Work in between
“Five years ago I decided to leave employment and take a leap of faith. I wanted to start my own! Since then I have been working full time, sometimes up to 50 hours a week, to keep my 2 companies running. I work at my office for three and a half days, the other days I am ‘free’ and therefore at home with the children. On those days I try to focus all my attention on them, but I regularly snack on some work in between. My evenings and weekends are almost always dominated by my work… There is just so much to do!
My partner also works three and a half days in our office. He has a daddy day one day a week and still has his own company that rents out travel products for children. He can let go of his work on days and evenings off much easier than I can.
Fortunately, just because we work hard doesn’t mean we don’t value our free time! We enjoy our family together immensely. But we also allow each other to do things alone, we both go on a short holiday with friends at least once or twice a year.
childminder
Our two sons (10 and 4) go to primary school. After school they stay at the BSO for a while until one of us can pick them up. We take our daughter (1) to a childminder 1 or 2 days a week. A woman from our village has made it her job to take care of a number of children from the neighborhood every day. We found the small scale and attention to be very important, something that is less obvious in childcare.
Household chores
It’s a lot of work with all that work and three children. Fortunately, we divide the household well at home, we both do the same thing. I cook less often, my partner is just better at it than I am. But we just do the laundry, shopping and cleaning together. Whoever has time for it does that task at that moment!
We also have a housekeeper, she comes once a week to help us with the big jobs, such as cleaning the bathroom. Our oldest son is doing more and more household chores on his own, for example, he unloads the dishwasher every morning. Our youngest children are still too young for tasks. But sometimes I do ask our middle one to get his own bed before I make it.
In balance
We also divide the care for the children equally. We both have a fixed day at home with the children and alternate who goes to swimming lessons or the dentist. When I was still employed, it was different. I worked 3 days and he worked 5, so taking care of the kids mostly fell on me.
Our financial situation looked very different then. My partner earned more than I did, so he contributed more to the regular expenses. Now we both contribute the same thing, which I really like. I now feel that we are in balance, we mean the same financially to the family. We pay for outings and holidays proportionally, from our joint pot.
But if one person pays something from his or her own account, we don’t bother with payment requests or compensation. The fact that we both have our own accounts dates back to the days when I earned less, but we still really enjoy having our own accounts. If I want to buy something for myself, I don’t have to be held accountable!”
You can follow Didi at @TedenFred on Instagram.
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