Childcare Revisited.

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode Sorry Sarah, what Isn't good? Thirty? Are all right? We were recording multiple episodes today, so it's hard to keep track sometimes. But we will be talking about childcare, a topic we have talked about in the past, but some sort of general guidelines for people to think about as they are making their childcare choices that we've heard from our listeners. Things to keep in mind as general. Full because you've made some changes recently, Sarah, right, yeah, I think the reason I thought it would be interesting to do another childcare episode since we did talk about it before, well a couple of reasons. Number One, we have some new listeners, So this is always a requested topic, and I think from time to time it's nice to go back. But also I think people forget that this is an area in which you can't just set it and forget it, because what works when you have one baby is different than when you have two children, and it's different when you have older children that may have different kinds of homework. And in fact, really the logistics can change every year or even more frequently. We're finding ourselves. It was funny because all of a sudden, you know, I wind about it on this podcast enough. You guys know, I was very frustrated with a lot of evenings because Josh often gets home fairly late. There are exceptions, but I certainly can't rely on him to get home, you know, around dinner time or anything like that, or even for bedtime. And I was finding myself dreading those evenings. But our nanny worked from She used to come at seven thirty in the morning, and you know, we used to live fairly far from where she did. Now we don't, but she came really early, you know, she commuted, and then of course I wanted to get her out on time, so she left at six o'clock, so I would basically get home from work and she'd be pretty much out the door, leaving me to deal with the evening on my own, which again I did it, but I wasn't always very happy happy about it. Yes, So you know, all of a sudden it occurred to me that we didn't necessarily need our nanny to do the morning drop off. Like I don't know what was stopping me. I mean, things did change because it has to do with our move and the timing of school and the fact that Genevieve goes to school now. But Genevieve's school is conveniently located on the way to my office, and I had this block in my head thinking like, well, you can't drop off the big kids and Genevieve. And then one day our nannie had to be off and I was like, let me try it, and it was like that is so easy, like throw them all in the car, or sometimes we do it with scooters and a stroller, drop off the big kids, and the timing actually works perfectly because they need to be there. Really dropped off by like seven forty five and then I drive halfway to work Genevieve's drop off coincides pretty much exactly with that halfway point of when I need to get to work, and I can actually get in time for when my first patients there and do the drop off, which means I didn't need our nanny to come so early, which also meant that I felt free to ask her to work later. So like you know, a cascade, and now we have her come. Sometimes she still has to come early. We had a parent teacher conference this morning and Josh and I both wanted to go without being distracted by Genevieve, so she did come early, so you know, she's still available to come in the morning. And usually it's one to two days during the week that she does come early, but a lot of other days she comes in around eleven and then we'll stay till seven thirty, and then the hour's kind of even out to the same number of hours she was working before. But I get that support in the evenings, and I can usually put Genevieve to bed while she's still here, and I am a happier person. So but it just like, you know, we could have just stayed on autopilot, thinking that you know, we had a system that worked, and you know, she was already working a lot of hours, so you know, we'd boxed ourselves in a little bit. Yeah, so that that was a big thing. And then kind of around the same time, I got empowered because I just came to the realization my husbands actually had to take a little bit more weekend call with some changes at work. And it's fine, it's it's reasonable, but he's on call one out of every three weekends. And I was just sort of seeing these thirty three percent of my weekend stretch ahead of me for the rest of the next decade and not being able to work out. And I was like, wait, I could work out. I Genevieve will be twelve though by the end of that decade. I'm pretty sure that you can leave a twelve year old, a fifteen years old, a seventeen year old ago, you can certainly leave a twelve year old. Okay, maybe I was seeing the next five years ahead of five years, and I was like, why can't I just hire someone to comfort like, it doesn't make me a bad parent, it doesn't make me do anything. And then I'm like, oh, and I could hire someone to come watch the big kids while I take her to my Jim. And so now I went back on care dot com, which is where we found our nanny. I found two babysitters, and I can talk a little bit about the job application process because I've had pretty good luck. And the last two weekends, I've had them come for like two hours stints in the morning so I can work out while my husband's working. And actually sometimes when he's not working, I'm trying to have them come so that he can Sometimes he asked to do some work when he's not working, so he can do that without it really taking away from me, and even so we could maybe both work out at the same time once in a while. So again, it's like you have these stories you tell yourself about what you're allowed to do, but we're grown ups. We're allowed to do whatever we want. Well, I think there's a mental block