When and how does your SO help parent?

[pinotgrig]

I'm talking the nitty gritty stuff - pick up and drop off, meal times, etc.

1. # of kids and their ages
2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?
3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?

Feel free to add detail on other big parenting duties I'm forgetting. These are the ones that personally stress me out.

Brought to you by the fact that H got the offer for the 4-10s job but I'm trying to think the schedule since it will mostly impact me (ie I'll be doing more of the above).

[ssmjlm]

1. 1 kid, almost 3
2. I do mornings, DH leaves for work at 4:30am right now. Even when they're not having as much required OT, he usually leaves at 5:30. DH does pick-up unless it's my Friday off, then I pick her up early so he can come home straight from work.
3. We prep breakfast and lunch the night before. If she's having a waffle then I'll toast that to take to school. DH cooks dinner when they get home. I basically walk in the door and help finish getting everything on the table, get the dog's dinner.

[biscoffcookies]

We have two kids -- 4 and 6 months.

DH and I each have responsibility for dropping off and picking up one kid. The 6 month old goes to daycare next door to my work, whereas DD goes to preschool about a 10 minute drive from our house, so DH takes her before heading to work. We try to help each other out in the mornings, but a lot of the time he takes primary responsibility for DD and I do for DS. If one of us is traveling and the other has full kid responsibility, then drop off/pickup is over an hour due to the relative locations of the kids' schools to our works and home.

It's about 50/50 that DH is home when I get home. It depends on how long I stay at work and what time he leaves, which is totally dependent on our workload for the day.

One of us will get DD cereal. DH cooks dinner a lot, actually, because he enjoys it.

[bdubs419]

1.) 2 kids - age 1 and 2.5
2.) I do pick up and drop off. DH will help get them out the door at least.
3.) I cook breakfast ( aka unwrap a cereal bar...) and dinner. DH is not home for dinner for the kids.

DH is a manager and makes more $ than I am, so we definitely "prioritize" his job.

I will say that my husband makes up for the lack of kid duties by doing the following:
1.) grocery shops (I hate it)
2.) cooks dinner (adult dinner)
3.) packs my lunch

[asoctoberfalls]

1 kid, 4.5
DH gets him ready and gets him to school every day since I leave for work at 6:30 AM.
I pick him up at 5 or so and do all the evening duties (dinner, homework, bath, bed) since DH doesn't get home from work until after DS is in bed (around 8 PM).

DS gets breakfast and lunch at daycare, and I fix dinner every night. I would say I do more parenting, but really, DS is pretty easy (finally!) and doesn't require a lot. I plan all doctors and dentist appts, but DH sometimes takes him to the appointments.

ETA - Although parenting is roughly equal, don't get me started on housework and everything else...

[mrssandro]

1. 1 year old and 6 year old
2. We carpool together. We get them both out of the door/off to daycare and MIL for the baby.
3. DH will cook both. DD only wants toast in the morning.

We are very much a team effort. He is very involved with this girls. Our evenings are crazy but they include me rushing to workout (Zumba or planned PT) and him watching DD#2. I take DD#1 to the gym DC. He will cook dinner and when I get back we eat together. Then we switch off after we get DD#1 into bed. Then he helps get DD#2 to sleep.

[osulori]

1. One kid, age 2.5
2. I work Tuesday through Friday, and J's days off change weekly. On the days we both work, he drops off and I pick up. He is on his own in the mornings and I'm on my own in the evenings since I have to be at work by 730a (he doesn't go in until 9a at the earliest) and he works until 9pm at the earliest (whereas I'm off at 6p).
3. Since I'm not home in the morning he prepares AJ's breakfast, and since he's not home in the evening I make dinner.

[dottyblue]

1. # of kids and their ages - 2 kids, 3 yrs and 4 months.  I do everything related to our 4 month old; he's EBF.
2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home? I fly solo in the mornings and do drop off.  DH does pickup.
3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?  I do breakfast and lunch/bottle prep for the kids.  Dinner I handle 90% of the time since I prep/cook while DH is doing pickup.  DH fields our DS1 during/after dinner while I handle DS2.

DH usually does bath and bedtime for DS2
I do laundry, DH folds


I would not be happy with DH doing 4 10s.  It would mean I would be completely solo 4 days per week.  With a newborn, I would see myself having a breakdown two weeks in.  If DS2 were older, it wouldn't be that bad as DH could pick up more household items on his extra day.

[cinco]

Mornings: I wake up with the kids, make breakfast and lunches. DH takes them to the bus stop.

Evenings: I help with homework, make dinner, sports/extracurriculars, showers, tuck in. If DH is home, he'll take over sports practices and bed time. He is usually home in the evenings Sa-Mon.

Saturdays are usually my day to be lazy. He does pretty much everything.

