For years, my older daughter has done dance as her extracurricular. It was easy. Every Saturday afternoon, I would take both kids over to the dance studio, and my younger daughter would play while my older daughter would dance.
My husband has been talking about how he would like her to do a team sport, and my daughter has been talking more and more about how much she loves basketball at school, so this year I signed her up for basketball. And ever since, have been filled with regret.
At the end of a workday in which my pedometer usually tells me I walked about 3 miles, the last thing I want to do at 6 o'clock is drive my daughter over to another school, and either try to entertain my younger daughter or drag myself out to go back an hour later to pick her up, all in the freezing cold and snow. Then race everyone through dinner before bedtime half an hour later.
And the games are all super early on Saturday. There's no decent parking, so we have to walk pretty far to get there. And my younger daughter won't sit through them, and my husband doesn't want to watch her while I leave her behind.
Last night, I had my second argument with my husband in one week over basketball, and I couldn't take it anymore. This is not school, this is an extracurricular activity. It seems like if it's causing me this much stress, the answer is obvious:
Quit.
I feel bad about it, because she really does like basketball. But I'm not a soccer mom. I work hard all day, and evening activities are difficult. I can't run myself ragged for an extracurricular activity.
Now I just have to find a way to tell her…
So what it your husband doesn't want to watch your younger daughter. He should just suck it up and do it anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm not understanding. Your husband wants her to do sports. Why isn't this his problem? Also you can pay someone to chauffeur. College students are good if there is a college or community college in the area.
ReplyDeleteYeah. He doesn't want to watch the younger one? This was his idea. Why is it all on you? Also ditto on the college student drivers - we're on our fourth student in seven years for this purpose and it's worked out really well.
ReplyDeleteAgree with the above posters. Your husband needs to do this (he wanted this, after all!) and/or you can hire a college student to drive the kid around. It does not need to fall 100% on you.
ReplyDeleteWhen we do afterschool activities, whoever does not take kid to activity picks up the other kid(s) and feeds/entertains them. It seems unfair that you are in charge of all the pickups, the activity, entertainment, and food. Why doesn't husband pick up/take older to basketball/entertain the younger one? Not wanting to is hardly a good reason.
ReplyDeleteA college student isn't a bad idea. How do you go about finding one? Although there's only a month and a half left, so by the time we find properly vet the student, it will probably be too late.
ReplyDeleteIn our family, I basically carry all childcare responsibilities these days. Anything less than that results in way too much fighting. If I can't handle it, I hire extra help, which is why I hired somebody to take one of my kids to school in the morning.
That sucks that you guys have so much conflict over this and that everything is falling 100% on you. It seems very unfair.
DeleteNot sure how you'd find a college student specifically. In my neighborhood, I might try the neighborhood list serv, care.com, or ask around work/school/neighborhood to see if people might be interested in earning a few extra bucks or knew someone who might be.
If there's a university local with an education program, I'd contact the education department, and ask for the contact information of the students in charge of the student organization/club (Future Teachers or whatever). Also, asking the admin assistant isn't a bad idea; they probably know a lot of the students and could lead you to a responsible one. Or a faculty member who works with ed students. (Ed students are good because they want to work with kids, and often find it helpful to be able to talk about that experience in their applications.)
DeleteWe asked the Hillel director and chaplain at the local college. The career center will also have a newsletter or EMail list. Do you know any faculty? Is there a med school?
DeleteThere's also care.com - I haven't used it but some of my friends swear by it.
DeleteI basically carry all childcare responsibilities these days. Anything less than that results in way too much fighting.
ReplyDeleteUgh. Okay, I am not going to badger you about why that is so...
Then I would recommend just making it an evening with the girls and letting the husband fend for himself on that day. No family dinner on nights when there is basketball. Pick up the girls a bit early, feed them some snacks in the car (e.g., juice and crackers), drop off older one and take the younger one to a mall/coffee shop/book store/whatever is nearby that you enjoy/meet a friend after work. Then after you pick up the older one, have them eat sandwiches or fast food in the car or take them both to a food court, essentially something where they will get dinner where a) you don't have to cook and b) you don't have to look at husband. Good luck!