about having childcare when you are not actually working, right, And I think a lot of people have in their mind that the only acceptable time to have it is from the start of your commute to the time when you walk in the door. And you know, maybe you get a date night every month or so that you have a sitter for, but to regularly build into your life life, extra hours beyond that I think makes people, you know, feel weird, and we can certainly explore in this podcast why that is, Like why do people feel that way? But I think that is definitely we should there, yes, exactly, but well, first before we get to that, though a deeper philosophical question, maybe you can talk through the ads that you put on. Yeah, just from a logistical standpoint. So again, we've found our current nanny throughcare dot com six years ago and she's still working with us, and I found these two babysitters. What has worked for me is that I put in an ad, and I do the paid subscriptions you can communicate, and then in that ad I put very specific things about what I'd like them to respond with. Please respond with number one your availability, number two like two references, and like number three a time you can meet with me. Like that's pretty simple, right, And yet most people cannot follow the instructions to respond with those things. So I'm like, okay, we're done. We're done here. You couldn't follow my instructions on the ad. You just sent clearly a copy and pasted thing about how you want to work because you love children, But you didn't answer my question. So that's a really nice filter. And then that seems to work, and then you know, I set up interviews. I have a friend, So I set up four interviews for a couple a few weeks ago, and I will admit two of them just canceled. One of them just canceled and ghosted. One of them sent me a text like five minutes before the interview was about to start and was like sorry, never mind. And then the other two showed up like beautifully on time, professionally dressed like my good yes, with their cvs and like contacts. In fact, both of them, or at least one of them, like sent me a text like just just letting you know I'm on my way, like just like fully, and then I knew that they were professionals. The other thing I really like to do is if if you're this is not to hire someone for a primary job, but like for these babysitting short little gigs, if you find someone that's hired by an organization, you know, like one of ours is working for like a government organization locally, I kind of know that they're not a government organization is not going to hire like someone with criminal record, or you know major issues, and if I can find out that they've been there for a couple of years, it's a nice vetting process as well to make me feel safe and secure. I feel less scared about Like I know, there's like a lot of angst when your child are very little and they're not they can't talk to you yet about what's going to happen. But at least I know, you know, I haven't eight year old almost and so she'll tell me if someone's you know, not great. But I still feel much better knowing that, Okay, this person was vetted to work in a medical practice or to work at a daycare, like they've been through background checks, drug testing, all that kind of stuff, because I'm not necessarily going to have the ability to do that myself. Although through through care dot Com you can you can't request various things, So that's that's a service you can look at. And there's others too, like sitter City Nano is an on demand one. There's there's a number of players in this space now that there weren't in the in the past, and you had to go through if if you're hiring full time childcare, you had to go through a nanny agency, for instance, which they still exist, and you may wish to do that, but you know, people's mileage may vary with them. And I really like references, so I ask. I'm like, I want phone number of someone you've worked for recently, and I do call, and usually you can tell instantly in that person's voice, like, oh, yeah, this is someone that they've trusted. I mean, it's the same as a word of mouth, breck. But I'll be honest, people are not always, including myself, so excited to share their favorite babysitters contact information because they may want to take their own date nights and they don't want you to pull them off the market every Saturday night. So exactly that's why. And I feel awkward asking for that reason because I don't want to steal someone else's best person. When somebody has kids that are kind of aging out of the need for a babysitter, that's a great time to ask, like, oh, you've mentioned that you're leaving your you know, ten year old or twelve year old at home now, like any babysitters that you love that you don't need anymore, that can be a window of opportunity. Yeah, good advice. Well, shall we talk about our our guidelines are our general sure, I mean we can also dive into the whole guilt phenomenon or the barrier phenomenon. I think I think the short answer is probably, you know, as some of my blog readers like to write the patriarchych answer, you know, I think I think some of it it's just it's stories we tell ourselves and history of what you've seen growing up and what you see on TV. Even I mean, it's just our culture is not very good at it's depicting variations in how people might want to live their lives. There tends to be like these stereotyped versions that we look towards. But you have to take a closer look and figure out what what actually makes sense for you. I think yeah, And I think you know, being a more calm person, calm and happy persons is a good in its own right. And we've we've actually had this experience of you know, when you can and have a little bit of extra help, that means you can do more things with your bigger kids. So if you have a big family, often