ETA: 9, 7, and 4 yo

[gerberdaisy]

1) 1 kid-17 months
2) I do all drop offs and pick ups are 50/50. H usually leaves before C gets up, he is supposed to do all pick ups, but half the time I get a text asking if I can.
3) We don't really do breakfast, just a quick snack then she eats at daycare. I'll do dinner unless I'm working late.

Right now it works for us. I have to travel for work, when I'm local I'll drop off and he'll pick her up and feed her dinner. His work day starts at 7, which is before daycare opens, so its tough when I'm out of town. He might be getting a job that requires him to be at work at 6, which would be tough when i'm traveling.

[justjen]

1. # of kids and their ages
2 kids, ages 3 and 1
 
2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?
I drop off M first, he drops off L later. He does help me getting out the door in the morning. He picks up both. He gets home with the kids approx 30 min before I get home

3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?
Breakfast: I do M, he does L. He usually cooks dinner, since he gets home earlier.

[lindsaymg]

ugh... this has been a struggle. I was very honest with H about the lack of balance and it is starting to get better.

These answer's hinge on H being home and not work traveling. He travels 2-3 days a week at least 3 weeks out of the month. So I do everything a LOT of the time.

1. DD is 6 months, DS is 7

2. I do drop off of DD and pickup of both kids (DS goes to after school care at DD's day care). H gets DS up, dressed, and out the door to the bus (I have his outfit out the night before, etc). I started asking H to help me get out the door with DD. Carry the infant seat or her bottles so I am not taking five trips to get out the door.

H is there when I get home but his company is based in Mountain time so he is generally still working so I am OMO there which sucks because as soon as I am home I go straight into dirty bottles out of the bottle bag, defrost new BM bags, label the pumped milk from the day, hurry up and yell  "hurry up and change DS soccer practice starts at 5:45! Basketball practice starts at 6:00!".

3. I breastfeed DD still so I am on the hook for her. DS is anti-breakfast so we force a cereal bar or an eggo down his throat as he is walking to the bus stop. H usually does dinner. I am on solids for DD.

[pinotgrig]

dottyblue - I'm really torn on how I feel about it. On the plus side, the hours are 6a to 4p so I would at least have his help in the evenings. But pick up would probably still be on me since I leave work at 5-ish and pass daycare on my way home. H has a longer commute.

H does drop off right now and I really love the 30 mins or so I have after they leave by myself so I can get ready and eat breakfast at a leisurely pace.

[justjen]

For my job, I'm out of the house a minimum of 7:15-6:30, and that's on a perfect day. DH has a much more flexible work schedule, which is why he does so much more morning/evening stuff, generally.

[snowflurry]

1. 2 kids, ages 8 and 6
2. H works nights so I do all morning stuff including drop off
3. H picks up kids from school and cooks dinner while I am at work

[redheadbaker]

One kid, age 4.

FI does all daycare drop offs and pick ups everyday except Tuesdays (his day to work late).

I leave for work an hour before they do. I wake DS up, get him a Nutrigrain bar (we never cook breakfast on weekday mornings), and help him pick out his clothes. FI will give DS a yogurt to eat as well, and help him get dressed.

I usually get home first and get dinner started.

We alternate who helps DS get his PJs on, brush his teeth and read him bedtime stories.

[sunshine608]

1. One DS, 21 months
2. I do it all. DH has taken a lighter role at work and says he will help out mornings but that hasn't happened yet .
3. If he's in town he cooks or picks up dinner, but its usually for us. DS eats very early ( 4:30/5pm) at my parents ( they watch him).

H's job is unpredictable and has a lot of travel. He was local for the last 4 months but buried in work to the point that everything suffered. He changed some things around so when he's at home, he's actually present. I'm hoping he can start doing pick up T/Th. Lots of last minute travel so sometimes I find it easier to just plan to do everything. He took his first day off in 5 years last month and ended up still having to go to work b/c of an emergency.

[turtlegirl]

1. # of kids and their ages - 3 kids, DS1 is 5, DS2 is 3 and DD is  5 months

2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home? I do all pick up and drop offs. I only work part time and DH works full time at a service job where his hours are very inflexible, and he also goes to school 3x a week. So M,T,Th he's gone from 6:30am-9:00pm. W/F he's home by 5:30pm. Luckily my mom/MIL watch the kids on the days I work and they watch them mostly at my house, so I don't have to get everyone out the door in the morning. I just take DS1 to TK at the local public school on my way to work. 

3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner? I do 97% of the cooking. Sometimes DH will make a big breakfast on the weekends or fix the kids lunch on the weekends, etc. 


