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Wednesday
8:00 a.m. Husband drops daughter off at daycare before returning home for a remote work day. Lucky him!
9:00 a.m. Two hours into my workday and I’m ready to go home for the week. I typically travel Monday through Wednesday when I’m working at a client site — to allow for some mother-daughter time — but due to some specific workshops we’re running (and my travel weekend last week!), this week is a little off.
6:00 p.m. Husband picks up daughter from daycare before starting the dinner routine.
8:00 p.m. Husband is rocking the equal parenting thing, getting our daughter down for bed on schedule. She’s beginning to talk and has started asking “Mama, home?” so at least I know I’m missed. I try not to think about how she must miss me, because I’d feel bad. I could never hack it as a SAHM, though, so I just resolve to focus on the good role model I will be to my daughter when she’s old enough to understand. Plus, I figure she’ll get used to the schedule eventually and it won’t be as much of an issue.
We asked M how she and her husband make decisions about dividing parenting duties:
It’s almost always been 50/50. We bottle-fed from the get go, so from Day 1 I made it clear to my husband that I was not getting up every two hours for a feed. He loves interacting with our daughter, doing the bedtime routine, all of that stuff, so it’s rarely a fight over who needs to do what. He also doesn’t have much of a choice when I’m traveling, and when I return home I need my toddler-fix, so it seems to come naturally for us. I used to feel really guilty when I’d schedule time with friends, especially when it came after a work trip. I imagined that my husband was probably really annoyed or frustrated with me. I don’t really think he was, but I still get in my own head when I take time for myself like that. I’ll be the first to admit that I feel as though I still carry most of the emotional labor in the household. Whenever I feel really overwhelmed, my husband and I will have a talk and he’ll pick up some slack for awhile. It’s an ongoing discussion for us (and probably for a lot of other people).
Thursday
8:00 a.m. Husband drops off daughter at daycare before heading into his office
5:00 p.m. Husband’s parents are able to pick her up today, since he had to pull another day in the office instead of remotely at home. We’re so lucky that our parents are local-ish and don’t have any other grandkids. We know this arrangement will change as soon as our daughter gets some cousins, so we’re going to take advantage of this as long as possible. We also treat our parents to multiple bottles of wine whenever we see them as a partial (though inadequate) thank you.
5:00 p.m. I head out of the client site toward the airport for a 7:30 flight home
8:00 p.m. In-laws have the bedtime routine down, and husband arrives after daughter is sleeping
10:00 p.m. I get home from the airport. I catch up with husband on his week, our daughter, and our weekend plans before passing out.
Friday
7:30 a.m. Up for an early daycare drop-off! After an initial excited “HI!” my daughter has decided I’m now chopped liver and is asking for Daddy. Oh well. She has started to display some separation anxiety when we drop her off at daycare (surprise, surprise), but her carers are wonderful and know how to distract her (breakfast? yes, please! bye, Mom!).
3:30 p.m. I wrap up work for the day. It’s been a long week and there’s nothing I can start on now that I could finish before the end of the day.
4:00 p.m. I pick up my daughter from daycare early and we head over to my parents’ house for an impromptu BBQ. We bring bubbles for my daughter to play with outside while we all catch up. My husband arrives later that night for dinner.
7:00 p.m. Family dinner.
8:30 p.m. I decide to stay over at my parents’ house so they can spend more time with my daughter. I know I stand no chance of leaving, since my daughter has been attached to my hip all day. She goes down relatively easily, given the circumstances. I’m happy to spend the extra time with her.
11:00 p.m. I quietly slip into bed next to her pack ‘n’ play. I noticed that she pops up to look over at me throughout the night. Probably checking to make sure I’m still there. Nothing like some Friday-night guilt, kiddo!
Saturday
8:45 a.m. Daughter sleeps in later than usual, but we eventually get up to watch some Sesame Street downstairs while the rest of the house wakes up. We snack on berries and bananas.
10:00 a.m. Family breakfast means pancakes for my daughter. She’s a total goofball and we all enjoy watching her eat them, one pancake per fist.
3:00 p.m. We arrive back home, and daughter has fallen asleep in the car. I carefully get her out and up into her crib for an official naptime.
3:30 p.m. I catch up with my husband. It feels like it’s been weeks since we’ve properly interacted. It probably has. I definitely miss him.
6:00 p.m. Dinner together as a family
8:00 p.m. I handle the bedtime routine. Now that I’m traveling more, I find myself volunteering to do these routines more often. We split it 50/50 for the most part, but the opportunity to spend more time with my daughter and relieve my husband is too good to pass up. Looking forward to a beach day tomorrow (the first of the season) with daughter before headed back to my client on Monday.
Thanks so much to M for sharing a bit of her life as a working mom! Readers, what’s your biggest takeaway from her week of work as a management consultant as well as her general work/life balance?