That would be fine if it wasn't the middle of the winter and just navigating from the car to any location can be a Herculean task...
Deleteis carpool an option? if you know any of the other kids in the group, maybe you can carpool one way or every other week? As for the little one during games, try making her a cheerleader- bring markers, poster board, etc; she may enjoy making signs and cheering (for at least one quarter, anyway). and good luck with negotiations with your husband- hope you can get a break every once in a while- you deserve it!
ReplyDeleteWow. Your husband seemed pretty cool up to this point. He can't watch one kid while you schlep the other to the activity he wanted her to do. Pretty lame. … But you sound resigned to it. … All the practical suggestions have been made. I will say you can forgive yourself for thinking this is a pretty sucky use of your time. … I love the idea of dance. That's my plan for my daughter's one activity. It is athletic/exercise AND artistic AND musical. Super efficient!! And it is not necessarily a "team sport" but there is incredible coordination and teamwork that goes into a good dance production. Point that out to hubby next time he has any brilliant ideas for your evenings and weekends.
ReplyDeletePractical advice related to specific issue: if you can't find sitter to take older daughter to BB, how about sitter to watch younger daughter at home (esp. on saturday morning, though you may have to pay extra for that hour!)
ReplyDeleteImpractical advice related to more general issues: I honestly can't begin to fathom what is going on in your marriage or with your husband that he cannot watch his own child for a few hours so that you can take his OTHER child to an activity that HE suggested she do. I really wouldn't tolerate this, its going to become unsustainable, and the longer it goes on the harder to break out of that rut. Seriously consider working on this with or without professional assistance.
Regarding your second point, we agreed to move to a location close to my work with the agreement that I would handle all childcare. So I do feel obligated to keep my part of the bargain.
DeleteAnd when you say you would not tolerate it, what do you mean exactly? You can't physically force your spouse to do something he doesn't want to do. So would you leave him? Because it seems like that's the only option if you want your spouse to do something they outright refuse to do.
I agree with Fizzy re husbands. I struggle with MIM at times as people are quick to critique partners and shocked if they aren't perfect. But that's marriage, partners aren't perfect and sometimes you have to deal with annoying things. It would be nice just to get some advice without the #findabetterhusband angst
DeleteI wouldn't have made that agreement in the first place, I think both parents have a responsibility to care for their children. Even if I were a SAHM I would never say that I would take care of absolutely every single childcare thing. If he insisted on such an arrangement, it would definitely change my relationship to a point where I would seriously reconsider my marriage. I definitely have issues in my marriage, and I know its not that simple as "just leave him", but everyone has their dealbreakers and this would be one of mine. You cannot "make" someone do something, yes, but if you express that it is vitally important to you and you absolutely need them to help you, and they still outright refuse, what does that mean?
DeleteI'm sorry, Fizzy. I know that sounded harsh, and its not your fault & you are a great mom doing the best you can in a crappy situation, but I am having trouble wrapping my head around this one. If he refused to do the housework, I'd understand that more than refusing to spend time with his own children in an activity he suggested doing. couldn't it be FUN for him? or at least good bonding time with one child?
DeleteIt's not like he doesn't spend time with them. He just doesn't want to obligate himself to shuttling them around from one place to another. Sometimes he's willing to do it, but it's not something I could count on on any sort of regular basis.
DeleteYou could say that you never would've agreed to an arrangement like that, but the fact of the matter is that our jobs were about an hour and a half apart, two hours at worst, and he took on a two hour commute so that I could be close to my work and close to our daycare. Although he no longer has that kind of commute, if he had his way, we wouldn't live here. It's a compromise.
Ok, yes, a 2 hour commute does make it different. I'm sorry, not meaning to be confrontational, and realize I should keep me mouth (fingers?) shut when I don't have all the details.
