However, since having a kid four years ago at ca. 40yo, we no longer enjoy extended time off when there is no childcare. It’s not that we don’t enjoy spending time with our kiddo, but it’s a lot more work, without any of the benefits of time off (sleeping in, taking naps, staying up late to do hobbies). Simply put, we get our asses handed to us every day.
At best we are ambivalent about holidays and even vacations. At worst, we dread extending periods of time off without childcare. I know we are very fortunate to have good-paying jobs with generous (by US standards) time off, so this is definitely a problem of privilege.
I wonder if anyone else feels similarly?
The work of tending to a child or three does not make your life more magical and fun and fit for transcription onto a greeting card. If it did we wouldn't so often think of it in terms of sacrifice. And you are sacrificing: your time, freedom, sometimes your peace of mind.
As parents we don't engage in this labor because it suddenly makes our vacations ring with poetry and glow with the golden light of an autumn afternoon. I think we mostly do it because we've brought a new small human into the world, and if you have an ounce of empathy and affection for this little person that cannot fend for itself then you want to protect it, nurture it, ensure its survival. These are powerful instincts. They are also important responsibilities.
If you follow through on them, do the work, and you're lucky to live long enough then one day you'll know your child as an adult who will be a friend rather than a dependent. You'll spend time together as equals. You'll be able to take vacations and enjoy them without disruption. You'll be able to sleep later, even though your body won't want to. You'll definitely take naps and will probably have hobbies. And then grandkids may come along :).
But in between there's the work. It's only about a quarter century's worth. It's definitely not always fun. It's sometimes memorable, and often heartwarming in a way that intensifies with memory and retelling. Ultimately it's just the stuff that needs doing when we create new humans. Best of luck with it! Every parent can use a little of that.
Parenting is difficult, often much more difficult than a professional job. You can find ways to trade naps and late nights with your spouse, and find ways to incorporate your child into things you enjoy doing to ease some of the strain.
Reality is that life as a parent is different than life only taking care of your own needs. It's not going to be the same, and hopefully you realized that when you had a child. A certain amount of dealing with this is going to be accepting that and learning to be ok with it, or even happy about it.
The fact is that working in some kind of white collar job is much, much easier that being at home with one or more young kids. If somebody tells you otherwise then they either lie or are have older children or their work conditions are very bad.
However the difficulty doesn't really matter. Your choice is between time with your kids and time away from your kids! Please, consider that discussion from yesterday about how short life is and that you only have a finite amount of holidays to pass with your kids. Think a little about it and maybe you'll avoid childcare on your holidays from now on.
The problem with work and kids is I wanna rest after working and playing with kids ain't exactly resting, if I had option whether just not work and play with kids I would for sure like that. For me even paid vacation ain't option, if take vacation my income takes hit, so I am most of the time forced to work even during vacation. So yes, I would enjoy paid holidays with my kids without worrying about job waiting for me or losing money. If you have paid holidays/vacation, can enjoy time with your kid and you still prefer work over spending time with your kid I think maybe it would not be baid idea visiting psychologist.
Oh, definitely. Work is definitely more relaxing than taking care of my two kids (4 YO and 1 YO). For example, at work, if I feel like taking a 10-minute break and quietly having some tea, I just... can. No need to coordinate with my wife to cover me.
I think that's a core part of parenting: you shift from a "consumer" of fun (TV, reading, hanging out with friends) to a "producer" of fun for your kids.
My own tip: taking the kids out (to a museum, playroom, etc.) is actually LESS work than being at home, IMO. When you're at home, you need to think of new activities whenever the kids get bored. But when you're at the museum, there's just the 1 activity, and the museum itself does a lot of the heavy lifting.
The good news is we have the holiday traditions and they all come back home for the holidays. You might want to take a listen to Harry Chapin's song Cats in the Cradle. You don't want to be that guy.
Pre kids I was always building stuff, gardening, a little DIY and loads of drinking and eating out.
Now free time is either being pretty "unproductive" with the kids entertaining themselves but still needing watching, or doing the stuff they want to do.
It doesn't last long - and whether you do it or someone else does the kids will need someone to play with them and look after them - focus on supporting them to develop while remembering that you actually have near zero control over how they turn out.
And honestly, a 2nd child can massively lighten the load if they get on (or make things twice as hard if they don't...)