Pictured: Shutterstock / s4svisuals.
Anonymous says
Wow, thank you for sharing! I’ve been curious about Big 4 consulting; it would be a great career move for me for several reasons, but I’m leery of the hours and travel with kids. It was really helpful to see what client site support looks like with a little one, and good for you for making it work! The grandparents sound like a godsend. Do you enjoy the travel and feel like you can do it for the long haul?
Anonymous says
I always love reading these. I’m curious about who cleans the house and when? When is grocery shopping done? When is laundry done? Are you able to fit in exercise? I’m so interested to know how others fit it all in and if there’s any creative solutions I could use.
CR says
+1
Anonymous says
I always wonder the same thing. Kat, would you consider adding a question to the “basics” section at the top of each profile that covers household chores–what’s outsourced/not outsourced, who does what, when, and how often? Similar to the child care question.
Anonymous says
I think that would be so interesting/helpful. I always remember one of the earliest posts in this series was a mom to 3 or 4 and she had a standing Friday pizza delivery order. I remember thinking, “genius!” While I haven’t adopted that exact practice, I learned from that post that I could save so much time and mental energy by automating certain things my family does/needs every week. I think those are this most helpful/interesting takeaways from this series.
Anonymous says
Agreed!
On a related note, I love when contributors mention the little home-related tasks they squeeze into their workday (like running an errand or making a phone call between meetings.) My days often feel like a crazy patchwork of professional and personal tasks, and I enjoy seeing how others juggle the same. Tremendous thanks to everyone who shares their stories as part of this series.
Kate says
Thanks for the suggestion — we will consider adding that!
OP says
Hey – OP here! So I typically travel Mon-Wed, which leaves me time to grocery shop on weekends. We typically go as a family because my toddler loves riding in the race car shopping carts. I definitely outsource house cleaning. We pay someone $100 twice a month (so $200 total) to do a deep clean. Laundry is kind of hit or miss. My husband helps do laundry for our daughter often enough, and that happens randomly throughout the week. I will say that I am much better about going to the gym when I’m traveling. I make it a point to get to the hotel gym twice while I’m gone, then I don’t have too much pressure to go when I’m home (though I still try to get to a class on the weekend here and there).
I eat much better now, but have to say when I first started consulting i probably gained 15 lbs from bad eating/drinking habits. By nature it’s a very social industry so it’s easy to let loose.
I’m 11 years into my career but have been in consulting for 5. It’s a place where I’m constantly challenged professionally and have enjoyed a lot of growth, and I could see myself doing this kind of work long term. But I worry what the next step in promotion might do to my lifestyle. However, a female mentor recently suggested that it’s better to try for the upper levels of consulting and then decide it’s not for me, rather than self selecting out because the shift in responsibilities/hours may not be what I want. I think I’m going to follow that advice for now. I am pretty constantly looking into industry jobs with more normalized hours, though. Just in case.
And yes – grandparents are a total godsend. We probably would not be able to work this out without them.
Anon says
As a mom who went to bottle feeding early on, reading that you bottle fed from the start (period, no explanation) made me feel less alone in the world of all breastfeeding all the time. Thank you for that!!
Anonymous says
Yup, I was a BF martyr (some people enjoy it. I did not.) with my first. Second switched to formula after my first business trip (4 months) and third went after my first business trip (5 months). In the early stages it was just more convenient for me to nurse, but any time it wasn’t direct from my b00b it was formula. I did the pumping thing, I did the carrying milk through airports thing, I learned my lesson :-).
OP says
Oh, I’m so glad! I had zero interest in BF at any point. I wanted my husband up doing the feeds just like me and had no interest in hooking myself up to a machine. Also, honestly, the idea of BF squicked me out. It’s great when other moms find success in it but I knew from the beginning that it wasn’t for me. I’m happy to have helped you in some small way!
Govtattymom says
Thanks so much for sharing! I love your attitude and your positivity! Such a fun read.
OP says
Thank you!
caitlin says
This was so interesting because my husband has your job (big 4 consulting) so I am your husband in your scenario haha. He travels M- Thursday though (but then will have a week or 2 here and there with no travel) and we have 2 young kids. It’s really interesting to see how people make this work. It has definitely been trying on our relationship and it makes for a somewhat rough transition back on Friday mornings when I am used to doing the weekday routine myself. I really appreciated your comment on the emotional labor and that redistribution of things is an ongoing discussion. Overall, I really appreciated your positive attitude as my husband often reminds me it is hard for him too, not seeing the kids and me (insert eyeroll here) even thought I know it’s true, but I liked hearing his side through you! Sometimes I just need to see other working professional families with one heavy traveler pulling this off and give myself a little pep talk that we can do this haha, so thanks so much for sharing. Also, good for you for taking on a role with travel and not letting that limit your career and aspirations. You really seem to be making it work :)