[Closed] Work/Life Balance as a dad

Well, one of you has to do all the kiddie stuff and it sounds like it's going to be you. Same here.  What would I choose? Well I've done the full-career mega-hour stuff and now work school hours and do all the before and after school stuff. I would now choose where I am now, but happy to have done the other.

I do the start early finish early thing so i'm there for the 3:15 collection every day. Thurs and Fri i WFH so i do the breakfast and morning cuddles with my lad, even though he's now 10... .we still do that every morning.

I would never ever ever take a role that stopped this for me.... there's not a value yet i've found that would replace my desire to be at home with him/wife.

I’m away for a conference for two days this week. Hate the fact I won’t see the kids for two days. They are ace and you’ll never get this time back. When Mrs F returns to work I’ll be looking for a basic job that’ll let me spend as much time with them as possible.

Have to admit this is something I’m really struggling with.

My wife lost her job (illegally made redundant whilst on the first week of maternity leave) but only found out when she tried to go back to it. Number 2 started to bake shortly after that with the result that we’ve been left with no maternity pay or other income apart from my salary for the last 2 years - which would have been much less of a problem if we’d known it was something we needed to plan for in advance - we were planning on getting the deferred maternity pay (paid on return), the salary between number 1 and 2 and then maternity pay for number 2.. so a big financial hole to plug.

I’m currently stuck in a pretty hateful role that means I’m on a 12 hour repeating schedule in the week working with some exceptionally “difficult” and often quite unpleasant colleagues. I’m on my bike going to / from work every 12 hours Monday to Friday. I’m generally feeling extremely stressed by work and completely knackered outside work but still doing an ok job of pulling my weight with evening bathtime, storytime, trying to get our eldest to sleep / getting up too many times every night to re-settle and what feels like an endless list of chores in the evenings and weekends.

Despite a huge effort I’ve not managed to find a different role that gives the same money without also requiring a lot more travel / time away from home, so until something else comes along I’ve just got to carry on sucking it up - which has felt really really hard over the last 6 months.

just sharing because to be honest I know I’m probably going to be stuck in this situation for up to another year or so - possibly longer as when my wife eventually goes back to work we’ll have to find nursery fees as well. Writing it down sort of helps as although I know quite a lot of people are in a worse situation I can’t really talk about it with anyone who is in a position to help so I’ve just got to “ deal” with it.

Changed jobs internally so I can WFH and I do the nursery drop off / pickup while my wife does the London train commute. Right now though that fits around my 9-5:30 day - when the eldest goes off to primary school in September I'll have to have a think about what to do as it'll be a much shorter day. The work I do can be pretty flexible for time but I'm not sure I want to be up super early or be working late into the evening to make up the 40 hours. No real precedent for reduced or part time hours at my place but it's worth exploring. Saw recently that the German metalworkers union managed to get a deal where people can drop to 28 hours for up to 2 years and can return to their original 35 hour week at the end - makes loads of sense with kids or elderly parents.

Hard to find jobs that offer that sort of flexibility though, everyone I know doing similar managed it by moving within their organisations once they were well established.

Very, and it's a mix of desire and necessity.

My Wife starts work at 8am, no ifs or buts about it. Eldest is 12 and sorts himself out and leaves about the same time, Youngest is 4 and starts school at 9ish. I take her pretty much everyday, it's one of the best parts of my day as much as the school run fundamentally sucks, but we have an hour together every morning which I love. We play around, sing silly sounds and watch TV if we're tired.

I arrive at work 09:15, it don't stay late or anything like that, that's just when I start.

The alternatives aren't very palatable, I could drop her to breakfast club at 08:30 and be in work for 08:45, but I don't think I ever will, I'll probably miss our time when she starts High School in 7 years.

I used to work from home on Friday afternoons, when she was tiny it was scary - 6 month olds are, I'd be on the phone to some important client with baby on my lap, I used to pretend it wasn't happening, but I soon learned no one minds if you say "I'm home with Baby this afternoon" and sod 'em if they do.