I find outside the US, where there is perhaps less focus on career, family is more of a primary focus. Personally most of the dread I'm familiar with is because of obligations elsewhere. Not having this obligations frees me to cherish time with kid, even if it's rough.
Kids are absolutely a lot of work. I find they are very reflective of the work, and the quality of the work, you put in. In America a lot of childcare is outsourced, which always felt strange to me.
Then again some people don't want to be full time parents, or parents at all, but still have kids. I don't totally understand that. If money were no object, I'd trade work for being with my kids full time in a heartbeat.
Sometimes I have to force myself to take a little time and remember that these times are impressionable to my kids. They are gonna remember holidays. Maybe not perfectly but the gist them.
What did we value? Spending time with them? Something else?
It can be a good (but hard) thing to disengage and remember what’s important.
It's the most rewarding work you can do, and runs about 20 years. But with fruits much much longer. Man up and do it right, and the rewards will be plentiful.
Travel is typically additionally stressful as we don't have our home's amenities to assist and so it's much more intensive than our relatively safe home environment.
Shower them with love and time. Child care will not, so this part is up to you.
I miss the vacation (holidays where one can relax). Having a 3 year old with us, as enjoyable as it is, keeps us always on guard for attending to his needs, and a lot of time keeping him entertained. That can be tiring if done for long.
During regular times, we have him when we don’t work, and the weekends. Having relatives or grandparents nearby to give even small breaks would help immensely, but as both expats we don’t have that luxury. When the grandparents visit and give us a few hours break, it feels so nice that I can’t describe how thankful we feel.
Sure, we get a babysitter to be with him about once it two weeks so we can have a little social time, but that just doesn’t stop me from feeling like you described..
Our friends who also have kids, but with grandparents nearby to help don’t feel this way.
We never wanted for anything, and he was always present, but my father kept us busy away from him as kids. Now that we’re grown up he doesn’t understand why we don’t want to spend much time with him, but always make time for our mother, stepfather and grandparents. There’s love, but the closeness just isn’t there.
It never felt like my father wanted to spend time with us or if he did it was time limited and on his terms. I think it irreparably damaged our relationship. He seemed more interested when we were teenagers, but teenagers generally aren’t that interested in hanging out with their parents.
Kicking them out to grandparents/extended families is also a very popular way to claw back some lost sanity every year.
Hopefully you will start a virtuous cycle of positive and fun interactions, so you aren’t so fatigued by the end of the day. In 2011, I left my software engineering career to be a stay at home, homeschooling mom to (now) 4 kids. I’m old too.
Especially after quitting a job, you realize the time spent on the job the past few years were nothing compared to that little thing running after you, that you can create a meaningful lasting relationship
Of course it is also a balance, sometimes I also need to focus, and I will look to be away in silence
Take some of your time off when her school is in session so you actually get time off
When she does have long unavoidable time off, take her to family so your parents or uncles/aunts can share the fun and give you a breather
If you’re well off enough, get a temp full time nanny to accompany you on your vacation
Right now If you have enough money hire a nanny. You may be able to find someone for a couple hours everyday and that might help.
Also hire a cleaner/house keeper etc if the day to day chores are also interfering.
Some cruises include a kids club and there are sleep away camps in the summer.
Sick days were what I found troublesome, for there was generally wash to do, him to be picked up early from day care or later pre-k or school, and it all seemed more like quarantine than recuperation. Still, there were seldom more than three such days a year.
Of course we have less (read: almost none) alone time, sometime we decide to have a bit less sleep to stay together, but overall if we don't sleep 8 hours per night we are zombies, so we worked toward that.
The only thought is that we do sleep with our children and that seems to help a lot how long they stay in bed? My daughter is 4 and sleeps almost 11 hours per day, while the 2 years old sleeps almost 12, sometimes more.
As for hobbies, that was painful. We can still somewhat play videogames and we are somewhat resuming board games (not the ones we like).
On the upside, we really like playing with wooden train and duplo. Hopefully lego has a come back once the little one stops trying to eat anything on sight.
We balance, on holidays we spend a long time with them, but then at some point in the evening we take 1 or 2 hours where we "kinda" ignore them (in terms of play). They will complain, cry or whatever, but I need some time to hang with my wife too. Usually it ends with them playing together, but sometimes the 2 years old become sufficiently annoying that we have to suspend