A Week in the Life of a Working Mom
Photo: Kelly / The Bump
This is a guest blog by Kelly, an SVP of E-Commerce at a large nonprofit and mom to a 6-year-old, 3-year-old and 5-month-old. Here’s an inside look at what goes on in a typical week for this busy mom of three.
MONDAY: Wake up, get breakfast for everyone, pack lunches, backpacks, daycare bag. Collaborate with husband to get everyone dressed, brush everyone’s hair and brush and floss all the teeth in the house (except my husband’s – I leave that to him!). Today is a work-from-home day, so I don’t take the time to shower or put on real clothes. Put the first grader on the school bus, send the other two kids with dad to be dropped off on his way to work. Pump, then make a quick run to grocery store (speed grocery shopping should be an Olympic sport). Back at home in time to start the work day. Emails, meetings, pumping. Repeat. At the end of the work day, quickly assemble a dinner that can bake in the oven while I go pick up all the kids. Dinner, homework, bedtime (usually I put the baby down and my husband puts the two older kids down). Once kids are in bed, reset the house and bags for tomorrow. My husband compares this process to the scene in the movie “50 First Dates,” where they return the house to the same state each night after Drew Barrymore is in bed. Tomorrow is a work-at-work day, so all lunches, etc. must be packed tonight, including breast pump and supplies. Make a dinner for tomorrow night. Start dishwasher. Check and answer work email. Go to bed.
TUESDAY: Wake up, get breakfast for everyone, jump in shower. Primp (basic makeup and thickening spray on hair is about all I can handle). I pump in the car while my husband drives. Drop off younger kids at daycare and preschool, park at subway, commute into city. Stop at cafeteria to get oatmeal (hoping it boosts milk supply) and hot water for tea. Emails, meetings, pumping. Repeat. On a good day, I’ll have a work lunch that allows me to slow down and enjoy myself at a restaurant. Sitter picks up kids and puts my pre-made dinner in the oven. Commute home, dinner, homework, bedtime. Reset house, pack lunches, breast pump, supplies. Start dishwasher. Check & answer work email. Go to bed. Sensing a pattern here?
WEDNESDAY: Same as Tuesday, but I alternate leaving early with my husband to pick up the kids at the end of the day. Forget (for the third week in a row!) that oldest child’s library books are due on Wednesdays. Accidentally leave nursing pads out on my desk after pumping and hope no one noticed. Tonight is bath night, which thankfully my husband almost always handles (yes, we only bathe our kids twice a week). Realize that Friday is “Dress as Your Favorite Character Day” at school and frantically figure out how to make or order a costume in time (thank you Amazon Prime). Reset house, pack lunches, breast pump, supplies. Start dishwasher. Check & answer work email. Collapse into bed.
THURSDAY: Wake up to one of my kids crying, calling for me or standing next to my bed. Exhausted, tell them to go watch TV. Wonder out loud why I’m the only person I know with 3 kids who works full-time and doesn’t have a nanny. Question many of my prior decisions. Same commute and day as Tuesday and Wednesday, but my parents pick up the kids and bring dinner every other week. Have a multi-generational dinner, happy that my kids are getting quality time with their grandparents. My mother usually unloads the dishwasher for which I am eternally grateful. Fold laundry. I LOVE laundry because it’s a reason to sit still and watch Modern Family. Start dishwasher. Check & answer work email. Collapse into bed.
FRIDAY: Work-from-home day, so repeat Monday morning routine, but replace trip to the grocery store with quiet (no interruptions!) shower for me after everyone has left the house. At lunchtime, I either volunteer at my daughter’s school, have lunch with a friend or run errands. Knock off work a little early and pick up the kids while it’s still daylight. Make dinner and enjoy a slightly more relaxed evening routine. Maybe even take a walk as a family after dinner in the nice weather. Once kids are in bed we watch half of a movie (while I check and answer work email on my phone from the couch) before I am exhausted and go to bed, thankful to have survived the week.
Can you relate? What’s your working week like?
Plus, more from The Bump:
A Week in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Mom
A Day in the Life of a Work-at-Home Mom
What Being a Working Mom is (Really) Like
The Knot Blog
The Nest Blog
Wow, sounds soooo familiar. Especially the part on Thursday about not having a nanny and questioning my decisions
After reading this, I am so glad I am a SAHM! I could not lose all the time with my hubby in the evenings-sans phone in my lap. Gotta have that time for us. You carry a lot on your shoulders each day that is for sure!
it’s such a luxury to be a SAHM now a days. kudos to this woman for making it work, however, i see very little time for R&R which is concerning. This is a schedule to make anyone burn out! i hope weekends are much different for her, but I’m guessing that they’re even more hectic if she has the kids all day.
