Power couples - How do you make it work?

[Sally81]

Hello...

I'm looking to write a feature on a high flying couple who somehow juggle the childcare between them without relying on nannies or outside help.

Often in families, one career takes a back seat to the other and we're interested in talking to a couple whose careers are equally important and finding out about who steps down when the child is ill, during the holidays or other emergencies.

If this sounds like your family and you're willing to be photographed and featured in a newspaper get in touch.

Cheers!

Penny.

[Moos]

Sally81 Wrote:

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> I'm looking to write a feature on a high flying

> couple who somehow juggle the childcare between

> them without relying on nannies or outside help.

Is there such a thing? Goodness me.

[womanofdulwich]

no of course there is not! Not a power couple anyway- unless they own their own business and work together.

[Sally81]

To be honest I don't think there can be such a thing either - which is why I'd be interested to hear if there is!

But have just been asked to find.......you never know.

[jac428]

No outside help? How is that possible with both parents working? I assume the babies don't look after themselves...

[womanofdulwich]

try a divorced couple instead- I think that would be where it all ends.

[njc97]

jac428 - I presume Penny means they use a nursery or similar "working hours" childcare rather than nanny who looks after baby for 12 hours a day.

I wouldn't say my wife or I are especially "high flying" but neither of us has put our career on hold. On a daily basis we split our time, so I take our son to nursery and then get to work 9-9.30, my wife goes in early and finishes at 4.30-5 and comes back to pick him up. I have the advantage of working as a consultant so can be flexible about working from home etc if son needs picking up early/is off nursery. But he's only 2 at the moment, so at nursery almost all year round, what happens when he starts school we haven't worked out yet....

[j-mo]

Am not sure whether they would count themselves as a 'power couple' but my best friend and her husband are doing pretty well. He is a senior manager at Deutsche Bank and she is a director at Hays Recruitment. She works 4 days a week but this hasn't hampered her career. They use a nursery and have a family member for 1 day each week too. If this sounds interesting, let me know and I'll forward your message on to them.

[ryedalema]

Ummm - well if you mean that both parents work full time and the girls go to nursery, then that's us. I head up a department and my OH does something fancy in a bank (boo hiss!)

If you want to know who does most of the shuttle bussing then it's me, me, me! And if the girls go sick, then yessss - that'll be me then.

I love my OH dearly, but he can only just manage to get himself dressed in the morning - so most of the childcare is firmly in my camp.

I long for sleeeeepppp.

[sb]

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[sb]

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[reneet]

Don't know if we are high flying but we both work full time (both have pretty demanding jobs) and daughter goes to nursery, i drop her off 4 times a week and pick her up the same number of times while my husband does both 1's a week to give me a break. If she is sick (when she had chickenpox), we shared out the leave, i took 3 days off and he took the other 3 days. Her nursery is all year round so no holidays except taking her off nursery when we take family holiday.

Trying to work out how we will manage when she starts school, the plan is one of us will start really early say 7-3 and the other start work 10-6 or in hubby's case 10-8, but thats a plan at the moment, assuming we do not have another baby etc. But as SB says not power just tiring

[Saila]

We do a similar thing:

One does drop off and the other picks up.

Up 6:50am shower

Baby up 7am

Baby to nannyshare 8am

Baby picked up from nannyshare 6pm

Baby home fed/bath/bed 6-7pm

We eat 7-8pm

Casual work, usually involving sorting through emails in front of tv 8-9pm

Watch tv 9-10pm

Bed

I think the above routine is probably quite common for all working parents (not sure what 'power couple' means)

Gives opportunity to 'work late' for either parent during the week to catch up hours lost doing drop off/pick up

We also go out at least 1x a week and the other partner babysits

[nunheadmum]

I thought the point was that the couple required don't rely on outside help - so they work AND look after the kids themselves. Not sure that many would chose to do this - it's probably more common where no one parent can command a big enough salary to afford either a stay at home parent or childcare so both are forced to juggle work and childcare. I'm not sure such parents would see themselves as 'power' couples, more as surviving...just!

Perhaps there are some who chose to do it out of choice, rather than necessity? I don't think I would.

[Sally81]

Hi all...thank you for all your messages. Let me just clear this post up!

It was a posting that rather meant I was looking for a needle in a massive haystack because, yes, as those of you who have pointed out correctly said - we were looking for a couple who use no help...no nanny, no nursery etc. Crazy, right?!

We already have a sports couple, who are very high achievers but juggle their son between them. They are clearly more able to do this because they do not work conventional, 9-5 hours. They do work hard, training constantly etc, but still....

I am sure there are some couples somewhere, with very successful careers, who don't work normal hours who can share the childcare. A friend, of mine for example, is a chef in a very high profile restaurant and is able to be at home for a lot of hours during the day.

So, whilst many of you thought my suggestion was nuts, understandably, it can be done sometimes. just very rarely.

I probably rushed my original post, so didn't make it very clear.

Cheers.

[Smiler]

Know that journalists look for a specific angle, but !!!

[Belle]

Think there are a lot of families who do it by doing shift work - have read case studies in the past - sounds desperately hard work as when one isn't working, they're looking after the kids and vice versa. Not sure that's 'power couples' in the traditional sense. I've just started doing a bit of freelance and we work it by grannies/husband's annual leave at the moment.

[legalalien]

From my perspective the issue is all about whether hours are fixed and predictable - and therefore manageable / capable of advance planning - or not. Many "power" jobs in the City involve not just long hours - but extremely unpredictably hours e.g. being called into an all night meeting with less than an hour's notice - it's those kinds of demands that make parenting with two "power" jobs impossible absent family support or significant outsourcing of childcare.

[dulwichmum]

This is because Emma Thompson said that she does this, isn't it? Smug Emma Thompson who in fact lives next door to her mother...

Just because some celeb says something, it doesn't make it true. Kylie Mynogue recently claimed that her youthful looks were down to her use of cold cream (OHMYGOD!) it is all just PR spin - clearly! Before Gail Porter's marriage broke up and her hair fell out, she was claiming that she had a super fabulous relationship and full-on social life. Our babys were the same age when she was draped all over magazine covers claiming that her sex life had improved since she became a mother - literally days before. After it all came out it was tales of Prozac and abandonment.

Why do famous women feel the need to pedal this kind of trash? They just make it hard for everyone else.

Emma Thompson never even washes her own damn hair (stomps foot). I know because we share the same hairdresser. I really wish she would just learn to brush her own teeth AND as for Emma and childcare, I wouldn't let her walk my dog.

[Fi from West Dulwich]

Oooh, that makes me feel MUCH better, thank you.

[Sally81]

No Dulwichmum...nothing to do with Emma Thompson at all, I'm afraid. As I mentioned in an earlier post....we have been working with a sporting couple who do it. They aren't a celebrity sporty couple either.

[sb]

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[womanofdulwich]

Emma Thompson- the one that complained and petitioned about extra runway at Heathrow?- then had to jet off to USA where she was filming. Comes from the stable as Diane Abott.

[dulwichmum]

Sally81 - strange, that story was all over the news last week.

So, you won't be starting off a thread in search of a woman of approximately 40 years of age, who puts her youthful good looks down to Cold Cream then (admires own image in compact mirror)?

[bawdy-nan]

Wed managed without childcare (paid for or otherwise) for the first 2 years after my daughter was born. We were both self-employed and it invo;lved a lot of very earlier starts, late nights, breastfeeding on buses, furious pumping of breastmilk, emailing one handed at the office while holding the baby. It was a bit of a nightmare and I wouldn't say it felt very highflying at all.