you know you'll wind up spending a lot of time and energy on the little ones. Just naturally because they're more needy, and that's fine. Probably your kids are going to be fine if that's what you do. But if you would like to spend more one on one time with the older kids, then that needs to be arranged. And this is one tool in the toolbox to make it happen. Yeah, no, it's true. Hiring somebody to help care for some kids that you can spend time with others is underrated. I think if you can do it, and I know people are going to write in that this is not financially feasible for them, but you never know, things might change, and sometimes it can be really small scale. Just a couple hours every month even might be enough to save your sanity. And over the long term, doesn't two evenings a week, So if you have a partner who is not available in the evenings, sometimes maybe having one extra hour twice a week beyond when you get home, that could be eight hours a month. So you know, you can figure out whatever the rate would be for that. But like that could be a major investment in your sanity and feeling like you don't have to do all of it yourself. And I think we had a lot of you know, questions about some things we've said in past episodes with this, But I think that is a big difference of people feeling like life is overwhelming or feeling like it isn't and sometimes having a little help with that transition. And yeah, maybe it doesn't work for everyone, but if you are in a position where you have some extra cushion, some extra margin in your life, this could be a very wise place to spend it versus I don't know, buying an extra pair of pants, redoing your kitchen somehow viewing your kitchen. Judge about home renovation projects, but they're incredibly expensive, so I yes, that is true. Another thing you're not doing with renting? True? Yes, yes, Okay, my gosh. Okay, So let's talk about the don't be cheap category. Can we start with the day to day life? Okay, first, let's talk about you, because I mean, unless your your partner is responsible for all things kids related, all these decisions are going to affect your day to day life. It's going to affect your morning commute, right, So the fact that Sarah can drop her kids off at school like it's on the way to work. I mean, these are important things if you're thinking about housing, for instance, or choosing a childcare center, you want it to be relatively close to something that you are going to, whether that's your office or it's by your home. Keep in mind, if it's right by one person's office, that person will always have to do the drop off and pick up, so you might want to be aware of that. I should Josh deserves credit where credits do because when he does have more flexible days and that does happen one to two times a week, I think he enjoys doing it and he does do it, and it's it's actually fairly high quality time because the kids are like scootering and they're outside and they're having fun. So there may actually be you know, positives, And don't assume that just because it's inconvenient for one parent would mean they never do it, because maybe they still are going to pick a day per week that they are more flexible and choose to jump in. But you know, there's different things to look at, Like some daycare centers have lunch, like they make lunch for the kids or they have provide snacks, and if they do, that's time you're not going to be spending making the lunches and packing the snacks, and that might be something to take into consideration when you're choosing a place, someplace that is fifteen minutes from your house versus five minutes from your house, I would say that it's going to have to be quite a bit better to justify the fifteen minutes versus the five minutes. Someplace that closes at five point thirty versus closes at six thirty, they have. These are things to keep in mind for the convenience factor. When I wrote the book, I know how she does it. A few years ago, I've found a lot of people wound up going the nanny route because of the day to day convenience factor, not having to make that drive to another place and do the drop off. You know. I still recall one one time log from a lady who had really a bad commute. I mean she she would drive to our daycare center, which only had street parking, so she had to find a parking spot, which might be right there, it might be three blocks away, like who knows, it's parking roulette every morning, right, So that would be incredibly stressful. So she's either right there or she's hauling like two kids in the snow for three blocks and then she's trying to make a train, which you imagine like if you can't guarantee that there's parking right there and you're trying to make a train, it's like a very stressful moment. So we'll pause and think about that, and now we'll go to our advertisers introducing the Capital one Walmart Rewards Card. Earn five percent back at Walmart Online. Games for the kids, headphones for dad, a laptop for mom, doesn't matter. You get five percent back at Walmart Online. You'll also earn two percent at Walmart in store, restaurants and travel, and one percent everywhere else. When you want all that, you need the Capital one Walmart Rewards Card. What's in your wallet? Terms and exclusions apply Capital one. Na. Okay, we're back. So we were just discussing kind of the convenience factors that come to choosing your scenario, whether that's having somebody come to you or whether you're going to go somewhere. You know. One of the upsides, and we've spoken about this before of having somebody come to you is, especially as the kids get older, not so much when they're a newborn, but when they're at more school age if you are able to keep someone employed full time or if they prefer to be full time, sometimes they can take on more household responsibilities, which if