Over my years as a parent, it’s been inspiring to meet families with lives of all sorts of rhythms. This third post in our “Career-Family Connection” series explores how families coordinate their work and family lives.
Some parents work jobs with traditional 9-5 schedules. However, the lives of families rarely if ever align with those hours. For example, school-age children usually get out of school in the early afternoon – parents working 9-5 may enroll them in an afterschool program, or may have the flexibility to leave work early and put in extra hours at night.
Child care is expensive, especially for infants. Families may not have the care they can afford or family around to help, so working beyond the 9-5 shift is not uncommon. They may face challenges as they juggle rotating shifts, multiple jobs, and nontraditional work hours – this can reshape family routines, complicate communication, and demand extra creativity in managing daily life.
This blog post provides a glimpse into the lives of several families — from maintaining stability at home to finding ways to stay connected as a family — while offering insights, understanding, and practical strategies for making it all work. Each family has a different type of schedule. These are real families living in Massachusetts and Maine, with their names changed for confidentiality.
Per Diem Work
In the per diem work format, work is done in 12- or 24-hour shifts. Due to the long duration of the shift, full-time workers have more than 2 days off per week. If both parents work per diem, they switch off entire days: one works and the other is off, with the “off” parent responsible for all things child-related (preparing lunch, picking up from school, etc.).
Freddie is a firefighter and Beth is a nurse. They are raising three elementary school-aged children by coordinating per diem work.
Freddie’s work schedule is mapped out for the entire year – it specifies which group is assigned to work at any given time. His shifts at the fire station last for 24 hours. Throughout the year, he follows a pattern: he works 1 day, then has 2 days off, works another day, and then has 3 days off. Sometimes, Freddie does details when he isn’t working his regular shifts. Details are special shifts for buildings under construction – they need someone there in case a fire starts.
Beth has some flexibility in booking her nurse shifts. She makes her schedule around Freddie’s, so there is always someone around to take the kids to and from school and to be there in case they are sick or have other emergencies. Beth’s shifts are usually 8 hours, though she has also worked at a hospital with 12-hour shifts.
On rare occasions when both parents are working, Beth’s sister picks up her nieces and nephew from school. However, for the most part, the family’s per diem schedule allows them to run smoothly without needing babysitters or after-school care.
Opposite Shifts
Parents can work on opposite shifts, covering some or all of their family’s needs. Some work (e.g. schools) often occurs during the day, whereas other work (e.g. restaurant operations) can occur in the evening.
Teresa is a reading specialist at a high school, and Danny works as a chef at a country club. They have a daughter in sixth grade, whose transportation and care are coordinated between the parents throughout the day.
Teresa arrives at the high school in the early morning, before the school day starts, and leaves around 2:30pm. Danny leaves for work after lunch and returns home around 10pm. Danny walks their daughter off to her middle school, and Teresa picks her up.
Teresa often packs her daughter’s lunch and has a chance to say goodbye before leaving for work. Danny’s evening work shift means that he does not have dinner with his family on workdays. His daughter is excited about his return home and sometimes stays up late to say goodnight to him.
It is helpful to the family that Teresa has summers off. Sometimes their daughter attends dance or theatre programs, but there is no need for a full-time camp.
Hybrid Work – Single Parent Household
Single parents in particular benefit from flexible work arrangements and remote work, as they need to be able to transport children to daycare/school and also become available if children are home sick.
May is a social worker with a fifth-grade child and a toddler who attends daycare full-time. May meets with clients in person, but is in control of her schedule so that she can take those meetings during school hours. Much of the other work she does can be done remotely and on her own terms, giving her flexibility to care for her family.
Sometimes, May needs to work from home while children are sick or have a day off from school. It is not easy to do this, but she appreciates that she has the flexibility – she calls it a “life saver”!
Hybrid Work – Two-Parent Household
Our last example looks at the routine of a set of parents who both work roughly 9-5 jobs. As in the previous example, there is some flexibility regarding remote work and hours.
Zoe (bench scientist) and Gerald (research faculty) have a toddler who is in daycare full-time. They knew that after he was born, they would both continue to work full-time with similar schedules.
Zoe’s work is 80-100% in the office, especially for laboratory work. Even though some work can be done remotely, it’s encouraged for staff to work on-site.
Gerald has a lab, but his role is mostly computer-based (e.g. grant and manuscript writing), so he goes on-site roughly 50% of the time. He takes care of most of the family’s cooking.
With Zoe’s lab-based work, it’s common to need to start early or stay later, since the experiment determines the timing. This has been more difficult since adding a child to the mix. Zoe’s morning schedule is usually more fixed, so Gerald typically drops their son off in the morning and works at different times of the day. However, it can certainly vary day to day.
There are undoubtedly many other arrangements not covered in this blog post — for example, active-duty military members who go on months-long deployments, or entrepreneurs who may have a lot of control over their schedule yet work many more hours than a salaried employee.
We hope this glimpse into the lives of different families honors the commitment and care of the many wonderful parents in our communities.
Our fourth and final post in this series will focus on a type of work not featured above: full-time parenting and homemaking. We will explore reasons parents decide to come home, what the rhythm of the day (and week) can look like, and how to thoughtfully weave in part-time work, entrepreneurship, and other endeavors.
