What to do with kids when you rely on others ???

[Guest PommieLou]

I have 2 Boxers so the presents are far from little :biglaugh:

 

Easy to spot though! :wink: Saves you from stepping in it! LOL! x

 

P.S as you can see, I've attached the info I put directly to the original comment too.

[Paul1Perth]

OP- good question. We have a very young children and my wife and I have no-one to help. But we didn't have much help in the UK either, my wife's family lived abroad and my family lived a couple of hours away and really only visited to see the kids rather than to help out. We currently never have a break (together) from the kids, maybe a couple of hours in the evening after they've gone to bed. I work full time and my wife was thinking of working part time teaching, but the logistics and costs of it weren't worth it. My eldest goes to Kindy 3 days a week and the both go to various play groups, it would be impossible for my wife to fit that in with going to/from the city to teach. Then, as I found in the UK, when a child is ill, you are expected to come out of work instantly to take them home, which neither of us would be able to do now.

So, as for how we manage, my wife has made a large group of friends from kindy/playgroup and although no-one helps to look after the kids directly, she visits these friends often or they come to us and the kids play together whilst the women gossip. My eldest will be starting school next year, so it will be a bit more of a break for my wife then.

But I can't see having any time with my wife without the kids being around in the near future. Even when they are both at school, I would have to have a day off work.

My mother visited for a month at Xmas and my wife and I managed 1 night away!

 

Didn't you realise that life would be like that before you had kids? I think that's the problem in a way, kids are not something you have and life just carries on the same. You have to be prepared for getting calls where you have to leave work 'cos the kids are sick. Most employers would be sympathetic to this and most I've worked for wouldn't see it as a problem. Bosses have kids too.

 

Our youngest is 16 and has autism. He still gets worried if we leave him at night to go to the movies. We still just take him with us just about everywhere we go. You just have to accept that this is what life is like once you have kids, not fight against the changes. Kids are hard work, expensive, life changing and if you aren't ready for it don't even contemplate having them. I know that this advice will fall on deaf ears on a lot of people. I never really wanted kids myself and could quite easily have gone through life without any. My wife though got to stages in her life where she desperately wanted kids and no amount of reasoning about "couldn't afford them" or any other argument just met with "we'll manage, everyone else does".

Might be a womens logic (there's an oxymoron when it comes to kids) or something that men will never understand, but the fact is there are a lot of people that don't manage and kids can cause lots of problems from financial to relationship problems. A lot of my friends (male) back in the UK carried on like they were still without kids and wanted to stay in the pub just as long, go to the match at the weekend with their mates, go out most night to do what they wanted......

 

A generation ago this seemed to be quite acceptable when women and men had clear cut roles but now things have changed with women out at work full time to make ends meet and blokes expected to help around the house and with the kids.

 

As long as you have a strong relationship and know the downsides as well as the upsides to having kids and are prepared for it then go ahead.