How are WFH parents doing this?

My husband and I both have WFH jobs. My 3 y/o is home sick, but won’t do anything independently except watch TV. So one of us (me) is not getting any work done. I feel like a terrible parent just leaving them in front of the screen all day but I also don’t have any other options right now. Help?!

Last year, I lost my husband and needed a lot of help managing my home and keeping things together. My 3 neighbors and I share a nanny/house manager. It works well because I don't need a nanny, so I have her 6 hours a week. Together, we all add up to 50 hours, and she helps run all our lives beautifully. Because we live next to each other, it is easy to share her time.

I am now coping better, and honestly, her fee is not sustainable for me. It was worth it when I was in the trenches, but I can't keep affording it. I am struggling to let her go, though. She has really been my saving grace in a really hard time.

How much time is reasonable to give as notice? She has worked for me for a year. I'm so sick that I can't continue with her.

I am curious mainly to help my own guilt. I work full time and my husband is in medical residency so his schedule is very high demand and mostly unpredictable. I am the primary pick up and drop off and most things during this busy stage. Some days I need a little me time. I need to workout or do other things but I have this weird belief that I can only have my son in daycare while I work. WHY!!! Does anyone else feel that way? Do other parents have their kids in daycare for more than 8 hours. I don’t know what’s normal

I’m in the US. I have a very well paying job that offers really good maternity leave (about 6 months). I bring home about 50% of our income after medical insurance is taken out of my paycheck.

The question is, I’m 32 weeks pregnant. How am I supposed to come back to this job that I absolutely despise after I get 6 months off with my baby??
If money were no issue, I’d stay at home but that’s just not an option for us at this point.

How do you deal with the transition both the last month before maternity leave and also coming back from a long maternity leave??

For those of you who hire cleaning services for your house, how often do you have them come? My husband is starting a new job that requires him to work way more, and he is also getting a new salary that finally allows us to outsource some cleaning. Since he will be working more, I really want to have them cover the deep cleaning so we can focus on quality time on the weekends, or bigger projects. In my mind, having them come weekly would be great, but it also seems like a lot of people do biweekly or monthly. I don't want to spend more money than I have to, but I also don't want to get stuck with all the cleaning on the in-between weeks if we did biweekly/monthly. Just curious what has worked well for others!

My husband hurt his back moving boxes last week. I know it hurts. I have been trying to help, but he has complained about it every day. Now he says he cannot do anything and does not want to go to work.
I work in the office three days a week. I do school drop off and pickup, take our kid to Kumon, do laundry, make dinner, and shop at Aldi. He does not handle much of this when he is well. He also does not keep track of school events, appointments, or what we need at home.
Most of it stays in my head. School stuff goes in Apple Reminders. Appointments go in Google Calendar. I put family plans on the Linkdaze in the hallway. We still have Post its on the fridge. He still asks me what is happening. If I hurt my back, I would still be thinking about pickup, dinner, and what our kid needs tomorrow. I doubt he would take over. I don’t want to drive to CVS again for another box of Salonpas.

My baby is about to turn 9 months this week. I have a fairly demanding job with a team of five people under me which means 5 people’s issues I have to oversee. I’ve been trying to work on not stressing or caring about the issues I’m dealing with because if I lost my job tomorrow those issues wouldn’t even matter! Obviously I know I have to get my work done but I’m looking for tips on removing my emotional obligation to customers placing orders last minute 🫠 I feel burnt out and consumed by my job when I log off everyday.

Thank you!

I am scared of marrying an manchild that doesn’t carry his own weight. What are some subtle signs that I can watch out for? What specific ways is your partner supportive?

I used to clean up the whole house after putting the kids to bed. Kitchen counters, toys, floors, everything. I couldn't relax until the place looked decent.
Now I just clear the dinner table, pick up anything that's in the way, and leave the rest for tmr. We got a robot vacuum recently too, so at least I don't have to deal with the floors myself every night. I'm too tired to spend my only quiet hour cleaning. Did anyone else lower their standards a bit after having kids?

