Who Spends More Time With Your Kids?

Do you ever analyze your schedule and how you spend your time? Well lately I have really been thinking about that. Here is a schedule of my typical work day:

• 5:15 am - Alarm Goes Off, Snooze
• 5:22am – Alarm Goes Off, Snooze
• 5:29am – Alarm Goes Off, Snooze
• 5:36am - Alarm Goes Off, Ok ok, I get up
• 6:00am – Showered, dressed, get kids up
• 7:00am – Kids up, dressed, fed and out the door
• 7:15am – Drop kids off at daycare
• 7:38am – Catch Go Train Downtown
• 8:50am – Arrive at office

…

• 4:30pm – Catch Go Train Home
• 5:30pm – Pick up kids at daycare
• 6:00pm – Dinner
• 8:00 pm – Put Kids to Bed

Wow!! Looking at it like that, I see my kids a total of 3 and half hours and that includes feeding them, dressing them and bathing them. Not to mention if it is a Tae Kwon Do night, swimming or gymnastics night, that time is cut even shorter. Daycare – they get about 10 hours a day with my kids… It’s a wonder that they even know me.

So is working worth it? Yes, I need to pay my bills. So what do I do about the guilt? Especially on the nights when the kids are not behaving and the whole time is spent fighting with them. I am just mom with the rules, daycare is the fun place with crafts, toys and friends to play with. I just keep thinking how fast they have grown already and I am missing out on so much.

So I try and break it down and see how I can make it somewhat better. I can’t keep the kids up later… that leads to grumpy kids in the morning. Maybe it’s my commute. Well that must be what triggered this. I started working downtown again and my Go Train ride sure adds on a lot of time away. Sure, the ride can be relaxing if you have a good book. The book I have been trying to read for almost a year now. But reading a book does not compare to bonding with my kids.

When I was a kid, I remember my Mom working late sometimes, bringing work home but as I got older I grew to understand and even be able to help her with her “homework”. My dad worked shift work so we missed him the morning but he was home by 3pm. Nice gig!! My husband now has it that way, except when he is on afternoon shift then he sees the kids about an hour in the morning and that’s it. What has the world come to? Do we live to work or work to live?

Maybe I need to find some kind of career that allows me to work closer to home or even occasionally work from home. I still need people contact but maybe I need a better mix. What about other working Moms? How do you deal with the guilt or compromise the career versus being a mom? Please leave your suggestions and comments.