@BKCaribBaby requested a blog post about two spouses in demanding careers.  The topic resonated with me as we have recently transitioned from having one work outside the home parent to two.

I have to say, the transition was smoother than I anticipated in many ways and we are now fully functioning as a two outside the home career household.  Not too long ago, I blogged about our family’s typical schedule while Mr. Jacks was still a SAHD.  My schedule hasn’t changed so much, but Mr. Jacks now has a 30 minute commute and a 40+ hour a week job as a software engineer in a service oriented software company.  When he has a “go-live” deadline, he may be pulling all-nighters to get the work done.  His schedule is still a bit more predictable than mine, but we both tend to experience unanticipated long days or issues that come up on off-work hours.

So how do we provide the stability and consistency that our girls need to thrive in a life filled with 60 and 80 hour work weeks, overnight shifts, and weekend work?

First and foremost, we needed to find really good help! It really does take a village, and since we live away from our families, our village is hired. Daycare wasn’t going to be an option for us because our work hours are too unpredictable to allow for a 7am – 6pm drop off and pick up consistently.  We needed a nanny… and not a serviceable nanny.  We needed a nanny who could basically seamlessly run our household when we aren’t home.  I will talk in a separate blog post about finding and bringing out the best in a great nanny.  Third time must be a charm, because it took 2 tries before we found our wonder-nanny.  I knew we found the right person when one day she said to me, “I try to think of myself as an extension of the two of you while you are away.”  Yes, that’s exactly it!  Her ability to do just that has set us up for success.

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Second, we reverse engineered our schedules.  I recommend a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen.  There are so many good things in the book about becoming more efficient, but one thing I learned was to work backwards from deadlines to figure out when to anticipate downtime or especially intense work times.  We schedule things like vacations at least a year ahead of time to make sure that we actually take them, and they are always scheduled during times when I know I won’t have a grant deadline or on-service time.  We now plan our schedules together, so that one of us is always available in the event of emergencies or unanticipated scheduling issues.

Third, if one of our schedules is light (for whatever reason), we take advantage of it.  When I’m not on service and don’t have a grant or writing deadline, I try to maximize my time at home.  During those times, I try to go to work at 9 and get home before 4 pm to spend time with the kids.  When Mr. Jacks has such times, he’ll only go into the office during core hours and will spend the rest of the time working from home.  The result is that one of us can be the early person most of the time.  Yes, there are times where we are both gone for extended days, but we try to keep it to one or the other of us and not both!

Finally, we have alternative ways to connect with our kids.  On long days, I’ll try and spend a few minutes on the phone with Little Jacks.  I also go out of my way to make sure that I make it to every single school event… even if it means swapping shifts or otherwise rearranging my schedule.  Recently, I cut out of work at 11 to go see a toddler Halloween parade at LJ’s school.  It was a 20-minute affair, but a priceless memory!  When I’m on business trips, I’ll make a chart for where I am and how many days I’ll be gone.  That way the kids have a visual of when mama is coming back.  We also make sure that we Skype or Facetime each night, even when there is a time difference.

I think it’s nearly impossible to strike the ever-elusive “work –life balance”, but I do think that with some careful planning and forethought that we can make it less of a myth and more of a functional proposition.