DeleteI am pregnant but otherwise childless and married to another physician, so I don't have much experience with this sort of thing. But it seems like it would be nice if your husband joined you and your kids and you could all spend this time together as a family, instead of it just being a dreaded errand. Does that sound crazy?
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I would second all other suggestions, i.e. throw money at the problem or take turns etc...
Seems like avoiding fighting by you doing everything is eventually going to cause major fighting and potentially you having a breakdown. As my husband always says our lives should not revolve around our children's lives. We are the parents. Extracurricular activities should be fun and affordable. Anything that becomes super stressful to us as parents is ultimately become a point of tension within our marriage and for our children.
ReplyDeleteQUESTION: you mention that you do all child-related activities. Does your husband then cook and clean and handle the bills and leave it so you have nothing to do when you return from child-activities?
You and your husband need an intermediate to help have this discussion before it becomes even worse.
We have a person to clean, and he does handle the bills, does the dishes, takes out the trash. I cook, but I wouldn't want to eat his cooking.
Delete"You and your husband need an intermediate to help have this discussion before it becomes even worse."
We have that too.
Well, it seems like you have many of the supports in place that many of us aspire to. Thank you for sharing this intimate portion of your life and this background information. It's a good reality check for folks like me who are just out of training - we idealize how life will be once we have a a cleaning person, more financial freedom, etc.
DeleteYou'll find a way to tell her she can't play. And guess what - she'll rage for a moment but she'll be fine. I now don't even remember all of the things my parents denied me when I was younger that seemed integral but weren't. Most important thing was that my parents had time to enjoy us and didn't let their lives revolve around ours.
I think we've gotten a little side tracked by this issue wth the husband. Trying to balance work and home is hard, that's why a lot of us come to this website, to get other's perspectives on how they handle it. I think if your daughter really enjoys it, you're just going to have to suck it up even if you're exhausted. I too have lived through numerous soccer, lacrosse, basketball, track practices and early Saturday games. I'm not a morning person- I hate doing anything Saturday morning. But it's my kid, I just have to. We did only one sport/ major activity a season. That's pretty reasonable. And they do grow up so fast. You'll be surprised how you miss those things as they get older.
ReplyDeleteMy parents worked every day, all day and night so they also had zero time to pick us up from school, much less from extracurriculars. We had to walk to a few, but when I made a friend or two, a friend's SAHM was willing to take us to one of our shared activities and my parents paid her for gas expenses every couple of months. If you'd rather not make her quit just yet, is that possible for basketball?
ReplyDeleteFizzy, you have my empathy. It is a very difficult situation. I often feel very guilty because our three children (9, 8, 5) are not in any extra-cirricular activities, but the reason is, it is exactly the nightmare you describe! Neither my husband nor I have a reliable schedule, we leave the house at 0700, and it is often a struggle for one of us to get to after care to pick up the kids by 5:15 pm, the latest time allowed. I am a military physician and am frequently out of the city or even the country (I write this post from the Middle East, where I have been for the past seven weeks). So, we just can't make it work. When I imagine all the my husband has to do while I am away (ALL the drop offs, pick ups, lunches, breakfasts, suppers - though we do get help from wonderful friends in that regard - bedtimes, etc etc), I couldn't imagine adding an extra-curricular onto that as well. I can barely imagine it in our every day life! And it is indeed a shame, as my oldest son would LOVE marshall arts, and it would help with some of his physical and social skills, my daughter was seriously born to be an artist, and my youngest is an amazing soccer player. But I disagree with the post above that says "you just have to". You don't just have to, especially if it is making you miserable. You weigh it in the balance of your life and your circumstances, and if it means your daughter has to quit, so be it. I am working with children right now that have been through genuine horror, and I'm sure you'll agree that your daughter, while disappointed, will be just fine if she can't do basketball. It's OK. Kids are very resilient! Good luck with your choice.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I have to get her to school, but I don't have to get her to an extracurricular. My sanity is more important than her playing basketball. And will ultimately make her happier.
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