Working parents and summer

This is more of a vent than anything. I stayed home with my kids for 6 years and went back to work and separated from my exDH shortly after that. I still have guilt of working/divorcing and my kids make me feel bad as well.

I am feeling bad that summer is not what it's dreamt up to be for me and especially my children. I had to sign them up for the only affordable camp I could find. We have to leave at 745 am and they have to be in bed by 830. They still have a hard time getting up! They complain about me working and them having to go to camp. I guess their friends either go to a more fun/expensive camp or they have parents/grandparents who SAH. I have 1 week off with them right before school starts. There is no downtime for arts and crafts, baking, playing games or even play dates at home. When we get home it's dinner, TV, showers, read and get ready for the next day just like the school year.

Anyone else struggle like this?

Re: Working parents and summer

Yup.

I have my DS in a half day camp that starts at 7:30 and he is exhausted.

I am separated and my ex has him for a week in July and I have a week in August so that will break it up, but it is exhausting for me, so I am sure it is for him b/c he is 6.

Re: Working parents and summer

I have the same guilt about their summer being so structured with camp from 8:30-5:30. We do try to go bike riding and play in the pool in the evenings, and weekends are fun with different things as well as down time. I am trying to arrange for some early picks ups and a few days at the grandparents to break up the camp routine.

However I stop myself from feeling too guilty becuase other summers I had family watch them and they would be bored and watching too much TV by mid summer and then basically fighting with each other. I am happy they are active and involved in something at camp.

Re: Working parents and summer

Re: Working parents and summer

We went through that last summer with our boys, where they were getting up at the same time to go to camp and were exhausted at the end of the day. It's tough but we also tried to break it up by having them spend 2-3 days a month with my inlaws in a relaxed environment.

This summer my DH convinced me to try a summer nanny. We used Care.com to find our nanny and was really happy with the service. We lucked out and found a college student who lives in our sub-division and had experience being a nanny during previous summers.

The kids absolutely LOVE it. They love that they don't have to wake up super early and get to still play with the kids on the block. There are some activities that we plan, but we let the kids and nanny determine what they will do each day. Each week they go to the library and have quiet reading or skill building activities.

Not sure what we'll do next year. Since they were young they always went to daycare, so they were used to getting up early and getting home around 6:30 with the mad rush for dinner and bedtime routine. While the kids love the current summer situation, it's definitely not cheap. In addition to the nanny's pay, the additional expenses include the higher electric bill for AC, food because know they eat breakfast/lunch/snack at home and we have to pay additional for any activities that are not free.

I didn't even touch on the fact that I do feel guilty in either situation that I don't have the freedom to do a lot of stuff with them during the week. And weekends tend to be so busy with family activities and then preparing for the next week.

Message edited 7/10/2013 6:27:17 PM.

Re: Working parents and summer

Yes I feel bad , I don't get home until almost 7, so we do nothing during the week. I'm glad they have camp though otherwise they would be bored all summer long.

I really feel bad about no play dates, I feel like I just destroyed their social life by returning to work

Re: Working parents and summer

Same here. Because of the nature of my business, I'm super busy at key points during the summer and I'm rarely off work before 6:30. Thankfully my oldest has some split time between my house and ex (ex-IL's) home, so it kind of breaks up the week. But overall, her summer kind of sucks. There's no time to really engage in fun stuff, unless one of her close friends Mom's offer to take her somewhere for the day. On the days I work from home, I encourage her to play in the pool with her friend (my office overlooks the pool and they are old enough to swim w/o being on top of them). But she's still not old enough where I would trust her to ride her bike alone, etc. My little guy is a toddler and is in daycare.

At the end of the day, I just want to decompress and focus on the day to day stuff. I try when we can to do something early in the evening, like take them to the park, etc. but it doesn't compare to the summer memories I had as a kid. Even the most basic of things (catching fireflies) takes some sort of compromise to the schedule