There's been times when I've been offered some great work opportunities I've turned down to keep it and times when work was crushing me with stress I wished I could get something else, but didn't fancy going into an interview saying "oh, by the way, I'll be "late" every single day, and I'll go home lunchtime Friday".

Money is a constant worry, we're never going to starve or anything like that, but it's been a really tough couple of years that coming to an end now, but I wouldn't see my kids for 30 mins a day like some of my mates to earn more.

Both my wife and I are Civil Engineers and work four days a week, she has Mondays off and I have Fridays off. Less money but more time for us to sort other things and spend time with kids. It's great.

V Important. Would take less cash for more flexibility and just figure out how to deal with it. As said above, someone has to be there for the children ... feels like society is trying its level best to ensure both parents are out for 12 hours and paying someone else to parent which is fine if thats your choice, but many seem to simply not have that luxury of choice, even to sustain a basic living.

V lucky at the moment to have both, making the most of it as in 4 years all boys will be in secondary, and life is an awful lot easier - just get them to the bus each morning.. eldest is reasonably self sufficient now.

I work away a lot and like the travel but hate being away, I really miss being at home, I feel sick when away. We are pretty tight (holiday in UK 1 week a year, basic car, no finance nothing flashy, cheap bikes!) but life basics are expensive. I need the extra travel money. I am struggling to see a way out too.

I work away Tuesday - Thursday every week. And at a location 15 mins from home on Mondays and Fridays. Prior to that I was working somewhere an hour away from home and often working away for 1 to 2 nights at a time but at late notice of only a day or so which meant planning time during the week was a nightmare.
Now I know that I'll leave home early on Tues morning and be home about 7pm Thrusday so it's much more routine and easier to plan around for my wife not having to cancel plans last minute because I have to suddenly be away.
It's also 39 hrs a week but with no defined start/finish time, so I can work a couple of longer days while I'm away then leave a bit early on a Thursday to get home for kids bedtime and then finish at half 1 on friday and get back for the school run and be home in time to take the boy to football practice on a Monday.
I do miss them when I'm away, but I'm now doing a job that I enjoy more and I get more time with them when I am working locally.

Ta for sharing peeps.

Can certainly see a few parallels in there.

Well, one of you has to do all the kiddie stuff and it sounds like it’s going to be you.

Yep.  OH has kept down a perm role these last few years despite being exhausted with various "conditions", namely fatigue, migraines, thyroid, neurological pain et al.  Depression kicks in from time to time and she's going through a bit of a breakdown/reflection right now.  It seems that if she works FT she only occasionally has energy to do fun stuff at the weekend.  Which means, as cheddarchallenged can relate to, it's daddy that picks up the life admin, DIY, kids activities etc.  It's tiring.

Adding a regular commute to that will have a knock on effect and probably send both of us over the edge.  Hence the liberation that can come with certain contracts is the most likely enabler of work/life balance.  Financial risk though.

didn’t fancy going into an interview saying “oh, by the way, I’ll be “late” every single day, and I’ll go home lunchtime Friday”.

I've been upfront about much of this since becoming a dad.  Am saying the same thing now as WFH, flex etc is key to making things work.  Have had a few roles say that's not the way they roll and we've left it there.

Tis tough though.  Spent enough of my 20s and 30s doing the London ting.  Kids don't remain young forever.

Freelance here, working very ad-hoc hours in the creative industries. Our 13-month old is about to go to nursery 2 days each week, so my OH will work 3 days and I'm happily committing to having the lad every Wednesday.  For us I reckon it's going to be the best balance.  I'll compress my work into 4 days (fewer in the slack weeks, or work weekends/evenings if I'm stacked) and my other half will have enough income to cover the nursery with some left over (and she won't go mad being a full-time mum). The lad will get 2 days at nursery every week, an extra day with me, and 2 days each week with Mum. Any bonus free days I get will be spent riding or doing fun stuff with the wee one. We're hoping this system will suit him well, and we'll accept any financial hits that come with it.

It's tough and every balance is different.  I'm lucky in that I'm well established in my company and so they let me work "agile" which in my case means 4 days / week.  I actually tend to use the Fridays as a mix of "me time" (bike rides) and domestic chores such that we can enjoy the weekends without dragging kids to supermarket etc.

