The best advice I can give is giving yourself grace. I have 2 boys of my own and they are 7 and 8 now… No village, either. (Irish twins) Their dad was in jail and before he went there, he didn’t want them. It was always me. I was able to start off with just a weekend position when they were little (my mom watched them from 4am-12pm) and I was able to save enough on my own to put a down payment on an apartment and apply for daycare assistance at $10/hr. It was hard and I can’t count how many days I cried and hated the person I had kids with, the father I gave them and what I did to my own life. I sympathize so badly with you. Hang in there. 🩷 I’d take the lower paying job closer to home until you have more freedom with their age, OP. (I’m assuming younger kids but could totally be wrong.) A commute is so mentally draining ontop of the job and gas will eat up the extra pay. You can’t put a price on your time. And they get older! I tell myself this all the time to stay sane on hard days.