On schedules, post-COVID work, & travel with a 6, 4, and 2 year old

I haven't written in a while. Or, I should say, I've drafted 10 blogs, but haven't posted them because I never quite finished them. Early in working parenthood, so much of my experience felt intense and very new. I was going through big new phases all the time and trying to learn how to do them; so it felt very natural to share those experiences here. 

I've moved into more of a hum-drum phase of we have our routine and schedule and we mostly juggle it well; but my days are packed, and I try not to add extra things into them, which includes writing less! 

The past couple of months, I have been traveling quite a bit for work and have spoken with a couple of new moms or soon-to-be moms on my team about my schedule and juggling being a working mom- which inspired me to return to this forum to comment on how my schedule has evolved as my kids have aged and how I've been handling the increasing demands from a travel perspective. I always have an almost voyeristic interest in other working mom schedules - I want to learn & listen from other parents who navigate the same challenges I do. Or, sometimes, it just helps me feel better that it's chaos for everyone(!).

My kids definitely are starting to "get" my travel - my daughter recently told me that "when I grow up I want to work from home so that I can hug my kids when they get home from school" but then the other night was lamenting that "other moms don't have to leave their kids; isn't December a month about being with your family? do you have to leave?" So, she is understanding of my work commitments & not understanding - all together. 

Step 1: Support System

One of the biggest elements of success in our lives right now is having the stability and goodness of our nanny, Maggie. 

I've written about using daycare early in our kids lives - we used daycare when we had 2 kids and before COVID. We had been toying with switching to a nanny before COVID, and were more or less forced into it during COVID when daycare closed and continued delaying reopening. We had a wonderful experience with daycare - truly wonderful! Our kids loved it, they were absolutely wonderful to our kids, and they taught us about the milestones our kids go through - such as telling us our kids needed more solid foods, or shoes, or how to use a spoon or a hold a bottle - things as first time parents, we had no clue how to do.

Pre-COVID, we had started exploring options other than daycare because of challenges with the demands of having to travel more for work. And, then, well, COVID, and you know how that went!

Maggie is a tremendous blessing for us and for our family. She is stable, aligns with us from a parenting philosophy perspective, and deeply loves our kids. She is flexible with us and I feel incredibly lucky to have her as a partner (feels like a funny word? team member? co-parent?) in our parenting journey. 

So, we are super lucky to have Maggie to give us some stability in terms of our current schedule. One funny thing is that sometimes we don't talk about how integral our support system is to having the ability to work and live. Whether that support system is daycare, or school, or family, or nannies, or cleaning help - I think a really important part of stability at work, particularly when both parents work, is being intentional about 1) NEEDING help, and 2) getting the right set of help to support you. 

One other thing that I will say is that pre-having kids, something that scared me about having a nanny was worrying whether my kids would love my nanny more than me. Nothing could be further from reality - I don't fear my kids loving my nanny; no - not at all. My kids loving my nanny is the best thing EVER. My office is above our basement where our kids stuff is and getting to listen to my kids and my nanny laugh together makes me be able to be more present in my job. My nanny loving my kids gives my kids an incredible amount of support & stability and gives me peace of mind.

On our schedule

Our baseline is that our nanny is at our house from 8 - 5:30. Most mornings, Johnny takes Charlie (6) and Jack (4) to school at 7:45 on his way to work and Maggie does preschool drop off at 9 and picks the kids up from school. 

With respect to post 5:30 commitments - Johnny & I send each other calendar invites for "after hours meetings" and generally have a first come, first served approach. Obviously, there are situations where we both have something after 5:30. In those situations, Maggie is pretty flexible with us in being able to stay late and we are very lucky to have Johnny's family in town who also will jump in to help when we both have an after work commitment.

Most nights, I launch out of my office at 5:30, and if someone calls me for work after 5:30, they get the delight of listening to the chaos of dinner prep at my house. If they are lucky, they miss the inevitable fight or negotiations over something. We do not do a good job of meal prep, so most nights are a bit of an adventure of trying to get food on the table by ~6:15. Our goal is to have the kids in bed around 8.

On my travel

I've said before, the changes that came with COVID with respect to more understanding of remote work came for me at a good time in my life - to have the ability to work from home has been a gift for me to be able to juggle work and life. Though not everyone feels this way, I love working from home. I love the ability to hug my kids when they get home from school or say hello to them when I'm grabbing lunch. 

With that said, so much is better in person at work from working sessions to building trusted relationships. My husband and I have been in a busy spell for travel with one of us traveling or having multiple after work commitments every week.

Pre-COVID, I had a pretty firm policy of not doing more than one night away and focused a lot on day trips; this has been a bit harder of late because much of my travel involves dinners that are not conducive to a day trip. So, I'm trying to be flexible, and plan across the month so that I have significant time home with my kids but also am able to do what I need to with respect to work travel. 

When I was expecting my first child, I met with someone who is a very senior leader at IBM, and she told me that the person that was going to be hardest on me was myself but that I needed to figure out my boundaries and communicate them to others, including to myself (!). The myself part is the hardest part of this; my colleagues and clients have been universally understanding about the boundaries I set.

For me, it's incredibly important to me that I'm home for big and little things - from the first day of school to reading to my kids classes to playdates where I get to meet other parents or get to know my kids friends. For example, last week I was gone on Wednesday & Thursday morning, but I was able to get home around 4:30 Thursday and was able to quickly wrap up my day so that I could build a train track with my son before making dinner. This week, I was gone yesterday, but did a long day trip (5am - 1am) so I could be home today for my daughter's Christmas concert and an event Wednesday afternoon for the kids & moms in Kindergarten.

Overall

I think the net / net for me on what works is:

1. Being very intentional about calendar management in advance. Most of my travel, I can plan for 2-3 weeks out - I have one client that I travel to regularly and other commitments I can plan for in advance (an upcoming roundtable in Atlanta in Jan, a trip to India in Feb, Adobe Summit in March) that I can be intentional about what I do in and around those more firm commitments such that I can also maximize things that I want to do at home.
2. A mindset of flexibility - sometimes I need to lean in to a work trip or a client meeting. Sometimes I pick my kids up or take them to a hot chocolate after school. The reality is that I need to think about the "whole" of my time - and if I've been traveling, when I get home, being intentional about doing something with my kids or my husband; and vice versa - realize that travel is part of my job and being flexible about where and when I'm needed.