you're dealing with as some of our listeners are in households with two big jobs, that's often something that A can be afforded and B, you know, greatly cleans up those logistics of life. So they're not doing that when they would rather be doing quality time type things with the kids. Yeah, so you know, you could look at that, although I would say that probably heavy cleaning is probably something better sent to a cleaning sir, and most people aren't gonna want to sign up for that for that. So what you mentioned the sort of household management aspect, what is that? What do you include under that? Yeah? Well again, so I give like a rough meal plan, but on weeks that I don't even do it. Our nanny is kind of autopilot enough that she'll shop and figure that out by herself. You know. She knows the moving parts of like who needs to be picked up which time, which days, and with three kids that gets more and more complex with time. She helped with homework. She will help with like if I have something that needs to go to the post office. Did you get your socks by the way, I did, and they're great. Okay, Well she mailed those stuff like that. Yeah, So and it's because really she does have even though she's coming in later, everybody's in school for a few hours, and she's able to help with other things. So yeah, and it definitely just takes away from Oh and our laundry, which I've spoken about before and I recognize as like a totally spoiled thing. But she's able to do it and it greatly helps us, and I really truly appreciate it. Yeah. Next rule is don't be cheap. Yes, I totally agree. If someone is helping you out in all of these ways and caring for your children, this is not the area to go budget. Yeah, you have to figure out what the going rate. My feeling is, you figure out what the going rate is in your area, and then you go a little above that. Yeah, exactly. But also things like you know, paid vacations, bonuses, like just any what you do for any employment situation, right, Yeah, I mean I'm willing to share, like we we've we now give two fully paid weeks off plus all major holidays off and Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. They got added to the major holidays somewhere along the way and we haven't gotten rid of them. So she gets holiday to the Yeah, they are kind of holidays anyway, she gets close to the number of vacation times that I get, not quite but close to it. And then if we ever hire her for extra time, of course we are paying her for extra time, and that includes overtime because legally that is something you have to do with the household employee yeap, which it includes yes, paying legally. So yeah, what what what system do you use? Because you've you've evolved the s over time as well. I used to be it used to be very homegrown. I just had an Excel sheet and I submitted paper W two's and W three's the I R s every year. I was sort of taught to do that by somebody who had done it before, and I, you know, checked everything by our accountant. I've gotten a little fancier in the last year so and I've started to use a software called nanny pay or you just put the number of hours and all your parameters and it'll make the pay stubbs for you. I use GTM, which is a little bit more full service. It's not an app, it's a company and they do payroll in general. So if you have like a small business and you want to outsource payroll, you would use a company like them. So you can also do this for other situations, right, So yes, it's very for example, yeah, yeah, some people, no, you you just you know, sign up through that. So you need an employer I D number, for instance, so that they can help you get to apply for that and then you you know, they can send in the through schedule. H like the quarterly payments to the government that's withheld for both well for federal, for state if you have local you know, the payments to your state's unemployment insurance UH program. Those are all things that have to be done. So you know, this makes it automatic and it's relatively affordable. You know, I forget the exact amount, but we were I think, you know, definitely paying under one hundred a month. And you know that's with more than one person, so it's it's good. Nanny pay is way cheaper, but you have to do more yourself. But since I had been yeah, it's been working okay, So yeah, so obviously you know, we're not accountants. And everybody should consult their own authorities when they're figuring this stuff out. But we are both very, very passionate that you need to do things the right way because it would be a big risk. Not too Yeah, so you know, we talked about being realistic about how many hours you need. This is one of the funny things that people write to me about from time to time. They want to talk about how great they are on time management because they have managed to convert their schedules to using as few paid hours of childcare as possible. Like, Okay, you're you're talking to the wrong person here. This this is not like there's this doesn't make you a better person, right like that, you know, and so being honest about it, like is is so much better. You know, if you are going to have to work late, having a childcare center that closes at five thirty is going to be a constant source of stress. Like so if you get out of work at five and you have a commute and it closes at five thirty, again, this is going to be a constant source of stress. So be honest about leaving yourself a buffer on both sides, and you know, then you'll be a much happier person. Yes, I agree. And one thing I did I did want to say because we we had we had our conversation with Joel and Matt to two weeks ago. Was that right two episodes ago? Yes, that we were talking about, you know, childcare as an expense and so Sarah, Sarah didn't like my work here that we talk about here is not an expense, And I'm