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How do you do it?



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tichellady




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Feb 05 2015, 12:54 pm
I am married and work full-time. I don't have children yet and I am trying to figure out what career I can see myself doing for the next 5-10 years and if I can see myself working full-time when I am a mother. Right now I come home from work tired. I try to exercise 2-3 days a week and I make a real dinner about 1-3 nights a week. Between that and grocery shopping and cleaning up and making shabbos, I feel like I have a lot going on. How do you that and have kids? Do you have to have a lot of energy? Do you have a lot of cleaning help? Do you need a husband who is home to help? My husband works a lot and I doubt he will work much less when we have kids. Should I just accept that I am not going to be able to have a full-time career and have kids and run a smooth home? For those of you who do work full-time and have kids, I would love to hear how you do it.
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amother


 

Post Thu, Feb 05 2015, 1:17 pm
I have a full time job and one baby. When I first got married I was working 50 hour weeks with commute, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry at my parents which meant schlepping it there and going back to turn it over and only being able to do one load at a time, and cooking every night and leaving my husband with a hot lunch AND dinner on days I worked late. I'm not gonna lie--I was falling apart. I told him I need some give from him (at the time he was working VERY part time from home finishing prereqs for grad school) and he took over the cleaning. I also stopped cooking as often (that gradually died down when I was pregnant...I'd cook most nights or make sure there was something but I didn't leave two hot meals and I'm not gonna lie ended up with MUCH more take out than I'd like to admit. He is currently in grad school and still working very part time and probably does 60% of child care (most of the time when I'm at work and does nighttime care the nights before I leave early) and still does all the cleaning. I still do all the shopping and cooking (Shabbos and maybe twice during the week), dishes and folding laundry (he took over doing in the laundry in our complex because it's easier to not shlep to my parents and be able to do all loads simultaneously and I don't feel safe going down there). And my house is far from spotless most of the time and I'm very overwhelmed a lot even with all the help from dh but I'm most definitely working full time with a kid. If it's that important to you you can make it happen (can't wait for dh to graduate so I can finally stop!)

PS oh, and much as I'd like it to, exercise NEVER happens. I feel bad leaving my baby when I'm actually home and when she is finally sleeping I'm too tired.
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morah




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Feb 05 2015, 1:28 pm
I work full time with two kids. I was home with my first for over a year and I am much better off working. It forces me to have a system and a schedule for getting things done. I also have a lot of cleaning help and bh I'm close to family who can help in a pinch. DH works way more than I do, so I can't rely on him to do much at home. Although his job is in some ways more flexible- like if a kid is sick and has to stay home, DH stays home because he can work remotely and I can't. I iyh hope to have many more kids, though I expect I may have to cut back to part time work at a certain point.
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lfab




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Feb 05 2015, 2:18 pm
I work pretty much full time and have 4 young children bli ayin horah (officially I work 8-3 but leave my house at 7:15 and don't get home from picking up all the kids until around 4:15). I have no outside cleaning help and I'm not particularly energetic. B"H my husband is very very helpful. He gets the kids off to school in the morning, sweeps the main living area floors nightly, almost always washes the dinner dishes, and mops the floors and cleans the bathrooms before shabbos. Mostly he does the cleaning because he is home Friday and I am not (weeks when I am home I often do the cleaning). I do the grocery shopping, laundry, after-school child care, and cooking. I cook dinner 2-3 nights per week plus shabbos and we have shabbos leftovers one night per week.
What I have found is that you figure it out as you go along. No your house probably won't always be as clean as you'd like and you may not be able to put a fresh home-cooked meal on the table every night and you may have baskets of laundry left unfolded for a week (yes this is my reality). But remember, generally, you have one baby at a time so it's not like you'll suddenly be thrown in to having to care for a house full of children. It's definitely doable and obviously if you can afford it cleaning help and/or a husband who is around to help make a big difference. You need to decide what you are or are not willing to live with. When you see that it's getting to much then you decide whether you want to start working part time, hire help, stop having more children, take a long break between kids... You don't need to have it all figured out in advance. As you go along you'll figure out routines that work for you and your family. For me I do a lot of cooking ahead and putting in the freezer, keep meals simple, buy enough clothes for m kids so I only need to do laundry once a week, only go to the grocery store once a week, and most importantly I have learned to relax my standards ( at least for the time being) and not compare my house/kids to other people.
Hope this helps.

Sorry if I rambled a bit.
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