@Hilla- Thanks for your comment! I’m sure every situation is different. I do know that I’m constantly pushing back on the narrative that childcare (at least the paid variety) is “bad,” because I think a lot of people walk around with that as the back story that pushes some questionable decisions. So I think it’s quite relevant that the children in this question do appear to go to school without throwing fits every morning, screaming in class that life is terrible, and so forth. They go to school and are cared for and nurtured by competent, professional adults — who are not their parents — for many hours most days. This family also only had a sitter for 3 hours a week. So there’s something else going on, and given that they went through five sitters in a short period of time, it seems most likely that it was the lack of continuity, not non-parental care, that is the problem.

I do imagine that figuring out the “right” number for a family could be quite a process, and merits serious thought. However, I’d also say that the appropriate middle from the perspective of the children is not the only perspective that matters. Kids might want their parents around constantly, but they’d probably also like Santa to show up every morning. Everyone is working within the constraints of time, money, the career options available to a parent, the presence of other adults in the kids’ lives, etc.

@ARC – I’ve heard from a reasonable number of families who try some version of splitting time to avoid childcare, and I agree that it’s not ideal. Sometimes it’s done for financial reasons, and it may just be what has to happen in those cases, but if the thinking is that childcare is “bad”…well, exhausted parents who don’t see each other much aren’t particularly “good.”

We tried the “split shift” thing by taking advantage of flexible schedules so our daughter wouldn’t “have” to go to daycare, and it ran us ragged. We had ONE day of the week together as a family, and the other 6 days, one of us was working 9-12 hour days. We did this for 8 months, and when we did put our daughter into daycare at 13 months, it was SUCH a better schedule for all of us.

I was thinking the same thing! I do the same thing as SHU and hand over the ‘dress up day’ list to my kids and tell them to track it if they want. (They don’t care that much, it turns out.) They have both packed their lunches themselves since they were 5 (with supervision at first, obviously, and we’ll still slice fruit for them if asked.) We have a pretty long list of tasks for them each day around getting ready for the next day, feeding the dog, dishes, etc. They grumble about it occasionally, but they know we all need to do stuff we don’t like to keep the house running. The list has made it much easier for both my husband and I to offload the day to day nagging type stuff and “outsource” it to the kids themselves 🙂

This reminds me of one of Laura’s older articles about her son wanting her to walk him to the bus stop every day, and the compromises she made with him in that area.

My daughter wants me to come to her class and volunteer for class parties. This is something that makes my skin crawl. Her class has 30 kids in it and it is barely controlled chaos. There’s a reason I have only 2 kids, and why I work from home in a job I mostly do alone 🙂 I’d need a whole day to “recover” from a 2 hour class party stint, so I just told her it’s not a thing I like to do. Instead I have volunteered to help her teacher sort books, or we buy the treats for the parties and she takes them to school. I think it’s ok to say no to your kids, even when it feels like a thing a “good mom should” do, and find a compromise.

Forgot to mention, when I was pregnant with kid #2, he was taking a year off work , so he handled most of the kid stuff while I was working/going to a million drs appointments/exhausted. It was really great to have him around once I was on mat leave so we could really divide and conquer.

Ooh, I wonder if there’s something to this idea re: 50-50 split and the husband being off for a time period. I’m definitely more of a worrier, so I do a lot of “stress research” but I know my husband is also thinking about the things that worry me. We’re also pretty close to 50-50, and I wonder if it’s because he was the primary caregiver for our daughter for 2-3 days a week when I went back to work after mat leave. We did this horrible flexible work shared schedule thing where he worked Wed-Sat, 10 hours/day or more, and I worked Mon/Tue, so we were only all home together on Sundays. We made it work but I wouldn’t do that again. However, he is much more “in the weeds” with kid and house stuff than a lot of people I see, and I wonder if it’s because of that time. BUT, he also works from home (like me) so maybe he’s also reminded of all that “stuff” all day because he’s right there.

Now, obviously, this is BOBW, so no one here is saying that a parent must stay home 100% of the time, and I don’t think anyone is advocating for the opposite extreme, to be away from home 100% of the time (barring something extreme, like deployment, hospitalization, etc). But what is the appropriate middle from the perspective of the children?

I don’t think quality childcare is equal to parental presence, and I think that is especially true for sensitive children, spirited children, children with behavioral/mental health issues, and children with medical issues. Some children might have a very easy time with a childcare provider, and some might not, for good reason. Some kids might be OK with it for a while, but then there could be a rough patch for them when they need extra attention from a parent.

I liked the solutions that you offered in the Q&A because they allowed the person asking the question to tease out different reasons why her children want her home in the afternoon – is it the particular babysitter, is it the lack of friends that makes it less fun, etc. If the mom can figure out how the kids can be happy AND she can be happy in her job, then great. All is well.

But sometimes all is not well, and how do we know when that’s the case? Or, how do we prevent that from being the case? I would love for you to have an episode on this and bring an expert to discuss the nuances. Yes, I know Laura says that there are no studies proving harm with childcare, and Sarah points out that you could never really know for sure what your children need…but I wouldn’t just leave it at that. Every situation is different, and I would love to hear a discussion of what variables parents should look out for and consider in making good choices for their children.

I do agree that outsourcing is only one solution to how to deal with tasks, and there need to be other solutions when it’s not affordable for some families. It also takes work to outsource, which another guest on a previous show pointed out; for example, I’m super picky about who babysits my kids, so it takes me a long time to find people that I trust. So there’s an up-front time investment which is sometimes insurmountable when times get particularly busy. I would love to see more discussions on alternatives to outsourcing in managing all the “stuff” to do.

Agree so munch. I felt sorry for the child who forget his stuff for electronics but not sure it’s dad fault if he can remember he can pack it in his bag. My sons kindergarten teacher won’t let the kids say mum or dad forgot the expectation is they remember. Goes across everything to the point I told him homework was his choice but he had to explain to his teacher and I would support what ever punishment.