I truly need to vent and also hear how other people have managed this. My husband and I are trying to conceive now and of course the topic comes up with friends and even coworkers about babies and families, etc. When I share that we would love to have a family soon, I am met with the question of “Well do you plan to still work?”.
LIKE DUH??? I love job and I make great money. For context, I am in med device and my schedule is great and so is the pay. But I get frustrated because no one would ever ask a dad this. Or when I say that I do plan to work, everyone makes it seem like that’s the wrong answer. “They’re only small for so long” “You never get that time back” “If you can stay home then you should”. Why do we do this to women???? Why do I feel like I’m wrong for wanting to work????

And why when I say I love my job and want to work, the next response is “Well you might change your mind. Most women do when they have their baby” or “You say that now but you haven’t become a mom yet”.

Idk it’s so frustrating. I’m not saying going back to work will be easy or that I won’t miss my baby, but I’m allowed to not want to stay home and allowed to want a career.

How do you manage this? And why does it give me more anxiety about maternity leave and going back to work because everyone is telling me how much I WONT want to and how awful it’ll feel?

I'm not sure how to phrase this exactly but here it goes.

I live in mountain town conducive to remote work but a 6+ hour drive to the nearest major city. I choose to move here about 10 years ago after living in LA and Brooklyn and met my spouse and built a life, had a child. The schools are good, I know that I need mountains and nature for my mental health (having grown up in the mountain west it's just part of who I am) but I've realized how important cities are to me as well. I'm a creative and just really miss the access to culture, people, my friends, and energy of big cities. Where I live is beautiful but it's not diverse in any sense of the word and I want my child to be exposed to things outside of this bubble (we've traveled to NYC and LA together and had a blast, she loved it)

I fantasize about a situation where either I travel to a city and just work there solo for like a week every quarter or something. But I feel some guilt about leaving home like that electively so frequently.

Alternatively I wonder if there's a way to go as a family, the issue is my spouse cannot work remotely so childcare would fall on him if we like did a Listings Project or HomeExchange for a month. I also love the idea of my kid doing a summer program or something when she's older (she's four now) but I know everything is so much more expensive, esp in NYC.

Has anyone pulled anything like this off? Am I delusional??

I realize this is such a first world problem and right now it's very much hypothetical as I just got laid off. It's more of a thought exercise for now as I spend time mapping out my vision for my career moving forward (something I've not really done before!).

Me and my husband are currently living with his parents and his older brother with our 9 months daughter. Both my in laws are retired and are very helpful , letting me sleep in, looking after her whenever we need to go out etc. my husband and I have office jobs and both very demanding sometimes incl. long hours. I’m looking to go back to work around March 2027, and we’re currently looking at houses to buy.

I’m keen to buy this property which is 8 mins walk from my in laws, 15 mins walk from station and also opposite my in-laws house there’s an amazing outstanding primary school I would like my daughter to go to and the area is generally really good and safe. However this house is 525k (I personally prefer it out of the other 20 or so houses we looked at) and my husband wants a house that’s under 500k (in case either one of us ever is to be made redundant, at least one of us can afford the mortgage) he also thinks we shouldn’t just buy a property just to be close to his parents and he’s telling me to just put my foot down at work and not work long hours so I can prioritise our daughter. (Easier said than done :/) he’s more keen at looking at properties which is still close by but like 15-20 mins drive away, where properties are around 475k, (crime rate is abit higher around this station) so incase we need their help we can drop her off, but I still feel like being walking distance will be much more beneficial for us for things like school pick ups and being with her grandparents until we finish work.

Idk I rather pay abit extra to be closer. I wanted mainly advice from other working mums - do you think it’s worth it?

Got guilt? Here’s your weekly thread to share what you‘re feeling, whether it be guilt around working, parenting, daycare, personal life stuff or just being a working mom.

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