like, well, it is an expense, just like it's an expense, but it's like it's a worthwhile expense. So it's an expense, like saying going to college is an expense. Okay, yes, well the college is a huge expense, but it's a very worthwhile well for you, but like in your own for you personally, like if you were paying to take classes toward a degree, Like, yes, that's an expense. You're doing it as an expense. You're right, it's an investment as well. But it's an investment because the reason you're probably doing it is that you think this will boost your earning potential over time. And that's exactly the case. Like, you know, there's some fascinating data. I know I've talked about this before, but for any new listeners from economists Sylvia Ann Hewlett who analyzed people's earnings and taking three years out of the workforce, so that's not a long time, that's not long at all, results on average in a thirty seven percent hit to your earning potential. And that is for the rest of your career. Like that is a ton and so I mean that's like the equivalent of earning, you know, is sixty three thousand versus one hundred thousand. There's a there's a big difference. So sorry, I'm taking a pause here to get Henry because it was videoing because this is so cute. Yes he's so cute, Yes he is. Wow, that is so cute. All right, thank you, we're digressing. Thank you of it on this episode aggressing, but I think he's hungry. But it is absolutely it is absolutely a long term investment, and you have to think of you know that those years if you're not working, then you're also not saving for retirement during those years, and you're not building the career capital and the connections that would take you to the next step those years. Now that may be again, like we said on the How to Money podcast, I absolute respect that choice. If that's someone's choice, and that's what they want to do, and it fits with their family's goals and they want to be home because they just want that to be how their life looks at that stage. Totally get it, and I think that's great. But making the financial argument is where it can become problematic. I think and we believe that the investment in excellent care for your children and enough care for your children to keep you see, is a worthwhile one through and through. I'm going to keep talking because should meet myself. I'm like, attempting to feed a baby here and he's not he's not cooperating. Well, I'm going to mention here what we talked about with troublespots. So you know, you have to think about when your child is sick and can't go to daycare, or if your caregivers sick, if you have a nanny, what are you going to do? There's there's not always an easy answer to this, and I do think this can evolve over time. I mean, as you build SENIORITI in your career or your partner does, maybe you do get to a place where you're like, well, you know, this happens very rarely, and if it happens I'm going to move my patients that day, and who cares. I got enough vacation saved. I have enough career capital, you know. I just joked we were talking before about like being good enough that they couldn't ignore you, Like Lady Gaga can do whatever she wants because she's that good. If you're that good at your career, you can stay home from work if your kid is sick. But if you're not at that point yet, then I think a nice back door strategy is to use one of the services that are evolving in a lot of urban areas where you can get like a vetted sitter, usually at a very expensive hourly rate. But remember that this is like a very short term thing, and often you can get it like at an hour's notice or so. So I have I have employed that strategy. I used to feel like, oh, I need to have like, you know, an aftercare I could send my kids to if our nanny is unexpectedly sick. But I'm feeling less like that recently. And maybe that's because I have a little bit more career flexibility and because I've used this backup option before and it wasn't the end of the world. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and if you are both, say traveling, obviously there's even more that can go wrong. So you need to think about that. Like if you've got it very carefully timed that you know, one of you leaves right as the other is coming home while the kids are at school, you know, well, what happens if somebody's flight is canceled or delayed four hours? You know you need a backup. But and you need to think of this beforehand, because it's gonna be very stressful in the moment. Be like, oh wait, my flight's canceled. What on earth am I going to do? Well, like, have that thought before the flight's canceled, and then you'll you'll be a much calm person that you can just send the text to your backup arrangement for that and be like, hey, I am going to need you to pick up the kids at school today, as we talked about, and then then you're good. You know it's it's but but being optimistic is a wonderful thing in life. But when it comes, not when it comes to childcare, not when it comes to think through what's going to go wrong? You know what can I do about this? And having sort of a backup layer is always key awesome, all right, I feel like that's most of what we wanted to talk about. Yeah, because we already went into care dot com, we already went into the patriarchy, and we've gone into all the changes that we've made in our household. And you're having to have a little bit more help too now that you have another baby in the mix. Yeah, it's currently just about five kids. Is different for four, and so if your family situation changes, and I mean among the things, I mean, every time I've put Henry in the car, he screams, and partly that's because it's really cold, but not having to do that is worth a lot. And so you know, we have an extra driver now for activities in some afternoons and evenings, and that's very helpful. And