Anyone here travel a lot for business, have a spouse working full time AND kids?

[LeeH]

Anyone here travel a lot for business, have a spouse working full time AND kids? How do you manage your schedules? My wife is gone 3-4 nights/week and I'm looking for a full time job. I've got a couple of things lined up, but trying to figure out how we're going to work out our daughter's summer vacation, piano lessons, karate, etc.

[campbellcj]

yep...it sucks! Fortunately we have a very reliable housekeeper/nanny and both sets of grandparents are not too far away.

Luckily my trips are usually only 1-3 days, and domestic.

[alf]

I average about a week a month overseas; trying to cut back.

My wife has the most important job in the world raising our 3 children full time; not outsourcing that She does have houskeeping and yard help.

[svandamme]

like i said to another member of the board... send your daughter along with a cheque for 10K...

[LeeH]

Originally Posted by svandamme

like i said to another member of the board... send your daughter along with a cheque for 10K...

??? Can't say that I've read the posts you're referring to.

[cantdrv55]

I do two overnights a week. Right now my wife is staying home until our baby boy can go to day care. We also have a 17 y/o son we watch very closely. Luckily, he's a great kid and can be trusted. But, yup, it's a juggling act but for us it's well worth it.

[gprsh924]

My parents do, put I am in college and my sister is 17, so we pretty much just fend for ourselves.

[Seahawk]

We went the Au Pair route...been doing so for almost 16 years. With one exception, we have had no issues at all and the experience has been extremely positive.

With our schedules, there was no way we could have done it without a live-in.

My wife is/was very good at selecting the girls. We have sponsored the current young lady for her student visa and she has been with us for four years.

[Chocaholic]

With three kids, we decided to forego my wife's income ($70k...ouch). It's been 14 years since we made the change and I can't imagine doing it any differently. She's always there for them, voulenteers at the elementary school, helps them with homework, etc., etc.

Even though I travel almost every week, the result is three happy, well adjusted kids. If we had grandparents or close family in the area perhaps it could have worked out with both of us working. You have to determine your own priorities. I can tell you, with the benefit of 14 years of hind-sight...consider one of you staying home. For us, it was the best investment we ever made.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

With three kids, we decided to forego my wife's income ($70k...ouch). It's been 14 years since we made the change and I can't imagine doing it any differently. She's always there for them, voulenteers at the elementary school, helps them with homework, etc., etc.

Even though I travel almost every week, the result is three happy, well adjusted kids. If we had grandparents or close family in the area perhaps it could have worked out with both of us working. You have to determine your own priorities. I can tell you, with the benefit of 14 years of hind-sight...consider one of you staying home. For us, it was the best investment we ever made.

We decided to go the other route, with a lot of trepidation at first. We were prepared to have her stay at home should we feel that was needed. I structed all our investments so we could revert to a single income instantly.

Fortunately, we didn't have to. I have two really bright, well adjusted kids...they are the finest kind.

My opinion is that you can be successful in either path...or you can fail

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by LeeH

??? Can't say that I've read the posts you're referring to.

stephdaughter with dropping grades, punishement?-thread

It's a co-op with Livi, he reserved his uncle's mansion and boat @ le cote d'Azur

[peppy]

I work about an hour and a half away from were we live, a lot of late nights and weekends. My wife and I have been trying to figure this scheduling thing out for about a year.

We both wish we could just let her stop working, but not really able to lose the income.

[rattlsnak]

how old are your kids? I am gone 7on /7off, and could not have done it when they were very young. Now that they are in their teens, its fine.

[Palum6o]

We have a very close friend who helps us pick up our son when I'm away and my wife's working late. We are fortunate that we have her though. Its tough travelling - In fact I'm travelling now and wish I was home! On the bright side, more companies are allowing you to work from home more when you aren't travelling so you can make up for the lost time.

[jluetjen]

My daughters are 7 and 11, and we've gotten Au Pairs from Cultural Care each summer. It's worked our really well once our girls figured out the routine. I travelled about a week after the first au pair arrived and got a phone call from the poor girl who was at wits end. I clued my wife in to the situation and and spoke via phone with each girl and reminded them of our expectations for their behavior.

By the end of the summer, the girls were almost in tears because it was time for the au pair to go home. Since then the girls have been really helpful with getting the au pairs settled in. A couple of hints...

1) Include your children in the interview process with the au pair. They shouldn't have veto, but they should have some ownership of the decision.
2) Make sure that your wife doesn't have a problem with a 19 year old female living in the house. We've heard a number of stories of conflicts due to that.
3) Make sure that you don't have any issues with a 19 year old female living in the house. You only need to pick up a People magazine to understand the issues with that. Always "keep it in your pants" or you'll be in a world of hurt.

[Laneco]

Steve and I have two kids, both teens, not old enough to drive. He works full time stationed at home, I work full time wandering all over the country.

I'll be blunt: It sucks.

Work out cooperative agreements with other parents - rotate hauling kids around. You take everyone's kids for a day or two or a particular week, they haul yours other than that. Older kids can take a bus, ride a bike, walk. If you have relatives, enlist them, especially the ones that don't work. Don't lay on any family member or other parent too heavy, split it up so no one gets burned out.

Most of us cannot afford nanny's or au pairs etc. For us, this scenario is miserable. You will run your butt off every day shuttling kids and working full time. Missing the best of your job and kids while feeling pretty unappreciated by either.

For the stay at home person, no relaxation at all. For the traveling person, constant guilt about the poor parenting job, aggravation at the constant travel and an endless list of "things to do" on the day or two when you get home that absolutely do not include R & R...

angela

[sammyg2]

Used to do that, had my own consulting business and traveled on average 5 days a week.
I was making a killing but it seemed i only saw my family on weekends.
This was when my youngest was 2 years old.

One day i realized that I was trading my kid's childhood for money.

Sold the business (for a huge profit) and got a regular job close to home making 1/4 of what I was at my business and never regretted it. Except for getting published, that part was fun.

5 years later i ended up making the same as before but didn't have to travel to get it.
Now I travel about 6 weeks a year and think that's too much.

They asked me to go to Italy last month, I said "nope, sorry don't have a passport".

secret: I have a passport but Italy is full of foreigners j/k

BTDT, I see no need to leave this country and probably never will again.
No need to go looking for something else until I've seen everything here.

[JeremyD]

#1 you have to have help
#2 you have to pay well - be supportive but make sure you have someone you count on
#3 you have to communicate schedules to everybody

It got so bad there for awhile I was asking our Nanny when my wife was going to be home. It ain't easy - but it does get easier as they get older.

[campbellcj]

Being in a business where you've got some schedule flexibility sure helps a lot as well! Both my wife and I are principals in small businesses and so in many cases when one of us needs to be someplace, the other can cover the family/household duties. I cannot imagine a job where I couldn't roll-in late or work from home once in a while without fear of losing my job.

[LeeH]

Local grandparents would definitely help. My parents are long gone and hers are in TX. The nanny idea might work. Thing is, I've been staying home for many years so I'm not excpecting to make huge money. What does a part time nanny type person cost?