Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
Speaker 2: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode, we believe is airing toward late March of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. Sarah and I are recording a live
Speaker 2: episode together here in Naples, Florida, where we've gathered to
Speaker 2: talk future planning for best of both worlds and have
Speaker 2: a little fun at the same time time. So this
Speaker 2: is an episode where we're going to be answering questions
Speaker 2: that listeners sent in readers of our various blogs. So
Speaker 2: just quick reminder for people, Sarah, how can they reach us?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you can find my website at the shoebox
Speaker 3: dot com t H E. S hubox dot com. You
Speaker 3: can always leave a comment there and of course, if
Speaker 3: you're a Patreon number, then you can always reach us
Speaker 3: that way as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or leave it for me on Instagram, I'm at
Speaker 2: el vandercam, or my blog Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Lots of ways you can reach out to us. So
Speaker 1: we will go ahead and dive right in.
Speaker 2: So this first question is from somebody who has a
Speaker 2: very common dilemma as children start getting into school age.
Speaker 2: She says, I need a split shift childcare, as in
Speaker 2: somebody to cover the morning and the afternoon with like
Speaker 2: activity coverage because she and her husband both.
Speaker 1: Need to be at work before school starts.
Speaker 2: And then the kids need running around in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and so what should she do for childcare?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends how late in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, because truthfully, this could potentially just be someone's
Speaker 3: full time job, like if you need someone from let's say,
Speaker 3: I mean there is overtime that you'd be paying as well,
Speaker 3: but it isn't totally unreasonable to hire someone for fifty
Speaker 3: or fifty five hours per week, or maybe perhaps there's
Speaker 3: one day that you don't need as long. But if
Speaker 3: we're talking really like into the evening, like your kids
Speaker 3: have activities at seven or eight pm. Then yet you're
Speaker 3: not going to be able to have the same person
Speaker 3: also cover the morning. So I mean my thought is
Speaker 3: to either have two part time people or to see
Speaker 3: if there's any way you could find kind of a
Speaker 3: unicorn employee, maybe a college student or something like that
Speaker 3: that might be willing to actually especially they live very
Speaker 3: close by, to do the morning and then do their
Speaker 3: own things so they're not on your time, and then
Speaker 3: come back and then work some hours in the afternoon.
Speaker 3: I recognize that may not be easy to find for
Speaker 3: every one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is obviously why a lot of
Speaker 2: people who have school age kids wind up doing before
Speaker 2: care and after care if that's something that your school
Speaker 2: winds up offering. I mean, the challenge with that, obviously
Speaker 2: is that aftercare means not doing the activities that are
Speaker 2: not located at school, and so you know, if you
Speaker 2: need someone to drive around to that that's going to
Speaker 2: be challenging. You might still be able to do beforecare
Speaker 2: at school and then hire a part time person for
Speaker 2: doing afternoon activities. That could be an option depending on
Speaker 2: the ages of the kids. I mean when people first
Speaker 2: encounter this, because kids are like in preschool age, and like,
Speaker 2: do I still need a full time person if my
Speaker 2: kid is going to pre school from nine to noon?
Speaker 1: And generally the.
Speaker 2: Answer is yes if your hours are not particularly flexible,
Speaker 2: or you and your partner both travel, and you kind
Speaker 2: of just have to get your head around the idea
Speaker 2: that you are then paying for hours that the person
Speaker 2: is not actively caring for your kids. And I know
Speaker 2: that that is obviously not an easy mindset. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it's financially not going to work. But
Speaker 2: for people where there are options, just getting around that
Speaker 2: little mental block can go a long way. And I
Speaker 2: see this mental block all the time. I mean, people
Speaker 2: who can work from home and have young kids will
Speaker 2: sometimes go to incredible links to avoid paying for nap
Speaker 2: time coverage.
Speaker 1: Right, Like it's saying, could I have.
Speaker 2: Somebody come from eight to one and leave right and
Speaker 2: then I have the nap or so you know, it's good,
Speaker 2: like they don't want to pay for time when the
Speaker 2: person is not actively carried. But it's just you got
Speaker 2: to get your head around this idea that yes, you're
Speaker 2: gonna wind up paying for time that the person is
Speaker 2: not actively working. But if you need the coverage, I
Speaker 2: mean if both of you are on a train into
Speaker 2: the city forty five minutes away at seven point thirty
Speaker 2: and your kids have school from nine to two, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you just can't not have that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Either it's two peopleeople, or it's one person who wants
Speaker 2: the time to do something else during the day, or
Speaker 2: you wind up.
Speaker 1: Paying for all of it.