DH is currently working full time and taking 3 college classes and I only work part time. So I am the "default parent" for sure. Especially with DD since she's so young and nursing still. It's very tiring, but there is nothing we can really change about it at this point in our lives. When DH is home he's really great. He plays so well with the boys, like gets on the ground plays with them, wrestles, take them and the dog on long walks, etc to get all the crazy energy out of them. He's 100% in charge of bath time/bed time for the boys on the nights he doesn't have school. I don't bathe the boys when I'm solo parenting in the evenings with all 3 kids. 

[CrazyLucky]

We are pretty equal. We work at the same company, and generally we carpool. So we both do mornings, dropoffs, pick-ups, and evenings. Sometimes one of us has an upset in the schedule, but that's unusual. We don't really prioritize one of the other. I make more $, but have more flexibility and more vacation time, so if a kid is sick, that's usually on me.
My kids are 3 and 5.
I'd say I do more of the cooking, which is starting to bug me. I think it bugs me more because my mom acts like DH is some kind of saint for cooking dinner. Last night I called her on the way home from work.
Mom: What are you making for dinner tonight?
Me: DH is making dinner
Mom: Oh, you are so lucky. DH is so great. Your Dad NEVER cooked. etc etc.
Me: Do you tell (my brother) how incredibly awesome SIL is when she makes dinner? No?

It just bugs me that she thinks dinner is my job because I'm female.

[itsme]

1. # of kids and their ages
2 kids, 3 & 14

2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?
I do drop off he picks up. I have no help getting them out the door. He leaves before I get the kids up. H does pick up so he's usually home when I get home. Some days I don't get home until 7:30 (gym).

3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?
I make dinner. The rest of the meals are whatever, whenever, and whoever is available to make it when the 3 year old is ready for food. The 14 year old gets her own meals.

He also usually is the one to wake up and take care of the 3 year old when she wakes up in the middle of the night.  She prefers him and sometimes she will cry and scream if I even look at her.  For the most part we work as a team.

[ijack]

I'm pretty lucky. When he's home (he does travel a lot) he handles a lot of things
1. # of kids and their ages
2 - 7.5 and 4.5yo
2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?
H does everything in the mornings and drops them off (2 different schools). Nanny does pick up 90% of the time, I do the rest.
3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner
H makes breakfast (cereal) and packs lunches. I do dinner. I do all of the behind the scenes stuff - grocery shopping, planning, present buying, schedule coordinating, etc. He does breakfast, lunch packing (for 1), drop off, dinner clean up, bedtime.

[anna7602]

DH wakes DD up every day, gets her breakfast ready, lunch packed and gets her off to either the bus stop or school. This is an enormous help that I don't appreciate enough until the days I have to deal with both kids on my own in the morning due to his having a meeting or being out of town.

He will also drive DD to out of town Girl Scouts' activities on occasional weekends and take her to see friends or his parents OOT if he can get the time off (they went to Montreal together last year, for example, to see DD's BF).

Everything else falls on me.

[Susie]

1. 1 kid, currently 11 weeks.

2. We're still in our multi-phase parental leave* but once we're both back, we'll be dropping off/picking up together since we already carpool to work.

3. I have sole responsibility for her food, i.e. keeping track of frozen & refrigerated BM, prepping bottles, and nursing. When she starts eating solids, Calvin will step in there since he does all our cooking/food shopping.

*I took 8 weeks off, then for 4 weeks we are both working split days. That ends on Friday. Then starting Monday, I'm back full time and Calvin will be on full time leave until her daycare spot opens (March? April? I put him in charge of logistics on that).

[chedifuen]

We both work full time and I WFH.


# of kids and their ages
Our kids are 5 and 9, both in school full days.
Who does drop off? M/T our neighbor drives and picks up all our kids. W/Th/F we divide up drop off depending on early morning schedules and I do pick up

Do you have help getting out the door? Yes, we both get the kids ready. I fix breakfast and pack lunches while he helps them get dress and pack their bages.

Is SO there when you get home? I work from home, I'm done at 4:00 and he's done at 4:30, home by 5:00

Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner? I do all the cooking and he does all the meal clean up.

Other stuff, he gets up at 5:00 to walk the dogs since I usually don't have time during the day. We have a weekly cleaner so they handle pretty much all the house work. We both work on the laundry but most of it falls on me as I can easily switch loads while working.

We're obsessed with our yard and we both do a considerable amount of yard work during the Spring and Summer. We also have chickens and he's 100% responsible for their care.

[stephm0188]

1 kid, age 7.

I sub/volunteer for our local school district. Otherwise, I SAH. Most of the time I get the kid on and off the bus. If I need to be at school before the bus comes, my husband will stay home to take care of him. Basically, if I can't do it, he will.

Morning routine- he feeds the kid breakfast then heads to work, I get the kid ready for school and pack his lunch.

Evening- He cooks. (That's the arrangement we have- he cooks, I clean.) Practices are 50/50.


