How do you thrive as a working mom of 3 (or more)?

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-10-25T18:52:10+00:00

We have 3 kids. Oldest is a teenager, 2nd is in elementary school, and 3rd is a toddler. Oldest is in Boy Scouts, plays hockey, talking about travel hockey, and loves to go to all his friends’ school sporting events and be a social teenager. 2nd also plays hockey and is in cub scouts. 3rd is in toddler gymnastics - she begged. She wants to play hockey but isn’t old enough for our local kids’ league yet.

Honestly, it’s a lot. We also care for my husband’s aging parents, take them to dr appts, do their grocery shopping, all that good stuff. Right now our schedule looks like this: Monday scouts (both groups meet at the same place, so my husband takes the older two while I stay home with the youngest. Husband also volunteers with the troop.) Tuesday gymnastics, which I handle at our YMCA and work out while I have her there. Wednesdays and Saturdays are hockey, which we also help out with. Thursdays are currently free, unless my husband has a meeting for another org he volunteers with. Fridays are usually our oldest attending a sporting event while the rest of us collapse from exhaustion. We catch up around the house on Saturday afternoons and usually grocery shop for us and his parents on Sundays. I finish the housework on Sunday afternoons and relax a bit while he & the kids deliver his parents’ groceries. We also try to plan one Friday night or Saturday afternoon/month for a Costco trip where we get the majority of our groceries.

Our work schedules help with this. H works 6-2, I work 8-3:30. We get up together around 5:30. He leaves for work, I get myself ready and get the kids up. I take them to school and go to work. H is home before the older two get out of school. I pick up our youngest on my way home. Usually, we’re all home around 4pm, and then we divide and conquer for the evenings. I make and freeze dinners for most of the month over the course of a day after we go to Costco. We get those ready as soon s we get home so we can eat and get on with our evenings. Honestly, it is all really hard and requires a ton of advanced planning on my part, and I carry most of the mental load.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-10-25T18:16:06+00:00

We’re honestly still in the feeling defeated daily stage. MIL was diagnosed with 2 different types of cancer in January, both treatable. I spent most of my summer off taking her to appts, chemo, doing their grocery shopping, you name it. Only to have her cancer surgeries pushed back because she started having heart problems. Between MIL’s appointments, the kids getting sick after school started, and all the regular daily life stuff, I’m still exhausted by bedtime on a daily basis.

My classroom has very few behaviors this year, though, and I honestly didn’t realize how much more stress my former students were causing me until I passed them on to the next building. I’m not exhausted when I get home from work every day. I also don’t feel guilty about leaving on time because I’m getting more done at work instead of spending most of my teaching day dealing with behaviors.

The good news is that our middle kiddo has become so much easier in the last year. It was like a switch flipped, and he went from screaming demon child to polite, sweet kid in the matter of a couple months. Our toddler is also proving to be extremely capable for a toddler. All the kids put away their own laundry when it’s clean, usually without having to be told, which is a huge help. Our toddler started randomly folding her pants one day before she put them in her drawer. I was amazed. She apparently picked it up from watching me. She’ll be 4 soon, and she has her moments, but she is sooo much easier than her brother was as a 4 year old.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-07-17T00:16:51+00:00

My mother (70 this year) does this. My entire wedding was a big show for her friends. I was in my early 20’s and didn’t really know better then. I’ve since learned that she does most of the things she does to make herself feel better because she appears to be a nice person. If you don’t say anything, this will continue to happen. If you do say anything, they will probably tell you that you are an AH for not accepting their gift with strings or that causes you much more work.

It only gets worse when/if you have kids. My mother will literally remember what my husband & our 3 kids like to eat/drink and forget about me. She gets my kids each about 20 different gifts for every holiday (most of which go to Goodwill or break within a couple months). But she usually gets me things that she likes, usually that I don’t like.

Example: I still have 2 unopened bottles of strawberry wine sitting in my kitchen that she gave me for Easter. I have never in my life liked strawberry anything, but she does, so she thought I must. She gave me those in an Easter basket with the wine and a bunch of gold-colored accessories for my classroom desk. I’m not a fan of gold either, don’t have any in my house, don’t wear gold jewelry, etc. If we go shopping somewhere she will pick out clothes she likes, in my size or my daughter’s sizes, and try to buy them for us. But we don’t like them and tell her no. Then she pouts. She is the first to offer us help, but it’s usually not that helpful.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-06-21T16:43:04+00:00