Speaker 3: OH pair should be okayer, just because obviously not everybody
Speaker 3: wants to have someone in their home, but we've had
Speaker 3: so many guests have great luck with OH pairs, and
Speaker 3: they can work this very type of flexible schedule because
Speaker 3: they are physically located where you are. So for them
Speaker 3: to dive in and work and care for the kids
Speaker 3: for a couple of hours and then be off duty
Speaker 3: while the kids are in school and then put in
Speaker 3: more hours when they get back is actually kind of
Speaker 3: like what they're there for.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that tends to be a great solution for
Speaker 2: people who are in this situation. And then you know
Speaker 2: the person is there too, right. So again, if the
Speaker 2: two of you are both commuting to a city forty
Speaker 2: five minutes away or something, and you have a need
Speaker 2: to rise during the day, then you could start the
Speaker 2: clock for an O pair again or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it's it's a solution that a lot of people
Speaker 2: do wind up choosing in that situation. It's not for everyone,
Speaker 2: but it might be slightly more affordable if you have
Speaker 2: the space.
Speaker 3: All right, should we go to our next question, Let's
Speaker 3: do it. This one comes from a listener who says,
Speaker 3: I'm drowning in chores. I have a cleaner every two weeks,
Speaker 3: but it's the daily pickup and home maintenance stuff like laundry, dishes,
Speaker 3: et cetera that I am struggling with. So how can
Speaker 3: I find this less daunting?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is the thing, you know that people
Speaker 2: need to Another realization people have is that a cleaning
Speaker 2: service makes your house cleaner if they come every two
Speaker 2: weeks or so, but it may not actually save you
Speaker 2: a ton of time. Yes, you don't have to do
Speaker 2: then the major stuff, like you know, vacuuming all the
Speaker 2: spaces that you wouldn't have done as frequently, or maybe
Speaker 2: cleaning some lesser used bathrooms or something like that, But
Speaker 2: that's not what the bulk of time spent on housework is.
Speaker 2: The bulk of time is those sort of daily choices
Speaker 2: like doing the dishes, cleaning up the kitchen. You know,
Speaker 2: those things are harder to outsource unless you have someone
Speaker 2: there very frequently, So that is an option.
Speaker 1: You know, you could hire.
Speaker 2: A part time housekeeper, even a small number of hours
Speaker 2: a week if you found somebody who was willing to
Speaker 2: do I don't know, nine hours a week, come three
Speaker 2: days for three hours. That is three days that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't have to be doing most of those things. And
Speaker 2: obviously that person could keep the house quite clean, would
Speaker 2: be doing the daily dishes and kitchen clean up on
Speaker 2: that day, and could do all the laundry, and so
Speaker 2: that would pretty minimize a lot of the other stuff
Speaker 2: you had to do. But there are other options too.
Speaker 2: If that's not going to.
Speaker 3: Happen, yeah, I mean certainly making a really concerted effort
Speaker 3: to look at what your standards actually are and maybe
Speaker 3: see if there are things you can cut out or
Speaker 3: worry about less or like maybe decide something like I
Speaker 3: will tidy the kids rooms once a week and like
Speaker 3: the rest of the time, if it looks like a
Speaker 3: volcano of clothing and toys erupted in there, like that's okay. Also,
Speaker 3: having fewer things definitely makes it easier to pick up,
Speaker 3: although I'm preaching to myself about that because that can
Speaker 3: be a losing battle with multiple kids that get things
Speaker 3: that don't necessarily want to let go of, so I
Speaker 3: understand that's not always easy either. Another thing could be
Speaker 3: if you have a partner having a discussion about chores
Speaker 3: and not in a general way, but maybe suggesting that
Speaker 3: there could be vertical ownership of a couple of things,
Speaker 3: Like if laundry is always stressing you out and you're
Speaker 3: basically doing everything else, maybe that would be something that like,
Speaker 3: if they appreciate that you're doing everything else, maybe they
Speaker 3: could just do all the laundry or all the dishes
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. Like, I think that maybe bringing
Speaker 3: up and bringing to light kind of like Evrodsky's task cards,
Speaker 3: Like we had her on as a guest and she
Speaker 3: has an interesting approach to this, but kind of bringing
Speaker 3: into light what is being done and if it's really
Speaker 3: disproportionately falling on one party, figuring out if maybe the
Speaker 3: other party can vertically own some of these things to
Speaker 3: share the load a little bit more equally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's actually a slight tie in with the previous question.
Speaker 2: In that if you are paying somebody for childcare and
Speaker 2: there are hours when they are not actively with your children,
Speaker 2: then obviously this person could take on a lot of
Speaker 2: the chores that you would have been doing. But you know,
Speaker 2: if people are in a situation where their kids are
Speaker 2: in day care, for instance, they've got the fortnightly cleaner,
Speaker 2: that's yes, you're still going to have a ton of
Speaker 2: daily chores to deal with, and so either figuring out
Speaker 2: how to reduce them as much as possible, ignore them
Speaker 2: to the degree that you can. I mean, simpler meals,
Speaker 2: one pot meals, so there's not as many dishes, kids
Speaker 2: re wearing their pajamas, you know, anything you can do.
Speaker 1: To make it be a little bit lower of a burden.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: Our next question comes from a listener who's got some
Speaker 3: younger kids, and she's asking what format for little kid activities?
