toddler busy, so we may go back to having them do supervised babysitting, but mostly the 4-5 p.m. screentime keeps them out of the way so we can snack up the toddler and let mom do her thing without them being up her butt the second she walks in the door.
leestephen
New member
@amyers3 Ooh! A very practical upgrade that may give you an exponential upgrade in life quality and flexibility is the continuous heating tankless hot water heater. Have you looked into these? They are really neat and I hope to get one myself in the near future. Cheaper than childcare, that's for certain!
@leestephen I'll also say that some of these decisions reflect the idea "Well if we've got a couple of hours at home after school anyway might as well get some things done that most people do later in the day (e.g. my oldest taking his shower at like 3:30 in the afternoon)."