Episode 03: Rachel
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In this episode, I interview Rachel, one of my school mums who is working, studying and raising 3 kids. Features scheduling failures and a dog!
The Lowdown
– Family of 5
– 2 Working Parents
– 1 part-time/casual work (relief teaching) and studying
– 1 part-time work
– 11 year old
– 8 year old (special needs)
– 7 year old
4:38 Sleep
5:08 Who are the people in your family? Who does what when?
7:06 Parenting super powers
7:29 Doing lots of things at a time
9:01 2 different schools
9:25 Calming influence
10:02 Picking up each others slack
10:51 Relief teaching with school pick up and drop offs
11:05 OSHC (Out of school hours care)
11:47 Have you been able to choose your own path?
12:40 Feeling restricted in how much you can do
13:18 Both partners feeling restricted?
13:51 The extra load of a special needs family
14:28 2 part time workers
15:06 Pressure of being solely responsible
16:20 Men and retrenchment
16:58 American example of larger numbers of men losing manufacturing jobs and taking on child care
19:30 What works well?
19:54 Children taking on more responsibility
21:30 Downsides?
22:00 Individual time with each child
22:10 What else have you tried
22:58 Casual employment and childcare
23:47 Has it got easier (please say yes!)
24:24 As it gets easier you take more on – like study
24:48 What is the next step?
25:08 Fitting university placements around work
25:30 Won’t somebody think of the….dog?
26:03 Impact of university placements on husbands work load
26:54 Supportive work environments?
27:04 Relief teaching = many different work environments, no single person to negotiate with
28:58 Funny or disastrous moments?
28:40 University Placement + Relief teaching fail
30:12 Is this what you thought family would look like? – NO!
31:24 Not having a job when you start a family
33:12 Flip side – having a job that you have to go back to
35:02 Any advice?
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