Speaker 3: Is there anything you do virtual instrument lessons for example, tutoring, sports,
Speaker 3: et cetera. What do you do outside of the house,
Speaker 3: what do you do in the home? And what anything
Speaker 3: still come through a screen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we do, I mean for older kids though,
Speaker 2: we've done virtual tutoring. So that's actually a really cool
Speaker 2: breakthrough In the past few years, as you zoom and
Speaker 2: virtual conferencing, all that has become more of an option
Speaker 2: because you can then match up with a tutor who
Speaker 2: has availability and expertise in the subject.
Speaker 1: Even if they are nowhere near you.
Speaker 2: And again for older children that you may not be
Speaker 2: quite up on your calculus and need help with that
Speaker 2: or whatever. They're taking a foreign language that you don't speak,
Speaker 2: this can be great. Jasper's actually got a Spanish tutor
Speaker 2: currently who lives in South America and so obviously she
Speaker 2: speaks Spanish perfectly because she's from there and she can help.
Speaker 2: She's also a teacher, so she can help him, and
Speaker 2: that has been a really great thing that, you know,
Speaker 2: helping with conversation partnership and all that.
Speaker 1: I will say, little kids and zoom.
Speaker 2: Is really really hard. I would be very careful about that.
Speaker 2: Just from Sarah, both of our experiences with having young
Speaker 2: kids trying to learn virtually during the pandemic, it was
Speaker 2: not very effective.
Speaker 4: Learn in big quotes.
Speaker 2: I learned in big quotes more like hiding under a
Speaker 2: chair and refusing to yeah yeah, refusing to come over
Speaker 2: to zoom. But music lessons could be great to have
Speaker 2: somebody come to your house again, especially if you have
Speaker 2: a bigger instrument like a piano that you have won there,
Speaker 2: or if your child's going to play the cello or
Speaker 2: something like that. Not having to deal with portable aspects
Speaker 2: of anything is good. Although a piano studio would have
Speaker 2: a piano, But we have done that for music lessons
Speaker 2: for again kids who are probably you know, I haven't
Speaker 2: started them till the kids are more like first or
Speaker 2: second grade. But have somebody come to your house to
Speaker 2: teach music lessons has been good in that that's one
Speaker 2: less place to drive.
Speaker 3: Yes, I can see that we actually don't. We do.
Speaker 3: We have one kid in music lessons, and we do
Speaker 3: go to a studio in Parks. I was having trouble
Speaker 3: finding someone.
Speaker 4: That could come to our house.
Speaker 3: But I will say one benefit of the studio if
Speaker 3: you do live in a very open plan home and
Speaker 3: have multiple children. I think about, like whether she'd actually
Speaker 3: be able to concentrate with someone in our house, and
Speaker 3: I'm not sure it would have worked out all that well.
Speaker 3: It'd be different if we could put her in a
Speaker 3: separate room. But if it's a piano, you don't really
Speaker 3: have a lot of.
Speaker 2: People can't move it it is where it is.
Speaker 3: Yes, So yeah, we don't really do anything virtual. We've
Speaker 3: done a couple of like, yeah, we did do some
Speaker 3: like reading tutoring virtually back in the day, but that
Speaker 3: was more pandemic specific. Mostly we do things out in
Speaker 3: the open. And I will say, the number one thing
Speaker 3: that will kind of help me decide on saying yes
Speaker 3: to an activity and not is like, is it pretty close? Yeah,
Speaker 3: because obviously if your kid has some specific passion that
Speaker 3: is only available far away. I can think of a
Speaker 3: blogger whose son is super into diving, and I know
Speaker 3: she has to bend and we'd backwards to make that
Speaker 3: work for him, but there probably isn't any diving right
Speaker 3: near her. But barring that, man, it is great that
Speaker 3: I can get to the gymnastics place in like nine minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when in doubt, go with the closer one.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of our operating principles here at
Speaker 2: the best of both worlds, that the less time spent
Speaker 2: in the car the better. I'll just throw out that
Speaker 2: I'm doing strength training virtually. I meet with a trainer virtually.
Speaker 2: That's something that I hadn't really thought of as being
Speaker 2: an option, but it turns out that it is that
Speaker 2: the person can sort of be on an iPad er
Speaker 2: phone and see you can move the phone or iPad
Speaker 2: around and they could see your home gem.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 4: There you go. So better for adults and for kids.
Speaker 1: Better for adults and kids.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I'm going to ask this one because
Speaker 3: it's for you. Okay, question for the mailbag for Laura.
Speaker 3: Have you ever thought about updating your books?
Speaker 4: In particular?
Speaker 3: Do you think anything has materially changed since COVID.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny how we have these questions. A lot
Speaker 2: of them come back to sort of COVID things.
Speaker 1: Some things have changed.
Speaker 2: So the proportion of knowledge workers who are doing some
Speaker 2: of their work at home has risen a ton. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure people have just seen this in their own lives,
Speaker 2: Like if your friend gets a new job, you're not
Speaker 2: surprised to hear that it's largely virtual, right, Like You're
Speaker 2: not like, oh that's crazy, You're like, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: she found a remote job. Or just people who would
Speaker 2: have been going into the office five days a week
Speaker 2: or even you know, four because they'd been in the
Speaker 2: company forever and so they were allowed to work from
Speaker 2: home on Fridays. Now it's more like going into the
Speaker 2: office two or three days a week, and nobody bats
Speaker 2: an eye at that.
