Ask HN: How do you balance being a dual-income household with a baby?

I also like that and agree it's the perfect way of expressing the perception.

I'm an interaction designer and have 2 kids, ages 2 and 5. During the school year when my husband has his full-time public high school English teaching job ("English" = "tons of lengthy essays and never caught up until the end of the school year"), I am barely treading water. I dream of quitting constantly. It. Is. SO HARD. To afford the Bay Area mortgage in a modest little home, I work full-time year round, from the office 2-3 days a week, the other days from home. The WFH helps, but it's not the panacea people think. You save time on the commute but you are surrounded by the things you didn't prioritize (read: mess, unfinished to-dos) because you prioritized your kids and bills higher. And because you're home, your work stops (if you're Mommy) when the kids come home or when you pick up, whereas if I'm still at the office, I can (guiltily) still work an extra hour while my husband deals with pickup and dinner for both kids. It's a trade-off, really.

Husband handles groceries and dishes and most cooking. We order more takeout/delivery than my parents ever dreamed, maybe once or twice a week. That helps a bit. I handle laundry and everything else, including hiring help to clean our house every two weeks, all the bills, money- and health-related stuff, clothing, school-related anything, buying whatever we need for the house, and I'm the person who drops their job when I get the dreaded and frequent call that one of my kids is sick at school, and then has to stay home while they recuperate and either burn a sick day and then inevitably my vacation days, or "work from home" meaning divide my attention ten ways from Sunday.

We live across the country from all our family except my younger brother who is not in a position to help watch kids. We do it all ourselves. So hard. I think about moving all the time but almost all our relatives whom I'd trust to watch our kids in a pinch all still have day jobs. In reality they couldn't help. The one whom I'd trust has her own toddler to look after and I wouldn't want to dump my sick kid on her so that her own child gets sick. My parents are retired but I don't trust them to watch our kid. So moving across the country to be near family wouldn't improve our situation at all. I think about moving to a cheap place where we could own the house outright, which would help some, but I did the math and I would still need to work at least part-time to pay the rest of the bills. And then I'd be stuck in upstate NY with its freezing winters and sweltering summers. So I haven't made the leap yet. I'm hangin' on, in protest sometimes.

Our summer time schedule is more lax and I'm just figuring out this year's schedule at a new elementary for the older one, but it will go something like this.

----- start -----

6 - 6:30) every damn day, 2yo wakes up and makes Mommy get up

6:30 - 7:30) I diaper, dress, feed, and pack lunch for the 2yo. (I can not pack ahead of time - picky guy only eats soup or dumplings which has to be warmed up and put in a thermos in the morning.) In that time, I also shower and get dressed, and my husband wakes up, showers, eats, and gets dressed.

7:30) Husband takes 2yo to daycare and goes to teach

7:30 - 8:15) 5yo wakes up, rush through morning routine: potty, get dressed, eat, tame her long hair, brush teeth. At same time, shove food in my face and pack AM and PM snack as they are not provided by school. Get out the door.

8:15 - 8:30) I take 5yo to school

8:30 - 4:30) Work/school/daycare. If working from office, hour-long commute for me from Lake Merced to downtown on Muni. Same if I drove to nearest BART with parking. Joy.

4:30 - 5:15) Husband picks up both kids OR

4:45 - 5:15) Husband and I split kid pickup if I'm working from home (see? save time commuting, spend time picking up kids)

5:15) cook, eat dinner, 2 allotted TV shows, play, see spouse if I've WFH

7:00) baths/pajamas, reading. If I worked in the office, I come home around this time.

8:00) one last snack

8:30) brush teeth

8:45) bed - I lie down with them as I still nurse my 2yo and enjoy the snuggle time. It means I don't get things done like other parents, but it won't last forever and I know they'll grow up fast.

Middle of the night) I wake up from typically having fallen asleep with the kids, and cross things off my to-do list or catch up on work I never finished

6 am) Do it all over again, maybe having gotten a few more hours sleep, sometimes having worked all through the night

----- end -----

There's no exercise in that schedule, no watching shows regularly. I could fit exercise in the workday but feel guilty at how much time I have to spend with family as it is, so I am loathe to take more attention away from work (except when procrastinating by commenting on threads like this!)

I know other people would make different choices and criticize mine, tell me I could fit in more if I moved this or that around, but fwiw that is our life, that is how we're getting by at the moment, to answer your question.

I wish you all the best. Each family situation is different and I'm sure you'll find something that works, even if barely, haha. And once it works, it will change. :-)