Sweamrs career is more stable than mine and so we're focusing on ensuring she remains employable.

It is very tough and everyone has something that’ll work for them. We decided Mrs F should give up work (self employed driving instructor) until Funk Jr started school. We had a pleasant surprise in the form of lil miss Funk last year.

Decided that we’d follow the same tack with number two. Means I’m stuck in the job I’m in and money is very, very tight. Wouldn’t change it though. Mrs F loves spending so much time with them both.

As long as you can find something that works for you as a family OP. Good luck

I can sympathise, it's hard trying to get that balance and still earn a decent wage. After beng made redundant 3 times in 5 years i am earning 30% less than i used to and having to work 11 hour days, my wife works in a stressful job in the NHS and starts at 7am.

So i get up and get my type 1 diabetic 8 year old daughter ready for school and drop her at the in-laws for 7am, drive an hour to work for 8am and the finish at 7pm and drive hour back, so i only see my daughter in week to get her ready in morning and for 20 minutes in the evening.

I then try and spend quality time with her at weekends, but it is difficult as i'm knackered, have the jobs that need doing around the house and for my own sanity try and fit in the odd ride on my bike which i'm finding more and more difficult as i used to get up early at weekends to get out, but losing a second child a few years ago means my wife struggles with depression and is never out of bed before 9am at weekends.

But you do what you have to, i would love to work more civil hours and spend more time with daughter, but the bills don't go away!!

Kids don’t remain young forever.

This is why I currently work a 4 day week. The extra 20% on my pay packet would be brilliant but as soon as I have to answer "what is that one day a week with my daughter worth?"  - it's way more than the 20%.

We are really luck I think. I get up at 5.30 if bike commuting or 6 if going by car and am at my desk by 6.30.  I work through until 3pm usually maybe 3.15 on a bad day and I am home by 4 whether biking or driving. Means I get home just after the Mrs and little guy and get to spend three hours with them both in the evening before bed time. This also means that we both get time to do extra stuff I. The evening and normally all have tea at 5 together which means I can do a Zwift after he has gone to bed and the Mrs can go to book club or similar. The Mrs has got a job from 9.30 until 1.30 and we earn a decent combined salary to make us comfortable.

Hasnt always been like that and litttle one has just started school. Weekends we generally all do stuff together but there is time for individual things as well. When he was about 2 it was much harder

Some good advice on how people have made this work for them on this thread. I was just contemplating starting a similar thread as I feel like I have no life at all just now.

I put my 15 month old girl to bed on a Sunday night and don’t see her again until I pick her up on a Friday evening from the child minder. Every Sunday I get a lump in my throat at her bedtime and go back up when she is sleeping to explain that I love her so much and think about her all the time, and that I have to work away for now to make sure we have a roof over our heads etc.

I drive a lorry and I’m maxing my daily hours out every day just so I can get away at a reasonable time on a Friday.. which doesn’t always work. I have been putting in 60 hour weeks Monday to Friday for the last 6 months and I’m totally exhausted.

I love being home at the weekends though as my little girl doesn’t leave my side.. especially on a Sunday as she obviously knows I won’t be there on Monday. But it’s bloody hard as I’m constantly in a rush to be somewhere or catch up chores plus still trying to find time to do stuff I enjoy doing. I’m looking to buy another mountain bike when finances allow so I can get back into it aswell... still nobody selling a 16” Cotic Soul!

My wife works 4 days and she deals with all the kiddy stuff when I’m not there obviously but I know it’s hard for her aswell so I make sure I do as much as I can over the weekend. She understands the situation and makes allowances for my often knackered mood..

I would quit tomorrow if we could afford it, 95% of my money goes on bills and the rest I try to save. I’ll be debt free by February though bar the mortgage and the car (which will be traded in for a cheap runabout).. this will help massively and I just need to work out how to sell me dropping to 4 days every second week to my boss... I know he will take it badly but I don’t have anything else to give just now. Been with them nearly 10 years so I’m well established.

Feel better for having written that all down now... finally.