Speaker 1: That's more the expectation.
Speaker 2: So I think that's cool because that technology has been
Speaker 2: around for about two decades, but it has been not
Speaker 2: you because culture is hard to change, right, culture is
Speaker 2: hard to change. That said, a day still has twenty
Speaker 2: four hours. A week still has one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: eight hours. People are not more put upon now than
Speaker 2: they were in the past. And this is just one
Speaker 2: of my things that personal pet paves about time. Everyone
Speaker 2: always believes that they have it rougher than anyone else
Speaker 2: in history. And so I'd look at magazines from the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties where people will be complaining about how busy
Speaker 2: they are with everything going on. There's no way they
Speaker 2: could possibly be busier. And then, you know, I started
Speaker 2: writing about time in the early two thousands, and people
Speaker 2: definitely thought they were busier than the nineteen fifties then
Speaker 2: because of all this other stuff going on. Now we
Speaker 2: have two career couples and the internet and then email
Speaker 2: and then and then of course you know, now people say, oh,
Speaker 2: you started writing about a time and what two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, two thousand and six, and like things must
Speaker 2: have been different then we're so much busier now. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: we are not. But we are not busier now. You know,
Speaker 2: if you look at stuff like the American Time You survey,
Speaker 2: people are sleeping more statistically significantly amount more than over
Speaker 2: the past few decades. That's partly it's just an aging population,
Speaker 2: like you know, as people get a little bit older,
Speaker 2: that number might go up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I thought people with their phone in their
Speaker 3: face at like midnight would have like that surprises me that.
Speaker 2: People are saying that's great. Well, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: always good. It could be good, it could be other things.
Speaker 2: There's smaller families, for instance, people spend fewer years in
Speaker 2: the intense childcare stage.
Speaker 1: So it's just.
Speaker 2: People like to believe they've been busier than ever before,
Speaker 2: but fundamentally we are not. And so when you get
Speaker 2: your head around that, I think it's a little bit more.
Speaker 2: You know, it brings more possibilities. So you say, if
Speaker 2: I have a story that I'm busier now and people
Speaker 2: are busier than they ever been, then we don't think
Speaker 2: about how we want to spend our time. Whereas if
Speaker 2: if you acknowledge that most of us have some amount
Speaker 2: of discretionary time we did before COVID we do now,
Speaker 2: then we start thinking about what we'd like to do
Speaker 2: with it, and that just opens up all sorts of
Speaker 2: more possibilities.
Speaker 3: I love that as we're speaking and we are in
Speaker 3: the same room, I pointed the book I'm reading when
Speaker 3: you said that, like, we're not more put upon now
Speaker 3: because I'm reading The Covenant of Water, and like, yeah,
Speaker 3: let me just say that, like my life and our
Speaker 3: lives and probably most of you listening to this is
Speaker 3: like probably a lot easier than most of the people
Speaker 3: I'm reading about in this book.
Speaker 4: Yes, leave it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, Well, let's take a quick ad break
Speaker 2: and we'll be back with more from our mail bag.
Speaker 1: All right, we are back.
Speaker 2: Sarah and I are talking here live in the same
Speaker 2: room in Naples, Florida. So if this sounds a little different,
Speaker 2: we apologize. It's not our recording studios. But we're enjoying
Speaker 2: sitting next to each other. So please bear with us
Speaker 2: on this, Sarah. So this question is for you. Thoughts
Speaker 2: on the new large digital calendar frames hearth being one
Speaker 2: that a lot of people have purchased, but maybe you
Speaker 2: can describe for people who don't get the Instagram ads
Speaker 2: for these sorts of things. What are we talking about
Speaker 2: large digital calendar frames and what would be the upside
Speaker 2: of having one of these?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Skylight is another common brand. That one was
Speaker 3: kind of like an earlier I think prototype and actually
Speaker 3: a one time best of both worlds sponsor their photo frame,
Speaker 3: not their calendar frame anyway.
Speaker 4: Hearth is a newer one.
Speaker 3: What we're talking about is kind of a large whiteboard
Speaker 3: size digital frame that links with an app so that
Speaker 3: you can display let's say, a shared Google calendar for
Speaker 3: the family. It's formatted so you can maybe put like
Speaker 3: the shopping list, you can put all kinds of like
Speaker 3: family dashboard. You can put your day schedule, you can
Speaker 3: put your morning routine and have kids check it off
Speaker 3: by like clicking it on the screen, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I think they're really cool.
Speaker 3: It's so funny because sometimes I feel like people assume
Speaker 3: that since I like paper, I don't want new tools
Speaker 3: or something, But I actually have my eye on the hearth.
Speaker 4: And think it would be fun.
Speaker 3: The only thing about it is that I do think
Speaker 3: one thing that would make it more useful is if
Speaker 3: everybody is using the same digital calendar type tools, and
Speaker 3: my kids are not currently at the point where they're
Speaker 3: doing that, nor do I really want them doing that yet.