we've also thought through having a Saturday coverage because that there's a lot of kids activities then too, And so either I don't get to go to anything because I'm sitting home with the baby, or we have him scream everywhere. Uh So you know, this is this is the choice to still be involved in my other kids lives, Like I still wind up spending basically all of Saturday with a kid in some way, shape or form. It's just it's not with all five or you know that I'm always home with the baby and not able to do anything with anyone else. That makes sense, all right, So let's let's let's get to our listener question. So uh, I'll read it because it's your rants, it's your rent as a response, and I purposely in quitted this because Laura. Laura wrote back to this listener and was like, well, you will be treated to one of my favorite rants. Now we can treat all of you guys to one of our favorite rants as well. Okay, The question says I will be returning to work soon as my maternity leave is almost done. In order to mentally prepare myself, I'm thinking about the systems I want to put in place to make my weekday, mornings and evenings easier. In my research, I've found lots of working mother bloggers who swear by their weekly prep routines that they do on Sundays. Some of these routines can be very long processes and take up most of the day, maybe because they need blog content Okay, sorry. Usually weekly prep involves preparing lunches and suppers for the working week, as well as other tasks like picking out clothes for each day or pre packing diaper bags, et cetera. Basically, I wanted your opinions on how to effectively prepare for a working week without giving up too much of my weekend. Do you think these Sunday routines are the effective way to survive the midweek crunch or are they creating more weekend work that's actually necessary. By the way, like, some people who know Laura might have thought that, like, this is a fake question that I planted. But it was real. It was real. It was real. It was It's a great question. It just it just critically it does exist. Yes, it's like, well, I'm glad you framed it that way of whether it's necessary to survive the midwek crunch or is it creating more weekend work than is actually necessary? Thank you for leading into my rank. No, we love this question. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah. No, I hate the idea of women giving up their whole Sundays to prep for the week ahead, partly because I can't think of any men I know, including single fathers, who do this, Like, the only fathers who do this are the ones who have their own Instagram lunch box art empires. And then they're doing it because it is their job, right, like this is their business and so then sure, yeah, like well and this person mentions taking mother bloggers, so that was a little hint. So I think it's also their job. Their job. It's if it's there, if it's your job, then sure, like you want to show like, look, I lined up five lunches that all look great and our color coordinated and you know, only in muted pastels or something. I mean like, yeah, that's their business. So that's why they are doing it. It's not because it is in any way necessary. The key thing here is that there is always going to be a midweek crunch, like you cannot if you have, like, you know, kids and a job, you cannot completely keep off all you know crunchness and chaosness. It's and it's gonna happen whether you prep on Sunday or not, Like because you can set out the kids' outfits for the week and then the weather changes, like the rainstorm that was coming Thursday actually came Wednesday. Maybe find out it's like special costume day on Thursday, like it's Spirit Day. At school, like, oh, oh, yes, I have to wear school colors now, oh whoops, I didn't put those out on Sunday. Now I'm just redoing my work here. Or you know, their play rehearsal is rescheduled and so now they need to wear all black on Friday instead of Wednesday. Or you know that like Scouts is canceled, so they don't need to wear their outfit that day. Like all these things happen, and then you've just doubled up on work, Whereas you know, if you're closer to the event in question, like you can actually you know, plan for it, you know. I would also say that people who spend all day Sunday prepping meals like still spend time during the week cooking because they spend time defrosting and heating stuff and then they do a side dish to go with that main you know, lasagna that they cooked on Sunday for Wednesday and Thursday. So like, you're better off excepting that there's always going to be some chaos and making your life flexible enough to deal with it. I also think when you spend your whole Sunday prepping that that says it's your job and I don't. If you have a partner, it is not all your job. It is both of your jobs to deal with life. And by you taking all of Sunday to do it, well, you know that's that's saying like this, this is all moms work, and I don't think that's the case. I think in general, people are better off paring down and simplifying. So in the moment work doesn't take much work. So if you are cooking on Sunday, that's great, but cook for Sunday night dinner and then make twice what you were going to make, and so you have leftovers that you can put in your lunches all week. Great. You know, kids can buy school a lunch, and if you don't want to do that and they're old enough to go to school, then they can make their own lunches. Get lots of stuff that is easily put together, modular. As we said, you know that it's you know, you have the cheese stick and you have the yogurt too, or you have the cut up fruit that you bought the pre cut fruit, and it's all in these little you know, they could put it in the little packet just so it's very easy to do you know, dinners can be simple, like rather than cook all day Sunday, just think, how