For now, everything is pretty even. I hope to be working next school year, and if so, he may have to hand any of the kiddo's sick days since he would have the ability to WFH. Otherwise, the schedule would pretty much stay the same.

[BAMFMrsB]

1. # of kids and their ages
1 boy. DS is 3.5YO
2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?
ALL on me. DS is at on-site DC at my job so he commutes with me. It is a PAAAAAAAIN. DH is not much help in the A.M.'s. I need to get on him to AT LEAST get DS dressed in the morning for me. I wake up and spend like 2 hours DOING THINGS and DH rolls out of bed, gets dressed and is out the door in like 20min. It makes me stabby. DH gets home BY 5pm. I leave my office at that time so its like another hour before I can even get home. Again, I commute 30min - an hour, he is 15min from home.   DH marathon trains so he has plenty of free time in the afternoons to get his runs in. He's usually getting home from his run when I pull in the garage. 
3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?
ALL food stuffs in our house are on me. DH (intentionally?) can screw up boiling water. I make DH his lunch M-Th so he doesn't spend $$$ going out. I do all grocery shopping and meal prep/execution.

HOW. EVER. DH does like 99% of the laundry. He does like 85% of the household cleaning. He is a neat freak. I tell him he's not allowed to use the "C" word to ME. (C-L-E-A-N). I hate it. Cleaning. UGH. DH is the reason our home is generally spotless or at least tidy. 

DS is usually with ME if it is our time/down time/ the weekend. And YES that gets annoying. I have to make the plans to go out or not have DS attached to me by saying "HEYYYYYYYY DH. You have dada duty. K BAIIIIII." 

AND annnnnnnnnd.... once DS starts K, DH will be the parent-on-duty. He'll be no more than 15min from home and can handle all parenting needs while I'm an hour away, downtown. HA! So it will eventually fall more on him.  :Y:


 

[Marmee]

I'm a SAHM primarily.

1.  I have 4 kids ages 2, 6, 9 & 11.

2.  I do every drop off except maybe 5 in 7yrs.  H helps in the mornings often getting out the door.  I do all pickups except for an occasional sport that runs late.

3.  Breakfast, DH puts out/fixes 99% of the time.  Dinner I fix/arrange 95% of the time.  Kid's pack their own lunches this year, prior DH did it.  I fix DD4 lunch 100% of the time.

In general my H's parenting duties include....waking kids up, fixing breakfast, sometimes dressing DD4 and attending sporting events/occasional driving to events.  That's it.  He'll help with laundry or something as he feels like it.  He does a few things around that house, mostly on the weekends.  This is a big reason I'm not so keen on going back to work fulltime.  He's had 12yrs of me taking care of most everything while he focuses on work (and he's risen in his job a ton I know in part because he is so reliable & focused)...I think he'll expect just another paycheck coming in meanwhile I'll b e doing everything I was before & working.  Hell no.

[shanwalk]

1. # of kids and their ages
3 year old DD
Pregnant with #2

2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?

DH does drop off at school on Monday and Wednesday. He also does pickup on Mondays and drives her across town to dance class and I meet them there. He helps me pack the car and get DD loaded up on the mornings I do drop off.

3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?
Breakfast: 50/50 split
Lunch: I typically make/pack her lunch while DH either gets breakfast ready or chases DD around, begging her to get dressed.
Dinner: 100% me.

Note: I'm off work on W/F and use those days to run errands. I'm also responsible for paying all the bills. Me having those 4.5 hours on those two days a week saves my sanity.

DH does grocery shopping trips on Sunday's. I do the meal planning and make the list - and he executes. DH is in charge of dishes and cleaning he kitchen (which doesn't get done as often as I would like... But, battles). I'm responsible for all the laundry and the rest of the housekeeping duties.

We both work, and he is really awesome at helping when he can. His job just requires more hours and more time away from home.

[moopoint17]

H plays a huge role with the kids. We both have long commutes but his work environment is a little more relaxed than mine so we take advantage of that.

We have 2 kids - 4.5 and 2.

DS1 goes to preschool (8am - 430pm) - H drops him off in the AM and then my dad picks him up and brings him to my parents house. I drop DS2 off at their house and then I usually pick them up after work.

H will feed DS1 breakfast before drop off and then he also preps his lunch and snack for school. My parents will feed DS2 breakfast and lunch and they feed both of them dinner before I pick them up at 7.

H gets DS1 ready for bed and I get DS2 ready.

[mie]

1. # of kids and their ages
3 kids -- 9, 6, 4.

2. Who does drop off? Pick up? Do you have help getting out the door? Is SO there when you get home?
My H is blind so I do all of the driving. We leave early in the morning and now that the girls are older, he gets them up in the morning. We both help with homework.

3. Who cooks the kids' breakfast? Dinner?
I am the one who cooks.