Speaker 3: I can see when we get more into like the
Speaker 3: if everybody's in middle school in high school and my
Speaker 3: kids are actually using Google Calendar so that they could
Speaker 3: actually like interface with this regularly, I think it could
Speaker 3: be really useful.
Speaker 4: I also think.
Speaker 3: If you have a partner that's excited about this, that
Speaker 3: might be a helpful way to help them see what
Speaker 3: the family's mental load looks like on any given week,
Speaker 3: maybe have some more participation in that Tetris calendar management.
Speaker 3: I mean, this may be a little bit optimistic. I'd
Speaker 3: love to hear if this has worked for some couples,
Speaker 3: but hey, we use a whiteboard in my house basically
Speaker 3: for this purpose and it does work. But I can
Speaker 3: see the esthetic of having it be digital, as well
Speaker 3: as the ability for people to kind of add to
Speaker 3: it and change things on it from outside of the home.
Speaker 3: So I'm excited that this is a thing because it
Speaker 3: actually brings a problem which I don't feel like was
Speaker 3: talked about enough, just kind of like the day to
Speaker 3: day management of family into like, hey, we need a
Speaker 3: professional type tool for this, Like this is a real
Speaker 3: challenge that everyone can participate in.
Speaker 4: So I think in general it's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean my family, we're still very low tech.
Speaker 2: I create the family schedule in word more or less
Speaker 2: and then just print it up like each day. It
Speaker 2: says what each person is doing, and then I print
Speaker 2: it up and we make changes on.
Speaker 1: It with pen. It sits on the kitchen counter and
Speaker 1: that works. It works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but different people like different things. I'm not very
Speaker 2: technologically advanced, So there you go. All right, So question
Speaker 2: Sarah this one. I'll you can start on this one,
Speaker 2: and then I'll tay, what do you imagine your retirement
Speaker 2: will be like? And what do you want for those years?
Speaker 2: And I guess when do you think it will be?
Speaker 2: Would be a follow up to that.
Speaker 3: I don't think that much about this because I do
Speaker 3: feel like I envision my future more like ten years,
Speaker 3: kind of the largest horizon that I think about regularly.
Speaker 3: And I'm currently forty three, almost forty four, and I
Speaker 3: do not think I will be retired at fifty four.
Speaker 3: So I don't have a clear timeline, in part because
Speaker 3: I guess there's there are a lot of unknowns here.
Speaker 3: I don't know how my energy is going to be at,
Speaker 3: you know, in my sixties. I don't know what it's
Speaker 3: going to be like to be working and then not
Speaker 3: have the child kind of care centric stuff.
Speaker 4: And I know you still.
Speaker 3: Are involved in your children's lives even when they're older,
Speaker 3: but it's going to be a different level and different type.
Speaker 4: So I think it's a little bit hard to plan
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 3: I will say I do have like lovely visions of
Speaker 3: having more time for travel and just my Josh and
Speaker 3: I having like really enjoying some time together, but it's
Speaker 3: hard to know what role work will play in that.
Speaker 4: I guess I'm.
Speaker 3: Hopeful that my career will continue to eve and I'll
Speaker 3: be doing like more interesting and different things.
Speaker 4: It won't always stay the same clinically.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I'll always do some level of that,
Speaker 3: but it's sort of the other piece that could go
Speaker 3: in a lot of different directions, and I'm open to
Speaker 3: like what happens. I don't have a very specific time frame, however,
Speaker 3: I will say we still do save for retirement as
Speaker 3: if a day will come when we will not be earning,
Speaker 3: because it would be nice to be able to just
Speaker 3: pursue work without worrying about how much is going to
Speaker 3: be brought in or not brought in at a certain point.
Speaker 3: And so I am not saying, oh, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to retire so I just spend every penny I have,
Speaker 3: because that would not be good.
Speaker 2: Now there's a different you know, people talk about the
Speaker 2: fire movement, which is financial independence retire early, but to
Speaker 2: be honest, financial independence and retiring early are two totally
Speaker 2: different things, and lumping them to gather is based on
Speaker 2: a mindset that work is something you don't.
Speaker 1: Want to do.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, Sarah and I are both
Speaker 2: fortunate in that the vast majority of the aspect for
Speaker 2: our careers are things we actively do, want to do
Speaker 2: and enjoy and have fully chosen and shaped in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways to be what we want to be doing.
Speaker 2: So I think pursuing financial independence is incredibly smart and
Speaker 2: everyone should be doing that as much as possible. Retiring early, yeah,
Speaker 2: So the fire bloggers who are like, I retired at
Speaker 2: age thirty, and I'm like, and you're writing books and
Speaker 2: podcasting and blogging and having courses, which is exactly the
Speaker 2: work that we do. So you just changed careers with savings,
Speaker 2: which we've evolved our careers with savings too. Maybe we
Speaker 2: should start selling courses on that, Sarah. Anyway, what I'm
Speaker 2: getting out to this, I don't envision myself retiring in
Speaker 2: the sense that I write because I like to write,
Speaker 2: and I wrote as a child, I've written as a student.
