working moms with 3+ kids Archives

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Doctor in NYC

03/15/2018 by Guest Poster 39 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader G, who lives in Westchester County with her husband and four kids (and an au pair) and works in NYC as a private practice physician. 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: G
Location: Live in Westchester County and work in NYC
Job: private practice physician
Age: 40
Home Situation: Live in a 2,500-square-foot townhouse with my husband (52, BigLaw partner) our kids (son, 10, with ADD and dyslexia; daughter, 7; son, 4; and son, 20 months), and our au pair. The three boys share a room.
Childcare Situation: Au pair plus a part-time sitter for a total of 61 hours per week. $460 per week in stipend and pay, plus about $9,000 in au pair fees and about $10,000 for nursery school for the two little guys.

Stock photo via Shutterstock / pathdoc.

A Week in My Life

Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Biglaw Partner in the Midwest

12/18/2017 by Guest Poster 37 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader R, who lives in the Midwest with her husband and three kids and works as a partner in Biglaw. 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: R
Location: Work in midsize city in Midwest; live in suburb of that city
Job: BigLaw litigation partner
Age: 40
Home Situation:

I live in a 3-bedroom house in the suburbs with my husband (41-year-old architect), our kids (9-year-old boy/girl twins and a 3-year-old girl), and our elderly dog. The older two share a room, but we are casually looking for a bigger house. (Note: R says that since she wrote her Week in the Life, things have changed a bit: “Our dog is no longer with us, my husband is going back to work full time and leaning in a bit more, and we are preparing for a move to another city.”)

Childcare Situation:

The older two are in school; husband works part time and gets them on and off the bus every day. The youngest is in daycare; I do drop-off and my husband does pickup. At this point, we are on the cheap end—$225/week for daycare. During the summers, it’s more because we pay for camps and childcare for the older two as well.

A Week in My Life

A Week in the Life of a Working Mom: Income Partner in Boston

10/26/2017 by Guest Poster 32 Comments

For this week’s installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader “Diana Barry,” who lives in the Boston area with her husband and three kids and works as an income partner. 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: Diana Barry (not her real name)
Location: Work in Boston, live nearby
Job: Income partner in a medium-sized firm
Age: 38
Home Situation: Live with DH (techie) and 3 kids in a 6,000-square foot house in a far-out suburb
Childcare Situation: About $35K/year for nanny, $5K for preschool

Note: Diana’s week in the life is from this summer.

A Week in My Life

A Week in the Life of a Working Mom: A Midwestern Lawyer Mom with Four Kids

06/22/2017 by Guest Poster 28 Comments

For the sixth installment of our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series, I’m happy to introduce CorporetteMoms reader Elizabeth. She’s a 42-year-old consultant/ lawyer mom to four kids; she lives in the Midwest. 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. You can also sort by tag, such as “daycare,” “au pair,” and “lawyer mom.” (We’re working on devising a system that makes sense.)

First, Some Basics about this Working Mom…

Name: Elizabeth
Lives: Midwest
Job: consultant/attorney — I lead annual strategic planning efforts for hospital clients, as well as hospital mergers.
Age: 42
Home Situation:

My husband is family medicine physician who covers inpatients at the hospital every third weekend. We have four school-age children: A, 13-year-old son; E, 10-year-old daughter; B & D, 7-year-old twin sons. We live in a 4000-square-foot house in the suburbs.

Childcare Situation: $18,000/year.

We have had Au Pairs for the past four years. The last two have been males. Prior to that we covered childcare with a number of options: a preschool teacher/nanny, a college student that lived in during the summer, hubby took Mondays off and I took Fridays off. We love the Au Pair help. My spouse and I have schedules that change from week to week, depending on his inpatient load and my travel. Having an Au Pair has eliminated the hours of stress and scrambling with multiple care providers to try to cover different hours we needed. For instance, the preschool teacher was a wonderful caregiver but had a family of her own so was unavailable to help in the evenings or weekends. Fortunately, we have a supportive family network nearby that was able to assist in some of those previous pinches. But it is nice now to have that family come to support the kids’ extracurricular activities or have special one-on-one time with the children, rather than serve in the role of an emergency babysitter.

Our Au Pairs transition about every year or so. We have appreciated the ease of picking a new care provider to sync up with the evolving needs of our children. For instance, our first Au Pair was a nurturing female who was excellent with our toddler twins. Or more recent Au Pairs have been active males who play sports and make up fun games to play. I expect in a few years we will be interested in a caregiver that can provide more homework support.