working moms of only children Archives

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Business Manager in Boston

05/17/2018 by Guest Poster 25 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader K, who lives in the Boston suburbs with her husband and son and works as a business manager in tech. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: K
Location: Lives and works in a Boston suburb
Job: Business manager in tech
Age: 32
Hours worked in a typical week: 35–44
Home Situation: I live in a 2,500-square-foot house with my husband (engineer in biotech); our 9-month old son, C; and our cat.
Childcare Situation: $1,200/month. We have a unicorn childcare situation: a licensed, in-home provider in our neighborhood who watches C and two other babies his same age. It is essentially a nanny share, but at a fraction of the cost.

We asked K about how she arrived at her “unicorn” arrangement for childcare:

Mostly by luck, sorry to say, there is no magic secret. We toured several big-name centers, one independent center, and two in-home providers — in our area there is no shortage. I do recommend checking with your state’s child care licensing agency when looking for in-home providers, because many do not advertise. That’s how we found ours, but it was purely luck that all her kids were “graduating” to pre-K and she was starting with two other babies C’s age. And because of mandated ratios, she can’t take any more kids right now. We also got lucky that we click really well with the other families and the kids all have similar temperaments.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Federal Government Attorney

02/22/2018 by Guest Poster 12 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader S, who lives in a small Southern city with her husband and son and works as an attorney for the federal government. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: S
Location: Live in a small city in the South; work in a nearby small town.
Job: Attorney for the federal government
Age: 30
Home Situation: I live in a 3-bedroom house halfway between downtown of the city we live in and the small town I work in. I live with my husband, whose main job is staying home with our 3-year-old son, C.
Childcare Situation: My husband watches our son full time. We have family come watch C about 2–3 hours per week on Mondays when our work schedules overlap.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: In-House Counsel in Texas

01/11/2018 by Guest Poster 22 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader Sarah, who lives in Dallas, TX, with her husband and son and works as an in-house counsel. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: Sarah
Location: Lives in Plano, works in Dallas
Job: In-house counsel
Age: 40
Home Situation:

I live in a 2-story, 5-bedroom, 3-bath, 3,000-square-foot home with a nice size backyard and pool (hooray for the suburbs!) with my husband (38-year-old architect), our son (4-year-old with autism and speech delay) and our three pomeranians. My son has his own room. We use the other bedrooms (besides the master) for guests/in-laws and our home office/gym. We hope to be able to convert one of the guest rooms into a nursery in the near future!

Childcare Situation:

Right now, my son goes to a special needs preschool from 8:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. He rides the bus to and from school. After school, the bus drops him off at daycare, where he receives applied behavioral analysis therapy (ABA) until I pick him up after work around 6:00 p.m. In the fall, my son will go to kindergarten [Sarah wrote this in 2017], but the daycare will be out of the school-bus zone, so we are hiring an after-school nanny. His ABA therapist will also work with him at home. We pay $535/month for daycare. The nanny will be $1,000/month.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Dietitian and Assistant Manager in Florida

11/30/2017 by Guest Poster 12 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader E, who lives in Florida with her husband and son and works as a registered dietitian and assistant manager. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: E
Location: Live in a medium-sized town in South Florida.
Job: Registered dietitian and assistant manager in an office setting
Age: 34
Home Situation: I live in a family-friendly neighborhood with my husband, K, and our 2.5-year-old son (almost 3!), P. We have a 1,500-square-foot house with a yard. No pets. I am holding out for cat. Everyone else wants a dog. (Note: E says her son has since turned 3.)

Childcare Situation:

We both work full time, so my son goes to a home daycare during the week ($200/week). He has been going there since he was 6 months old. I took him to work with me for 3 months after my maternity leave. Although I loved having him with me, it was also very stressful, so we decided to switch to a home daycare since we wanted something a little more “homey” for him. He has now been there for over 2 years. He is happy, so we are too. Neither one of our parents live nearby, so aside from that he is always with us! That is with the exception of a date night here or there.

We were intrigued about how E brought her son to work for a few months, and we wanted to hear more about it:

It was my boss’s idea for me bring the baby to the office! We had an empty office a couple of doors down from mine, so we turned that into the baby room. … My coworkers were happy to hold him if I was in a meeting or had to take a phone call. Ultimately though, babies will be babies :) and the unpredictability of when he would sleep (and not sleep) became stressful. At that point he was also becoming more mobile, so we decided to switch to our home daycare. I am so grateful that I was able to bring him with me, even if just for that short amount of time. I heard a podcast episode recently from The Longest Shortest Time that dealt with this topic, and they featured a company who encourages their employees to bring their babies to work. I think what they have worked out is great, and I hope that more companies can offer this as an option.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Finance in Pennsylvania

11/09/2017 by Guest Poster 16 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader C, who lives in suburban Pennsylvania with her husband and two kids and works in finance at a nonprofit. Our usual caveat applies: Please remember that this is is a real person who has feelings and isn’t gaining anything from this, unlike your usual friendly (soul-deadened, thick-skinned, cold-hearted, money-grubbing) blogger — so please be kind with any comments. Thank you! – Kat

If you’d like to be featured (anonymously or otherwise), please fill out this form! You can see all posts in this series here.

First, Some Basics About This Working Mom…

Name: C
Location: Live and work in suburban Pennsylvania
Job: Finance at a nonprofit
Age: 30
Home Situation:

I live in a 3000(ish)-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom single family home with my husband, toddler son, and dog. Our second son is due in a few months. (Note: Since submitting her Week in the Life, C and her family have welcomed their baby!) My husband and I both work full-time. He typically works a second-shift schedule but is in a role where his schedule and work demands can change with little notice.

Childcare Situation:

My son is home with my husband in the morning. Husband takes Son to Grandma’s house in the afternoon when he’s on his way to work. I usually go see Son at lunchtime, as Grandma is close to my work. It is an awesome arrangement that helped me ease the transition back to work while trying to keep up with nursing. I stopped nursing a month after returning to work, even with that amazing arrangement! Grandma takes Son back to our house after lunch. Son will nap for 2+ hours at our house in his crib but will only nap for a maximum of 30 minutes at Grandma’s house. Grandma will also finish any simple household tasks that we start but don’t finish such as folding laundry or putting away dishes. It is a unicorn and very appreciated arrangement.

Stock picture credit: Shutterstock / By Andrey_Popov.