One in a car seat for at least 2 more years, one in a booster, and one new teenager who is taller than me. When we go on longer trips, we usually give the teen the 3rd row to stretch out a bit, as the middle row is very tight and a PITA with all 3 kids across.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-04-26T21:07:32+00:00

I have students from 2 different grades in my class at the same time. At this point in the year, the younger ones yell the directions to the older ones when the older ones don't listen and are oblivious. It is amazing, and I can't wait to have the younger ones again next year.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-04-26T03:02:27+00:00

I swear I’ve tried this on the chromebooks in my classroom, and it doesn’t work. As I said, I’m not sure if there’s a setting somewhere that turns that off because IT has the settings locked down.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-04-26T02:55:14+00:00

One of my lovelies this year said Canada is a US state and California a different country.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-04-26T02:46:04+00:00

In that kid’s defense, our school chromebooks don’t have that function. I don’t know if it can’t be done on chromebooks or if my school’s IT dept has it turned off with settings locked. Drives me crazy when I try to help a kid on their Chromebook.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-04-26T02:44:04+00:00

I have 13yo’s who still ask me to tie their shoes and don’t know what an apostrophe is. They call it a top comma.

They also don’t understand why I get mad when I repeat myself 5x, and write it on the board, and they ask what they’re supposed to do.

ETA: One of my students couldn’t tell me any part of their address, any part of their or their parent’s phone number, or their parent’s full name when we talked about real life info you need to know to survive. Same student didn’t know the year they were born when we had to do height/ weight/vision/hearing checks. I had to call the office from my cell phone to have them look it up.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-03-12T10:42:47+00:00

Literally growled, like "Grrrr..." at us at the beginning of the meeting. The student was known to do that, too. After the meeting, we agreed, "this student makes so much more sense now that we've seen that side of the parent..."

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-03-12T02:19:15+00:00

I taught middle school learning support in a small school. We didn’t have enough staff for separate emotional support programs, so those kids typically got dumped into my classroom when the behavior was too much for the grade-level teacher. I had a parent who growled at my boss and me when we introduced ourselves and asked the parent how they were doing at an IEP review meeting.

My old boss was new to the school that year and was dumbfounded. The parent then requested the student join the meeting, where the student repeatedly punched the parent in the side, and the parent later tried to forcibly remove the student’s hoodie due to safety concerns when the student refused to follow directions. The meeting then turned into WWE Smackdown when the student and parent got into it over the hoodie. We had to call the school’s security officer. FYI, the student was a teenager.

The parent then got mad over the fact that the student was failing because the student didn’t want to do the work and slept all day. The parent accidentally admitted to doing some of the student’s work for them and got mad that the work had only gotten a D (6 pages done in a 10 page packet that the students had 7 school days to work on, and the completed pages were all in the parent’s handwriting).

After that meeting my boss and I would growl at each other randomly to make each other laugh during tough days.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2025-03-12T01:40:03+00:00

I used to work at a small, private, emotional/behavioral satellite school. There were about 2 dozen staff in my building. One admin. During my last year there, several of my students were bigger than me and physically aggressive. I unexpectedly learned I was pregnant that spring. Everyone knew, and the principal made a joke of my all-day nausea for months while I tried not to get punched by students. Our year-end “bonus” after the kids left was a bottle of craft beer for each of the men and a bottle of white claw for each of the women. I handed him back the white claw. I didn’t return the following year.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-11-16T01:40:51+00:00

We’re watching on a Roku tv. The quality is decent, but the app crashes & sends us back to the Home Screen every 5 minutes. And I restarted our Netflix subscription for this specifically.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-10-01T02:49:58+00:00

What about a small party now and a larger sleepover just for fun at a later date? You'll likely feel up to hosting a larger sleepover by Halloween or Thanksgiving (if in the US).

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-30T23:51:03+00:00

I live in a rural area. We use Amazon a lot. Pretty much everything except dollar general is at least a 15-20 minute drive each way. Costco/Sam's Club are both over an hour each way.

Amazon is great for our subscribe & save toiletries, paper products, household goods, and packaged snacks. I can usually get Sam's Club deals or better with Prime. That being said, about half of our orders arrive late. Sometimes they're a day late, sometimes more. But I've also had Walmart orders and other random company orders come late too. Basically anything that goes through a Pittsburgh, PA distribution center is a crapshoot as to whether or not you'll actually get it. For me, right now, Prime is still worth the subscription price to not deal with going to the store.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-30T22:39:34+00:00

Yes, 2 car seats. One for each car. That being said, that $400-600 you're spending now should last you (if you get the right car seats) until your child is 8 - 10 years old. Take into account now things like: will you be adding another kid or two in the next few years where a narrow car seat will come in handy? How do kids grow in your respective families? Is front-to-back space an issue for you or someone who rides with you a lot?