Speaker 2: I would write whether I was getting paid for it,
Speaker 2: I would write, you know whatever. It just is what
Speaker 2: I do as part of my identity. So I don't
Speaker 2: envision that changing until I, like, truly cannot do it anymore. Now,
Speaker 2: maybe the various other forms of how I work could evolve,
Speaker 2: you know, certainly when my kids aren't around.
Speaker 1: I think having a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Flexibility to go different places and things like that might
Speaker 2: be fun. But I don't envision retirement is something incredibly
Speaker 2: different than what I'm currently doing, because there's it's not
Speaker 2: like a yeah, I don't know, I don't have a
Speaker 2: target age.
Speaker 3: No, And I'll just add that I am very far
Speaker 3: from financial independence. I mean, I guess I would say,
Speaker 3: let me caveat that. I guess if we had a
Speaker 3: drastic change in lifestyle, we could be financially independent. But
Speaker 3: at the current lifestyle. We are far from that, and
Speaker 3: there's trade offs there too, because there's experiences I want
Speaker 3: to have with my kids that do cost money that
Speaker 3: if I want to have them, I have to spend
Speaker 3: that money, which means it's going to take longer to
Speaker 3: get to that financial independence piece. So that balance is
Speaker 3: always to pay attention to. But both sides are important,
Speaker 3: absolutely all right.
Speaker 2: So how do you handle kids needing different amounts of sleep?
Speaker 2: And I guess that this could play out in lots
Speaker 2: of different ways. You have two kids who are relatively
Speaker 2: the same age, but like one of them is more
Speaker 2: of a sleeper than the other. Maybe you've got a
Speaker 2: night owl kid or or something. Or it could also
Speaker 2: be that you have kids of very different ages. And
Speaker 2: let's say you're dealing with, you know, an older kid,
Speaker 2: like a school age kid, and you also have a baby,
Speaker 2: and you're trying to like set a schedule around two
Speaker 2: kids of different ages. So how does this work in life?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm living this reality right now because I do
Speaker 3: notice that tweens and kids who are approaching tweenhoods seem
Speaker 3: to have different patterns where there really are driven to
Speaker 3: stay up later.
Speaker 4: They don't quote get.
Speaker 3: Cranky like little kids do late, and then we're likely
Speaker 3: to sleep in on weekends. And then overall for me,
Speaker 3: I feel like need less fewer hours in general. And
Speaker 3: then I have a six year old who absolutely it
Speaker 3: does not do well when she stays up late, and
Speaker 3: when she has a couple of nights in a row
Speaker 3: of compromise sleep, you really do notice it kind of
Speaker 3: behaviorally with the amount of patience she has. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I have been very specific about a very hard deadline
Speaker 3: bedtime for her on every night that we can do it.
Speaker 3: There are some nights where activities just make it almost impossible.
Speaker 3: But if I can get the like five to six
Speaker 3: nights a week where it's like we are starting to
Speaker 3: read at seven thirty so that she can go to
Speaker 3: bed by eight to eight fifteen, I really have to
Speaker 3: like set a timer and actually pay attention to that,
Speaker 3: because again with the bigger kids, like they're off doing stuff,
Speaker 3: they want help with homework, do whatever. But unfortunately, if
Speaker 3: someone doesn't prioritize putting her to bed.
Speaker 4: Like, we all pay for it multiple days later.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of how I'm working on it, or
Speaker 3: kind of how I've approached it. Do I always have
Speaker 3: success in this No, but the weeks that it works,
Speaker 3: it does feel better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, with having a huge spread of ages
Speaker 2: for my kids, we just sort of accepted that Henry
Speaker 2: probably has a different sleep profile than a lot of
Speaker 2: four year olds would have, and fortunately it seems to
Speaker 2: be okay.
Speaker 1: Like he does not wake up at the crack.
Speaker 2: Of dawn regardless of when he's gone to bed, So
Speaker 2: if he's falling asleep around ten o'clock at night, which
Speaker 2: is when the other kids are also going to sleep,
Speaker 2: the good news is he doesn't really have to wake
Speaker 2: up until eight fifteen, eight twenty in the morning to
Speaker 2: get to school at nine, and so it winds up
Speaker 2: being okay like it actually because he doesn't get up
Speaker 2: until then, he gets the ten hours of sleep or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, with occasional naps in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: But even then, he's never been.
Speaker 2: Able to have like a dedicated nap in the crib
Speaker 2: kind of time like post COVID. I mean, now that
Speaker 2: we're back into things going on, just it's too much
Speaker 2: going on in the household, and so he's probably had
Speaker 2: a lot of naps in the car in his life,
Speaker 2: but that's been the way it is, and I think
Speaker 2: you have to acknowledge that kids also might have different
Speaker 2: sleep needs than you'd want.
Speaker 1: Them to have.
Speaker 2: And I always feel bad for people whose parents have
Speaker 2: decided that because you are ex age, you will have
Speaker 2: to go to bed at eight. Like we're talking kids
Speaker 2: who are like ten or older, and it's like they're
Speaker 2: sitting there, not falling asleep with the lights out. I mean,
Speaker 2: I understand that parents want to have their own time,
Speaker 2: but it's like, maybe we could just let them read
Speaker 2: for a while, I don't know, and just check on
Speaker 2: them in another thirty forty minutes.
