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| Dribbly Nora loves beads |
The kids are mostly a shambles right now. Audrey and Nora both have hand foot and mouth, though they are doing surprisingly well with it. Lilah may have HFM, but she is not doing as well with it. Also, I did not know Hand Foot and Mouth was a thing until I had kids, and I thought it was foot and mouth like the cows, but it is not that. I am fairly sure we don't have Hand Foot and Mouth in the USA but the CDC disagrees.
My head is very full of thoughts and logistics. We are hiring a second nanny, to cover the two days our other nanny can't work (it turns out, three days of childcare a week is not enough childcare). It is a lot of mental load. I have thought a lot about the "administrative overhead" idea - that each thing we take on in work has not only the work, but the planning and labour burden. Childcare has a huge administrative overhead. Nursery was tricky because we could get "the call" at any minute, and go from childcare to no childcare (illness, etc). Hiring a nanny isn't like that, but it is having an employee, which comes with all the added people management and employer administration (not to mention taxes, pensions, maternity leave, holiday... we have to provide 5.2 weeks of fully paid annual leave every year). It is, a lot.
Thinking I've been thinking a lot about how "unrelatable" it seems to hire a nanny. Or a cleaner. Or an interior designer, or decorator. Why is the idea of outsourcing womens labour so "posh"? No one says "why didn't your husband learn plumbing instead of paying a plumber!?" or "brick laying isn't so hard, lots of guys can do it". But having an eye for the design of a house or watching a baby or spending an hour hoovering is all stuff we can do for "free". Isn't "free" just "labour"?
Thinking I've also been thinking about money a lot, as we are in a very high spending stage of life right now. We are soon putting together our family budget for next year, and it looks like 40-45% of our take home salary will be spent on childcare costs. I know this is temporary, and high, but it also seems insane. On the other hand, neither of us doesn't want to work, neither of us wants to spend more time doing housework and laundry, and having child care enables us to spend time with some of our kids more because we are not always doing things "all or nothing". When we have full time childcare we won't actually need to spend every moment of our childcare time working, and we can hopefully fit more fun with the big kids (because you can't do as much with the babies), as well as some hobbies for ourselves.
Hopeful I am hopeful that I can have a few days of quiet before the Christmas holidays. It has not been an easy year. My main goal, with 4 days of annual leave next week, is to sit in bed for two hours and watch a christmas film. Wish me luck!
How much time do you take off work for Christmas? How many weeks (or days?) of annual leave do you get in a year? If you had a week of leave for yourself (the rest of your family still in school or work) what would you do?
I’m in the US and a few years ago my husband got diagnosed with hand foot and mouth after we had flown across the country to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We ended up eating on our own at the Airbnb. All that to say hand foot and mouth is a thing in the US but as far as I know my kids haven’t had it.
ReplyDeleteI have heard it can be really unpleasant for adults! I know Isaac has already had it once, and although you can apparently get it again it's something we build immunity to. I'm surprised I didn't catch it from Isaac (he was 9 months old and I was still nursing, so there wasn't much I could do to avoid it). I'm sorry you had to eat alone at Thanksgiving! It's interesting your kids didn't catch it from your husband. Diseases are so odd.
DeleteWatching a Christmas movie in bed sounds good! I hope that it works out for you. I have a question though...do you have to hide from the kids? Like, walk out the door and then sneak back in the back? Are they in the house at the same time as you are? I just feel like they would come and try to find you if they knew you were there. I hope your second nanny search goes well. I guess I did not realize that you had to basically hire the nanny as an employee; I thought that there would be a hiring agency or something? Do you have to issue them a 1099 or whatever the equivalent is in the UK?
ReplyDeleteOh great question Kyria. Yes I definitely have to hide from the kids. Luckily the big kids are still in school, but I will have to hide from the babies. Since I usually work from home upstairs they are used to be me being "home" but I pretty much don't use the downstairs when they are awake. I have to pre-plan when I'm going to get food! Sometimes I end up buying lunch at a cafe because I don't want to interrupt baby meals/play time.
DeleteWe have found a second nanny who will hopefully work out well. There are agencies but they are SOO expensive, the hourly rate for an agency nanny was more like 70% of our take home so it really wansn't possible for us. We do have to issue P60s (like 1099) and also have to set up and contribute to their pension. Luckily our payroll company will sort this all out for us!
Rachel, it gets easier. Promise. Reading this post was like looking into the past for me (obviously without the twins angle). Both my kids had hand foot and mouth. Someone was always sick for, it felt like, literal years. Someone always needed me. Childcare was a never-ending balancing act (I worked from home but also needed to...WORK...when I was home).
ReplyDeleteMy kids now feed and bathe and dress themselves. They are starting to sleep in. I can be in the house and tell them I need to be left alone and they will actually do it. They can help with chores and actually be helpful. They peel potatoes and empty garbage cans and Belle does her own laundry. Good gracious it felt like living in perpetual overwhelm forever, but it does get easier!!!
Those little years are so intense and, for me at least, so exhausting mentally, emotionally and physically. Add to that the general burdens of sorting out other life logistics (when to grocery shop! dentist appointments!)...and it's a lot.
You're doing an incredible job <3
Thank you Elisabeth! Also, I just realized I spelled your name wrong when I thanked you for the post card. Sorry! I obviously blame sleep and babies. I am sure that these days will be a memory sometime. It's funny seeing newborn babies now because I am so NOPE about it! I don't want to see a newborn baby. I am so glad not to have newborns anymore.
DeleteI am glad you can relate and I am looking forward to older kids, although I know they will have their fair share of difficulties as well. Hopefully those difficulties will be easier with a bit more sleep.
Double Hand Foot And Mouth is so yuck. Thankfully we have mostly been healthy since we spent the first 4 years of Isaac's life ill... but that might change any minute. Having a nanny also surely helps with this... four in school is going to be germ central.
Oh geez, Hand Foot and Mouth. My kid had that many years ago and it was rough -- even though she had a very mild case of it. Gotta love those petri dish days of early childhood (no). Such a good point about how outsourcing "women's" work is seen as a luxury while outsourcing "men's" work is de rigeur. I have never thought of it that way before.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are taking some extra time for the holidays. I hope it allows your brain to recover a bit.
Oh you say things so much better than I do!
Delete"outsourcing "women's" work is seen as a luxury while outsourcing "men's" work is de rigeur."
That is exactly what I was getting at... but not as well as you stated it.
Been there... HFM for L, back in 2020. R was two months old, we were in the middle of the pandemic, nowhere to go, and T was traveling for work. I was on maternity leave. Oofff... I had to to keep them in separate rooms, sanitize everything... Postpartum feels. Gosh, so rough.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, about hiring people. I have been trying, trying to hire a cleaner for about 4 years? I go back and forth. I want to then I don't. But yeah, hiring for women's labor has a truly posh undertone. We hire a landscaper and no one blinks an eye. We hire a cleaner and wife is lazy. UGH.
And, I'm sorry - forgot to react - FORTY FIVE %??? Jaysus. But, no break in service, no funds lost, no set back for you as a female, it will all be worth it.
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