Recently my husband Daniel changed up his work schedule after a job change. He was working at a non-profit training farm where we lived in 2015-2016. Now he’s working with at-risk youth at another local non-profit (and loving it). His schedule is unusual, but as a homeschooling family, we thought it would really work for us and…drum roll…it is awesome.
In case you don’t know much about how our family/work life is set up, Daniel works full-time and I work from home as a writer/podcaster. Sometimes I’m working almost full-time, other times I might only be working 5 hours a week. It varies depending on what our family needs at the time and what projects I have going.
Being self-employed, I have the freedom to be flexible. Balancing my work with homeschooling three kids can be challenging, but homeschooling is very important to us as a family and we structure our work life to make it happen.
(Caveat: I love reading about how different families structure their work and family life, especially if they have somewhat unconventional jobs and are juggling educating their kids, etc. And I get a lot of questions about this so I wanted to share. I am not, of course, advocating that this is the only way to do things or that every family should set up life this way! I’m sure you know that, but since these decisions often feel so personal, I didn’t want anyone to feel like I was being prescriptive.)
The Way We Were Doing It
With Daniel working a more traditional 9-5 for a few years, the homeschooling has primarily been my sphere. That left weekends the only good chunks of time to accomplish my work without hiring a babysitter during the day (which I’m not crazy about because that’s really homeschooling time AND if I’m paying someone to watch the kids then the work I do isn’t as lucrative) or resorting to too much Netflix (again, no thanks). But with weekends the only time I can accomplish my work projects, our family time suffered.
The New Schedule
Enter the new and improved schedule! Daniel is now working a double shift on one weekend day and an afternoon-evening shift three times a week. That means that although he’s working 40 hours, he’s home every week day until 3pm and he has three full days off a week.
We’ve only enjoyed a week or two of the new schedule so far (for the past couple of months he’s also been working at his old job to finish out projects for them and in addition to his new job it’s been CRAZY work hours–not sorry to say goodbye to him working two full-time jobs at once!) and already I am IN LOVE.
Here’s the benefits to having him around more during the day as a homeschooling/work at home family:
–Enjoying breakfast together. Emphasis on ENJOYING. Since we don’t have any school drop off lines to get to early, it’s lovely to actually savor a meal together without Daniel having to rush out the door. We can really cook a good breakfast, not just rely on cereal, chat over coffee in the kitchen while the kids start on their school work and have plenty of time to do the daily Mass readings together at the table.
–The option to attend daily Mass together. Our local parish has Mass at 8am, right when Daniel was leaving for work before. Now we can all go together since attending solo with three kids while battling pregnancy nausea is NOT MY FAVORITE.
–Co-teaching homeschooling. With different interests and areas of expertise, our children’s curriculum has just expanded. Daniel will be teaching them about seed germination and plant structure with hands on backyard gardening time each week, for instance. My black thumb would not be capable of this.
–Real family days, uninterrupted by work. Now that I can leave the house while Daniel runs the homeschool day to get work done at a local coffee shop or work at home while he takes the kids on field trips, that means not working at all on weekends is an achievable goal.
–Real work days, guilt-free, and productive. Having some real work hours scheduled into the week while the kids are with Dad feels like a whole new world! And since I always do my best work during the morning hours (especially if I’m trying to write, if I wait til late afternoon or after the kids go to bed my brain is scrambled eggs) it really fits better. After mornings when I’m away, I just start the homeschooling subjects that I love to teach after Daniel goes to work but before we head out the door for extracurricular activities.
If you’re curious, here’s a very general schedule for our typical week day:
- Breakfast as a family, Morning Offering, Mass Readings OR Daily Mass followed by Breakfast
- Daniel begins the homeschooling day with Math, Latin, and Handwriting OR he does a field trip or a backyard gardening day. (I get some work done at home or a local coffee pub.)
- Big Family Lunch, especially if Daniel won’t be home for dinner.
- Daniel gets ready for a work shift if it’s a work day for him, we do a quick clean up–check on laundry and dishes.
- I jump in with the homeschooling subjects I love (music enrichment, art history, read alouds) followed by a more intense clean of one room of the house.
- One parent takes the kids to afternoon extracurriculars.
- Kids watch a movie while one or both of us prep dinner (simple dinner if I’m in charge, fancy dinner if Daniel’s in charge).
- Bedtime!
(Looks like Mom was in charge of dinner.)
I feel like our lives have margins again and my stress level has plummeted. I have more mental space to get library books back on time (AKA, find the library books that are under the couch) and more energy to give an enthusiastic “yes!” when my kids ask for a tea party or help with schoolwork.
You know when you’re absolutely maxed out and the simplest request like, “can you help me find the scissors? I think I left them outside,” from your child makes you think, “I DO NOT HAVE THE MENTAL SPACE FOR THIS!”? I hate that feeling and it has taken over too much of my life as a parent. I notice that we are both more patient and happily engaged parents with this new schedule that allows both of us more time with our kids and more time as a family.
So there it is, friends. While this schedule wouldn’t really make much sense for a family with kids attending a brick and mortar school, it’s allowing us so much more time together as a homeschooling family. I feel like a whole new woman and I can tell that this re-structure is bringing more peace and harmony into our home.
1st image of flowers sourced here.
I love your new schedule!! This seems so dreamy (and I know your life isn’t, but still!! goals!!). How are you feeling these days with your pregnancy?