After I had my son I worked for the first year so my work week consisted of waking up every morning at 6 am pumping, showering get myself dressed wake up the little guy to spend some quality time with him before work. Leave for work at 7:30 and come home on lunch to pump and eat then head back to work. Get off work at 3:30 come home breastfeed and then pump what he didnt eat, take a short nap as he is sleeping aftering eating, wake up from nap for dinner feed pump, bottle feed or breastfeed for him to go to bed then mommy and daddy time before daddy goes to work. In bed by 10 and then back up again to start the day over after a few night feedings.
To be honest, having 3 kids and a full time job is a choice, where there is no room left for the husband or anything else..including the kids! Not my ideal choice…
Jasmine 267 – It’s not always a choice! Some of our husbands cant support a family on just one income and we HAVE to work.
@JTrousdale, This is so true, especially if you’re a responsible adult, making sure your child(ren) have the quality of life they deserve. Two incomes makes life so much easier. I’m sure there is a higher correlation between lack of money and divorce, than a couple who has money and divorce…
I think she’s leaving out a few tasks. I’m a busy working mom, I don’t have 3 kids, but she probably performs learning activities with each child that she may not even realize she’s doing. Doing ABC’s in the car ride to day care, discussing colors while doing the laundry. Despite what SAHM’s think, working mom’s with pink colors also give time to husbands. It’s all about balance and communication, I’d like to think working moms are masters of multi-tasking!
Sounds like my life in many ways, I work from home Wed and Friday and in office the rest. I am so grateful for the two mornings I don’t have to take a shower and get “dressed” for work. It gives me extra time with my kiddo. It is do-able now and I am happy to have the full extra salary. I was worried about when the next one comes along, but this woman does it and so do many other women I know. It can be done but it can take away from time with the hubby ( i.e. date nights needed). I try not to be connected to email/phone in the late evening unless it is crucial. When I feel burnt out I just take PTO and drop the kid off at my MIL and meet a girlfriend for lunch, go shopping, and/or take a nap before starting dinner. BALANCE baby! P.S. I lasted 6 1/2 months on pumping… that had to go once our busy season started at work. It was hard to find time to pump and supply slowly just went away and I just gave it up.
Just for the record, I’m a working mom also, even if part-time, but I don’t see the emphasis on having many children when it obviously takes out other precious moments to be shared with other family members and you soon feel more stressed out than anything else, just so you can say I can manage, when you really just need some quiet time to listen to yourself..
I dont have the luxury of staying at home or hiring a nanny. I would like to think there are many more moms in my situation. I work to provide for my children and without our dual income we wouldn’t be able to afford children.
With that being said, I appreciate the rest of your post as it hits close to home.
I too am a full time working mom and feel the pressure that all of these moms have mentioned. I am a psychiatry resident almost finished with training. Most days I wake up at 430 go for a run, then usually sometime in the middle of my run stop and feed the babe and then finish the run, then get the 2 dogs taken care, then shower and get the babe ready for day care. My hubby is also a resident in a surgical field and out the door super early and can’t help which makes things tough but he doesn’t have control. I then take the babe to day care and rush to work. Usually Mondays are okay..Tuesdays are tough and Wednesdays I cry through my run and the way to work and wonder what the heck I am doing. I take Thursdays off just to put myself back together (which is a luxury of being a psychiatry resident, most residents don’t get to the this even though I am extending my training by quite a bit) While at work my schedule is full…. I am lucky that I have a good milk supply as I usually don’t get a break to pee or shove some lunch in none the less pump for 20 minutes. I know its against the law to not be allowed to pump but residents also work 80 hours a week which is also twice what is considered full time and no one bats an eye. Even though I really enjoy my patients and many of them have way more difficult struggles than any of us, all day I am usually behind on notes, my patients are calling for either refills, letters of some sort, disability paper work, begging for controlled substances all day and I leave with unfinished notes each day. I leave it in the office, walk out the door, ring out the sponge of craziness in parking lot, drive to day care and pick her up. From there I am all hers. We laugh and play and sing when we get home and then get the dogs ready for a walk, put the babe in the stroller and go around the block. I have two dogs with lots of energy and they will destroy things without exercise. Even though I am usually really tired I still enjoy being outside and its nice to move around after sitting all day. Then we come home and make dinner and start getting all the things ready for the next day: clean the pump accessories, de-thaw breast milk, get the coffee maker ready to push go, lay out babies clothes, my work clothes and running clothes. Then my hubby gets home and we eat and then drink a much needed beer and put the baby to bed. And then crash. She is finally sleeping better but for the last 3 months before this week we were getting up at least 3 times each night with her. I was feeding her and totally sabotaging sleep training but when you are exhausted and so sleep deprived the best idea seems to be the one that gets her back to sleep the fastest. But I had to take overnight call this past weekend and my hubby decided to let her “cry it out” because I can’t handle it and really it worked. (In the craziness of all this I forgot to mention that two weekend of each month are spent on call). So this is life of a working mommy and resident and mine is not half as bad as some moms in more demanding specialties. Why you make ask…as I ask myself. Well lots of reasons, I do really enjoy my patients and enjoying trying my best to help ease their suffering, I have tons of medical school debt and refuse to let my hubby pay it back even though he would be able to when he finishes, I started this and I am not going to quit in the middle AND I don’t really want my daughter to go into medicine but I do want her to see that she can reach for the stars in what ever she wants to be in life and I want her to know what working hard looks like.