can we do simpler foods? Rotisserie chicken and a bag salad that is dinner. An omelet and fruit is dinner. Pasta with a jar of sauce and cut up veggies can be dinner. And you know, even more interesting stuff can be dinner pretty quick. Like you can buy boil in the bag rice that takes what five to ten minutes to cook, cut up chicken from the deli, pre cooked chicken, and then various jarred ethnic cuisine sauces. Like you there's lots of Indian sauces. There's like I don't know, you know, Thaie sauces, Like there's all these different ones, and you just mix it with the rice and the chicken and the sauce and like, hey, out of veggie and you've you've got dinner. As for outfits, like, I just don't see how laying out outfits for the whole week saves time. I mean, get the kids simpler clothes. I don't know, it just doesn't take that kind of I mean we keep our cara ofgean there, but yeah, they just whatever they grab out of there. I don't know, honestly even care if it mass shirt, a pair of jeans or pants and you know, underwear and diaper and socks. Like you're good, Like, let's let's don't that doesn't take underwear and diaper. But yes, I'm just kidding. I think I think the only thing I have to say about this is I think I personally think it's fun sometimes and maybe okay, you know how some men will like want to do yard work and they're like, oh, this is so useful for the family I'm helping, and then they like really just want to disappear for five hours and like be in the nature and do yard work. I think some women do the same thing with meal prep. They're like, I have to do this for our family, and then they're like, oh, thank god, I get to put on my headphones and listen to podcasts for five hours while I like chop things in a meditative way. So I think some portion of this may be fueled from like the desire to like be doing something that feels productive it's not childcare responsibilities. And the only way that women will let themselves do this is to do this which they feel like is for their family. So because they're basically you're saying, they're they're they're not going to ask their partner to take the kids for Yeah, like the patriarchy won't let them, you know, just go to the gym for an hour or like a yoga class, but the patriarchy will let them listen to podcasts for four hours while artfully arranging the week's food. To see what I'm saying, Like, so if you're pressure comes comes from that, if you have a partner, you could totally ask that person to take the kids for other things, Like you don't have to like make lunches for the week and food for the week for that to be on the table. You can do it because you want to do whatever, Like you want to sit in your room and read a book. So feel free to to switch off with each other and do things that are not to productive household activities during that I mean, and if you you know, I will say sometimes I do enjoy on Sunday night cooking dinner for everyone while I am listening to a podcast and ignoring everyone and have fun in the kitchen. And you know, maybe I will make a double batch so that we can eat it the next day. But that's that's different from feeling like I'm responsible for, you know, making a million different things to prep for the week. And I will admit that I am doing it because I fully enjoy it. Excellent, It's good to enjoy it, all right. Well, this brings us to our Love of the Week segment. So Sarah, Sarah's cheating here, I am cheating. Hey, I'm wearing them right now. I am like really obsessed with these socks. I don't know why. So she's wearing Bombas. By the way, I'm wearing Bombas, which is one of our sponsors. And you know, the nice thing is when you have sponsors, a lot of times you get to try things out and sample them to make sure that you would be happy sponsoring them. And Laura and I both got to try some socks and these are like my favorite song. They're the performance socks. And there they have sizes like small, meatium large, and I have a small. My feet are about a size six, and they just have this lovely like foot hugging. They have this like hexagonal pattern and it feels like it hugs the arch of my foot and I love them and I think they look super cute. So that's my love of the week. That's awesome. Well, I'm enjoying my athletic Polar Tech pants. I wound up buying several of these a few years ago, and now I can fit into them again now that I'm not pregnant. But even though they're stretchy, it like just wasn't working with the end of the pregnancy all this time around. But it's cold here and I like to run, and so I want my legs to be warm, and so they're great. They're nice and fuzzy, and they keep my legs warmer than I feel a lot of the running tights, which are sort of spandexy. I mean, I'm sure they're supposed to be like windproof or whatever, but it just doesn't feel as nice and cozy to get into them, whereas it feels nice and cozy to get into these polar Tech pants. And I bought enough of them that, like, sometimes I wear them for running and sometimes I wear them as pajamas, so they work for either option, both cozy both times around. Incredible com Yeah, well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking various childcare rules and philosophies, things to keep in mind as you are looking for a situation. A couple ideas of being honest about how many hours you need, not being cheap, being you know, willing to think outside just from the time you leave the house for your commute and the time you get home that sometimes even just a few hours can make a big difference in your life, and to reevaluate the situation often because life changes and you might need something else that you didn't before, or you might need you know, different times, so keep that in mind. Well, this has been best to both worlds. We'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life life work together.