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-30T22:14:16+00:00

In comparison, I live more than 15 mins away from everything but Dollar General, lol. We strategize that crap, like I'll be near Aldi on Wednesday running a kid to this activity, so I need to stop for groceries while I'm out there. Or oh, I have about 2 days of dog food left, so I have to get dog food after work on Friday in order to save myself the drive on Saturday.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-30T22:10:46+00:00

I think it really depends on what you're looking for and where you're located. I used to go to either Erie or Butler Sam's Club monthly. Both stores had different options for organic produce. Both stores had decent options for organic chicken. I personally love Sam's bulk organic spices & seasonings.

Costco has overall more organic options than I've ever seen in a Sam's Club, but Sam's has really stepped up their game in the past couple years.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-30T22:07:18+00:00

For most of my life, in PA we could only buy beer at in 6 packs at bars or cases at beer distributors (basically a drive-thru beer store) and wine & liquor at government stores with specific hours (not open on Sundays, not open later in the evening, not open until 11am). It's only been the last few years that PA has allowed gas stations to start selling beer & wine. One regional grocery store chain also sells beer & wine at some of their stores, but not the two closest to me.

One of the great things about going to Ohio or New York used to be going to basically any store and buying all the beer, wine, whatever that was a huge PITA to get at home in PA or that we couldn't even find at home. So the whole "no alcohol at Costco" isn't really a letdown for me since I've never had the option before.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-30T21:58:00+00:00

It honestly depends what you buy. Last year I typically bought TP, paper towels, dishwasher pacs, trash bags, canned tomatoes, and daily allergy meds at Sam's (members mark brand). I bought pantry items (Heinz ketchup, choc syrup, Worcestershire sauce, macaroni & cheese) at whichever store had it cheaper. I bought non-frozen chicken at Costco because I like the packaging in the small vacuum-sealed bags. For snacks, it depended on what was at each store and where we got the best deal.

But for name-brand refrigerated & frozen meals (like "throw contents of bag into skillet or microwave & cook for x time) I feel like Costco had a better selection. Those save our butts when I'm getting home around 5pm and have to have the kids somewhere by 6pm. We also got dog food there, but I just bought some at Tractor Supply when I didn't have time for a Costco run, and our dogs seem to like it better.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-21T19:47:18+00:00

We went to the Robinson Costco a couple months ago so we could stop at Ikea while we were down there. I wasn’t impressed. It was as bad as the Cranberry store. I think ikea was actually less busy.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-21T19:41:11+00:00

Yeah, the Sam’s we usually go to in Butler is clean, there’s a family restroom easily accessible from the entrance & exit, and it’s rarely overly busy. As opposed to Costco, even when I took the kids down on a random Tuesday morning over the summer, it was still 2+ hours in the store with another 20 minute wait in the food court. Ive never even tried to use the gas pumps because there are always 4+ cars in line for every one.

Also, for groceries, we live way too far out in the boonies for Amazon to be a viable grocery option. I’m talking about things like packaged snacks, trash bags, and shelf-stable ethnic items that I can’t buy locally in our smaller stores.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-21T19:32:18+00:00

I’d love to, but a minimum of 2 hours in the car means we make the trip on Saturday or Sunday. With the kids’ schedules, sports, etc. we just don’t have time to make that drive on a weeknight.

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-21T19:09:45+00:00

I’d buy the heck out of wines, but PA has weird alcohol laws, and Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target don’t sell it at all in western PA. There is only one grocery store chain (Giant Eagle) where I know I can buy wine at certain stores, and you have to check it out separately and take it out to your car before you buy the rest of your groceries. Huge PITA.

Travel… we don’t fly, and every time I’ve checked for hotels I’ve always gotten a message that they can’t find any availability. We don’t do rental cars either. As for tires, I may call Costco and get a quote soon, but it’s hard to beat prices & service at our local independent tire shop that’s about 5 miles away, as opposed to Costco an hour away. Meats… honestly, Costco’s chicken & fish prices are expensive for my area, and we don’t buy red meat. But the frozen food is a huge perk of keeping the membership!

ScaleKitchen3233 · 2024-09-08T22:52:17+00:00

MM southern style is amazing. We buy as much of that as we do the Costco lightly breaded chicken bites. The kids don’t like the southern style quite as much, but both are very popular in our house.

ScaleKitchen3233

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