I too am a full time working mom and feel the pressure that all of these moms have mentioned. I am a psychiatry resident almost finished with training. Most days I wake up at 430 go for a run, then usually sometime in the middle of my run stop and feed the babe and then finish the run, then get the 2 dogs taken care, then shower and get the babe ready for day care. My hubby is also a resident in a surgical field and out the door super early and can’t help which makes things tough but he doesn’t have control. I then take the babe to day care and rush to work. Usually Mondays are okay..Tuesdays are tough and Wednesdays I cry through my run and the way to work and wonder what the heck I am doing. I take Thursdays off just to put myself back together (which is a luxury of being a psychiatry resident, most residents don’t get to the this even though I am extending my training by quite a bit) While at work my schedule is full…. I am lucky that I have a good milk supply as I usually don’t get a break to pee or shove some lunch in none the less pump for 20 minutes. I know its against the law to not be allowed to pump but residents also work 80 hours a week which is also twice what is considered full time and no one bats an eye. Even though I really enjoy my patients and many of them have way more difficult struggles than any of us, all day I am usually behind on notes, my patients are calling for either refills, letters of some sort, disability paper work, begging for controlled substances all day and I leave with unfinished notes each day. I leave it in the office, walk out the door, ring out the sponge of craziness in parking lot, drive to day care and pick her up. From there I am all hers. We laugh and play and sing when we get home and then get the dogs ready for a walk, put the babe in the stroller and go around the block. I have two dogs with lots of energy and they will destroy things without exercise. Even though I am usually really tired I still enjoy being outside and its nice to move around after sitting all day. Then we come home and make dinner and start getting all the things ready for the next day: clean the pump accessories, de-thaw breast milk, get the coffee maker ready to push go, lay out babies clothes, my work clothes and running clothes. Then my hubby gets home and we eat and then drink a much needed beer and put the baby to bed. And then crash. She is finally sleeping better but for the last 3 months before this week we were getting up at least 3 times each night with her. I was feeding her and totally sabotaging sleep training but when you are exhausted and so sleep deprived the best idea seems to be the one that gets her back to sleep the fastest. But I had to take overnight call this past weekend and my hubby decided to let her “cry it out” because I can’t handle it and really it worked. (In the craziness of all this I forgot to mention that two weekend of each month are spent on call). So this is life of a working mommy and resident and mine is not half as bad as some moms in more demanding specialties. Why you make ask…as I ask myself. Well lots of reasons, I do really enjoy my patients and enjoying trying my best to help ease their suffering, I have tons of medical school debt and refuse to let my hubby pay it back even though he would be able to when he finishes, I started this and I am not going to quit in the middle AND I don’t really want my daughter to go into medicine but I do want her to see that she can reach for the stars in what ever she wants to be in life and I want her to know what working hard looks like.
Having been both a SAHM with my first 2 little ones in my first marriage (now 16 & 18), and now a working mom with a 3 year old and pregnant again, I can tell you that being a working mom is BY FAR more difficult than staying home. BUT the rewards are also so much greater. My children are so proud when someone asks them what I do (I’m a surgical nurse) and they can tell them that in addition to being a mommy, I save lives for a living. My husband is extremely involved, and our children know that he is not just there to make the money and pay the bills..we are equal partners in this adventure. AND I do it all while meeting the needs of my children, husband and self. You just have to be creative & juggle. My children do not go to daycare, and I even homeschooled…we working moms learn pretty quickly how to best manage our time!
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