We have two children, age 5 and 8. The 5-yr-old starts kindergarten in the Fall. We have paid a fortune for full time day care for both of them -- thank God it's almost over.
They will both go to after-care. The problem is, my daughter's school will not accept her dropped off until 7:40 am, and my son's, not until 8:45 am. This conflicts with both of our work schedules. My husband has really had his work interrupted by the kids and is REALLY pushing to go back to full-time+ (which means leave 6 am, home 7 pm in his line of work), he's been looking forward to our son starting kindergarten so that we can finally get our finances on track. And we do need the money. My current job requires I be downtown by 8-8:30 am and work 8 hours. My job has all benefits for the family.
My neighbors -- I don't want to call them useless but they are either off to work themselves in the morning or sickly. My family lives in another neighborhood.
Neither school offers a breakfast program... hard to believe that my son's kindergarten, which is a public school, doesn't offer that!
What do people do in this situation? I never thought before I had kids that working would clash with their school hours. I naively thought that schools would accommodate the work world.
Does the after-care program accept kids in the morning, too? The daycare center we go to has kids for maybe 15-20 minutes before they put them on the bus and go to school.
have you tried looking into whether any local daycares or preschools have morning and after school programs? I know the preschool my daughter went to this year also has an morning and afterschool program (they also watch the school aged children full time in the summer), you drop them off at the center and they take them to school and pick them up from school.
Ratatosk, neither after care provides morning care. Both aftercares are offered by the schools themselves, which is good for the kids, they just stay and do their homework then play with their classmates. That's why I wish the school itself would have a program.
MandyAnne26, I might look into that kind of program.
Are any of the Grandparents retired, and live close by? My parents have always kept my sister's children and I am lucky will be keeping mine thats on the way. There school sch is good now that both are in school, my sister drops them both off on her way to work. But when they went to preschool she had to be at work before it was time for them to be there, so they went to our parents and they (usually my Mom who had switched to 2nd shift to accomadate) would take them to preschool. And they got out at 12, well my sister rarely picked them up, either our mom did or I would take my lunch and pick them up and meet my mom to eat or take them to her. I know that my sister is very lucky, our father picks her kids up from school and they stay with the Grandparents until their Mom gets off work. I will be very lucky and they will be watching my child also, our Dad is now retired and my mom is going to either quit or cut back to only weekend hours or something. I wish you luck. Is there a family member that can help, a grandparent on either side. Hope you find something that works out for you.
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Teresa,
Kaleb 6/23/04 aftr TTC 4 yrs
miscarrd at 6 wks 5 day 12/31/04
Its a Girl 1/12/06
There must be other parents in the same boat. Is there a PTA type of organization? Maybe this is something that the local school board needs to address. I wish they had programs sponsored by the schools where I live, but for the most part people just send their kids to private before and afterschool programs.
Check daycares in your area. The one that my children go to will feed them breakfast, bring them to school, pick them up after school, and has activites for them to do until they are picked up. There are 3 branches of this particular daycare in my area, but they bring children to different schools in the town that I live in at the times that they are suppose to be there.
There are a lot of parents in this situation who choose to work different shifts from each other. It isn't ideal but there is a price somewhere when finances go astray.
I have been in this type of situation and have been a child in this type of situation. My best advice is to think long and hard about the job. Is the price you pay with the stress, time not spent with the kids, and seeing the kids' schedule as just another hassle...worth it.
I am not bashing anyone for working because I know what it is like to feel that you have to work. I am saying that there are ways to do it where the kids can still be a priority and not a scheduling nightmare. I would also make it to where all extra spending was cut out to get the finances under control.
I remember being a kid where job schedules and finances were put above anything else. It's simply not worth the emotional toll. Good luck