Still struggling through afternoons and evenings but I can drive most of the time (yay!) and smell food smells again (yay!) and shower and feel like a functioning human being ALL MORNING LONG! It gets a little bit better every week as long as I don’t overdo it. Thanks for asking, Sanasi!
I am so happy for you! I felt similarly when I had been commuting for 3 hours a day and then was able to transfer to a job 10 minutes from home. I had a whole new life! <3
I can only imagine! 3 hours a day!!!!
Oh my gosh, I can totally relate to this. A year and a half ago, my husband was working as a hospital pharmacist manager, a typical day job. Since he was a manager he often had to stay late. I felt like I hardly saw him and it was so hard.
Then, suddenly, his hospital announced it was shutting down and all the employees had two weeks of work left. We had decided when he started as a pharmacist that he could not work retail pharmacy like Walgreens because in our state pharmacists are required to prescribe birth control pills AND he has to dispense morally illicit drugs like plan B. SO, we knew his job options were more limited. We were upset about this sudden change, but we trusted that God would provide for us.
Fast forward a month, and he found a night shift job at an AWESOME hospital with a great reputation (no chance of it shutting down). He has a 7-on, 7-off schedule, which means he works 7 nights in a row and then has the following 7 days in a row off. And the cycle continues forever. During his work week he sleeps from 9:30am until 5pm. He leaves for work around 8:15pm and gets home the next morning around 7:45am. So every day we have breakfast and dinner together, even when he’s working. And he puts the kids to bed every night. Plus, it’s flexible, so if there’s a certain event he wants to be at, he can always go to bed at a different time and sleep later/wake up earlier. He does all the homeschooling on his weeks off and I do most of it when he works.
I can’t even describe what a blessing this has been for our family. When you said that your stress level has plummeted, I feel exactly the same way. Because really, moms are not MEANT to have to do EVERYTHING all day, every day. For our family, a stressful and difficult situation of losing his job turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to us. He’s had this job a year and a half now and we never want to change it.
What a wild ride for you guys! So glad it turned out amazing.
Wow. This is AMAZINGGGGGGGGGG. And I can totally relate, because we are a clergy family with a verrrry unconventional schedule. For my husband, weekends are crazy town (special services/engagements on Saturday and liturgy/church obligations allll day Sunday) and weekdays are much more flexible.
This is new for us: he just graduated from seminary a few months ago and this schedule began with the new year. I chose to work from home because I had a hunch the flexibility would be a better fit, and boy was I right! My work allows me to be fully present and available on busy/draining weekends. (Can you imagine if I were working in an office 9-5 and weekends were my only time “off”?!). And when my husband has time off in weird weekdays, I can be present then too! It’s a godsend!
No children yet (fingers crossed), but I have been pondering homeschooling for that very reason. If we went the school route, our kids would never see their dad (and I would lose my mind). It’s also really important for us to be able to experience feast days as a family, and our church has a lot of those!
Thanks for being brave enough to recognize what’s best for your family–and thanks for being brave enough to share it!
Love,
Elyse
I can totally see how that schedule has it’s challenges, but positives, too! And yes, sometimes you have to get creative with schedules and schooling to figure out the right thing for everyone to thrive. <3
Elyse, we had a similar story, with my husband as a church leader working very unpredictable hours. Home ed (as we preferred to call it, since we didn’t do “school” at home!) was our best fit, as we all got to see each other, and we could have what we called “daddy’s afternoon”, when I knew I could choose to do something on my own. If our children had been in school, they would essentially have grown up with haphazard sightings of a rare bird called their dad, and I would have been stressed out!!
PS our girls are now grown up, had home ed for most of their growing-up years, mixed with flexi-schooling at a Christian school as teenagers, then full-time at a large college in Cambridge (UK) for the last two years of official education (ages 16-18). They still say they loved the way they grew up 🙂
Oooooh, I LOVE the term “home ed”! I grew up in the homeschooling community and just thought the term “homeschool” was a linguistic catastrophe. Thank you for sharing your encouraging story! 🙂
Oh my goodness, that is the cutest photo of your kids!! 🙂
Aw, thanks!
Hooray!!! And congratulations. I know at least one family of a co-worker that benefits from shift work as well. Dad works straight graves so that Mom can work days and someone is home for the kids always. Amazing.
Thanks, Anna!
I love this schedule! We just started homeschooling and I am expecting my fifth in July. My husband and I are both profs, so we have really random schedules that change every semester. I really like the idea of a large midday meal. Also, so many women help their families out by freelancing or other at home work and never really admit that this is work. Thanks for doing so — it’s a real encouragement.
I’m so glad, Jess! Academia is such a challenging career but the flexibility can be great for family life.
I enjoy these little glimpses into how people make it work. It’s wondeful that you guys are adapting and making the changes that are best for your family. Way to go!
Thanks, Ann-Marie!
I love schedule blog posts because I love to take a (slightly voyeuristic) sneak peek into other people’s lives and find out how they make it work. I’m currently on maternity leave but normally work part-time as a mental health therapist, and my husband works 7:30-4:30 weekdays. I try to blog while the kiddos are sleeping…which hasn’t been easy since my youngest arrived 3 weeks ago! Sending you prayers and good vibes for an easier pregnancy this time! <3 <3
Thanks so much for the prayers, Margaret! I’m having a good day today after a pretty miserable week and it gives me hope!
So glad to hear this new schedule is working better for your family life and that you are feeling less sick in your pregnancy! I love learning how different families create and prioritize family time in our often not-family-friendly culture. It’s inspiration for those of us in the pre-children stage. Thanks for sharing!