Speaker 1: And I don't know.
Speaker 2: People are who they are, and it's kind of hard
Speaker 2: to force your sleep desires on somebody else.
Speaker 1: So just something to keep in mind totally.
Speaker 3: And yeah, when we put Genevieve to bed, she's clearly tired.
Speaker 3: We're not dealing with that situation. And it never even
Speaker 3: occurred to me not to let your kid read if
Speaker 3: they wanted to stay up and read. So for us,
Speaker 3: that's kind of like the default. I actually I want
Speaker 3: them to do more of that than it's currently happening.
Speaker 3: A lot of times, it's more like, oh, but there's
Speaker 3: a duke game on, and then I worry about like
Speaker 3: blue light and like keeping them up and whatever, and
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe I should just not stress too much.
Speaker 3: The big kids actually do not seem terribly sleep deprived,
Speaker 3: so that's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think my older kids may be slightly
Speaker 2: sleep deprive, but that's more that the school begins so
Speaker 2: incredibly early, and then they really aren't tired at night either.
Speaker 2: I mean, there really is their circadian rhythm thing with teens.
Speaker 2: And the good news is our school district is switching
Speaker 2: next year to later start times for high school, so
Speaker 2: good for that.
Speaker 4: That is exciting.
Speaker 1: All right, So this quite well, I guess it's for
Speaker 1: both of us here.
Speaker 2: So this person writes that early mornings are important to
Speaker 2: making my day's work, but as my kids are getting older,
Speaker 2: they don't go to bed early anymore. So this is
Speaker 2: kind of related to the earlier question. It seems like
Speaker 2: they often want to chat or hang out or need
Speaker 2: things in that post nine o'clock hour. It makes it
Speaker 2: hard to just turn in. I realized I could just
Speaker 2: close the door, but you know, again, we're talking with
Speaker 2: teen kids. You realize they're not going to be there
Speaker 2: that many more years. Sometimes you do want to be
Speaker 2: available for them if they do want to chat with you,
Speaker 2: any tips on older kids and later bedtimes and how
Speaker 2: to balance being there for them but also trying to
Speaker 2: get to bed at a decent time yourself.
Speaker 3: I think I would take this directly from Laura Vandercam
Speaker 3: and say three times a week.
Speaker 4: Is a habit, meaning you do not have.
Speaker 3: To have a routine that is exactly the same from
Speaker 3: day to day. I know there is some sleep gurus
Speaker 3: who kind of say you're supposed to have the same
Speaker 3: bedtime and same week of time every day, but maybe
Speaker 3: that's in like an idealized world. I think we have
Speaker 3: to also adapt these things to like the worlds we
Speaker 3: live in. So I get up really early to run
Speaker 3: many days per week, but I don't want to go
Speaker 3: to bed every single night at like nine pm nine thirty.
Speaker 4: So there's usually going to be two, maybe three.
Speaker 3: Nights a week that I'm up a little bit later,
Speaker 3: and usually I try to pick days where I'm more
Speaker 3: flexible the next day. I think this might just have
Speaker 3: to be about being like, some days can be for
Speaker 3: you and some days can be more for them, and
Speaker 3: there might be some nights that you're like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to close the door and go to bed because I'm tired,
Speaker 3: but like tomorrow, let's chat. Like it just doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be all or nothing, So that would be that
Speaker 3: would be my thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might also think about having a short version
Speaker 2: and a long version of your morning routine. And you know,
Speaker 2: on the night where your kids are totally ignoring you
Speaker 2: and you go to bed on time, you could do
Speaker 2: the long version in the morning, but you could make
Speaker 2: that decision the night before, right, Like you could decide
Speaker 2: that you have enough sort of control and autonomy in
Speaker 2: your life that you will decide the night before is
Speaker 2: tomorrow a long version or a short version?
Speaker 1: And that's a function of what time you go to
Speaker 1: bed that night.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that the kids themselves, regardless of
Speaker 2: what we just said, like, they don't need to have
Speaker 2: access to you all night long. I mean, they do
Speaker 2: probably need to go to sleep too. So I know
Speaker 2: in our household you said, I mean you said the
Speaker 2: post nine o'clock hour, and that's not that late. Our
Speaker 2: lights out time in our house is ten, And yes,
Speaker 2: people often are wanting to chat between nine and ten,
Speaker 2: but if lights out is ten and I go to
Speaker 2: bed at ten, if you need what seven seven and
Speaker 2: a half hours of sleep, you could be up five
Speaker 2: to five thirty A guessing that's still early enough to
Speaker 2: get a morning routine in for some people.
Speaker 3: So you know, I happen to know this person. I
Speaker 3: don't think that's quite early enough for this person. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean you couldn't hang out till nine thirty
Speaker 3: and get but five yeah, four forty five and get
Speaker 3: like you know, over seven hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 2: So maybe sort of push that nine to nine thirty
Speaker 2: is when we talk. Nine thirty to ten is more
Speaker 2: when mommy needs to sleep, and you can also kind
Speaker 2: of you know, round earlier, I guess is the idea.
