Trying to balance work and kids

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-30-2004
Trying to balance work and kids
11
Fri, 01-06-2006 - 6:54am

This balancing act just keeps getting worse! I have a great job where I work three days a week (12 hour days) and it's in the best paying hospital in the state. My problem is that it's really hard to balance my work schedule with the kids.

My ex is giving me problems about taking them on the days I work because that means he has to take them to school three mornings a week and pick up our daughter three evenings a week. It doesn't matter that I take them extra during my time off or Fridays on his weekends. I still am getting $hit for it. Heck next weekend I have to work which means I have the week before and the week after with extra days off during the week and he won't have to have them. You think he'd think of that? Nooooooooo.

I just don't know what to do. I even looked into leaving my "dream job" and going into something like home health nursing which is primarily an 8-4:30 job. It's a $5 an hour cut in pay and I'd be working MORE hours (I work 36 hours at my job now) and the benefits aren't as good either.

I've been requesting certain days off in order to keep the schedule consistent, but my boss is putting her foot down about it calling it "self scheduling" so a lot of us aren't going to be able to do that any more. Heck I even asked to work every other weekend for awhile on the weekends he has the kids in order to free up the week more, but they haven't gotten back to me.

I don't know, maybe we just need to go back to court and hear it from an impartial judge. It's very tempting to take him back and hash it out, but then I'm afraid they'll tell me to find a different job. Funny how when we don't work we're told to work and when we do work we're told NOT to work. LOL

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-30-2004
Sun, 01-15-2006 - 2:10pm

Exactly! I work till 7:30 at night so I need someone to be there for the kids. My ex WANTED joint custody and the agreement was that he wouldn't pay child support if he was going to take an active roll in EQUALLY caring for OUR kids. Now if I have to hire a sitter for the evenings then yes indeed he should help pay, but right now he's refusing. He basically has a lot of complaints and no solutions other then I should change jobs! He works construction and you don't see telling him to go work at Home Depot when things are slow, but it's ok for him to dictate to me how to manage my career.

When the divorce was taking place he was 100% sure he wanted joint custody, no question about it. Now that he actually has to do something and is separated from his girlfriend for a night here or a night there he hits the roof and blames my work schedule.

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