Speaker 2: One of the things I often tell people with who
Speaker 2: are trying to get out of their offices on time
Speaker 2: is the problem is they're trying to leave and then
Speaker 2: they go talk to everyone, and that's when people bring
Speaker 2: stuff up like oh, yeah, we needed to talk about.
Speaker 1: This, and then you're like trying to get out the door.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, there's nothing you from going around and
Speaker 2: talking to everyone at like two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: Right then, when people spring stuff on you or want
Speaker 2: to have conversations you have space to do that before
Speaker 2: five o'clock, so you might start like visiting your kid
Speaker 2: at eight thirty and say like, hey, how's it going.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's when they decide they want to start talking,
Speaker 2: and you know, you can get some of it out
Speaker 2: of the way a little bit earlier and move that
Speaker 2: all earlier into the night.
Speaker 4: Sounds good, all right.
Speaker 3: Our last question today, and I thought this was such
Speaker 3: a fun question, it is, what does the next five
Speaker 3: years of Best of Both Worlds look like?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: My goodness, well, who knew?
Speaker 2: And we I mean one of our previous episodes or
Speaker 2: one that's running around this is we look at the
Speaker 2: idea of beginnings at endings, and people don't ever think
Speaker 2: about endings when they start stuff. And so it's certainly
Speaker 2: like when we started Best of Both Worlds in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: I don't know that we had any idea of what
Speaker 2: the future would look like.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly we didn't.
Speaker 2: Say like, we're going to try this for a year
Speaker 2: and see how it goes, or that we're going to
Speaker 2: try it for ten years how it goes, or you know,
Speaker 2: anything like that. Obviously, the universe continues, and there will
Speaker 2: be a Tuesday morning where there's no best in both worlds.
Speaker 1: But hopefully not for a while.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: We just planned to keep cranking these out and having
Speaker 2: fun chatting and talking about things that matter to our listeners,
Speaker 2: and technology and what people consume tends to evolve a lot.
Speaker 2: I know that a lot of podcasts are having some
Speaker 2: video component to them, which we have not been tempted
Speaker 2: to do yet. But if that is what everyone does,
Speaker 2: I suppose we'll have to look into it at some point.
Speaker 3: I would then have to make over my closet recording studio.
Speaker 3: This is really not aesthetic at all. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think one thing that has increased in our podcast recently
Speaker 3: has been just the sense of community, and part of
Speaker 3: that is growing the Patreon, but like we're having conversations
Speaker 3: like with our listeners and that feels pretty magical. And
Speaker 3: now we're even doing a live event together. I mean,
Speaker 3: Laura was there last year, so it was also together,
Speaker 3: but this time we're officially doing it together. So I
Speaker 3: don't know, I could see that aspect of it growing.
Speaker 3: I mean, we were fantasizing like, hey, like this event's
Speaker 3: gonna just blow up and then we can like do
Speaker 3: a few events per year and like support women and
Speaker 3: you know, help them get through the tougher years and
Speaker 3: give them a space to be together. So I don't know,
Speaker 3: I could see little like branch offs of this. I
Speaker 3: hope the podcast itself continues, but yeah, who knows, like
Speaker 3: what different formats could look like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we'll be like a Netflix.
Speaker 2: Show that's true with the home edit for life balance.
Speaker 1: I don't know that would be something awesome. Well, so
Speaker 1: I guess we should do Love of the Week.
Speaker 3: Right, Sure, you're gonna have to go first, because you
Speaker 3: just sprung that one on me.
Speaker 2: Well, don't do it every week like we like three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty of these episodes.
Speaker 1: Why is this a surprise? True?
Speaker 4: True? Okay, but you're still going I'm.
Speaker 1: Still going first. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: It's kind of nice to be in a hotel and
Speaker 2: not be putting anyone to bed.
Speaker 1: I would say my Love.
Speaker 2: Of the Week is a case having the night off
Speaker 2: from bedtime. Bedtime can be sweet, bedtime can also feel
Speaker 2: like it drags on forever sometimes and at a time
Speaker 2: of day when many of us would like to be done.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so there you go.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm going to go on theme sort of
Speaker 3: for that, And I will say using Strava or word
Speaker 3: of mouth to find good running routes in other areas
Speaker 3: and specifically looking for that before you leave so you
Speaker 3: kind of know where to go, because it can be
Speaker 3: daunting when you go somewhere and you're just kind of plunked.
Speaker 3: But if you have a target and then you can
Speaker 3: kind of just put that in your maps app and
Speaker 3: you won't get lost and you can run somewhere nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is my love of the week.
Speaker 2: Yes Sarah did some good runs on the beach here
Speaker 2: in Naples, and I at least got to walk to
Speaker 2: the beach and enjoy.
Speaker 1: That yesterday and it was fun.
Speaker 2: Anyway, This has been the best of both worlds. We're
Speaker 2: recording Live Together here in Naples. We will be back
Speaker 2: next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 2: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 2: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 2: work together.