Shifting ground rules in the home

With childcare unaffordable for many and a growing awareness that parents actually want to spend more time with their children many families are trying to be as flexible with their work schedules as possible. But can "shift parenting" work? Kathryn Holmquist reports

On Sunday morning, my friend looked every bit the harried parent. Rubber gloves up to the elbows, deep in a pile of washing up while the children ran around cheerfully. The Aga was warm, with lunch already roasting inside.

After kitchen duties, this saintly parent was planning to run a marathon for charity. In the rain.

Upstairs, his wife was gently stirring her cappuccino before rolling over in bed for a second sleep with the Sunday papers.

Was this a case of role reversal? Spousal abuse? The hen-pecked husband tied to his wife's briefcase straps? All was not as it seemed. If I'd stopped in the previous Sunday morning, I would have seen Mum on kitchen duty and looking after the kids while Dad was out playing football with his friends.

Mum was getting her fair rest in bed - after being up all night with the baby. Dad was merely fulfilling his parental duties to cook, clean and child-mind.

In the ideal world, somebody else would have been looking after the children while Mum and Dad lolled in bed or hit the golf course together. But this isn't an ideal world. Parenting is a mug's game.

My friends are shift parents. They have careers in medicine and law. They can afford the best daycare and schooling for their children. But their top priority for their children - hands-on parenting - is something money cannot by. Each of them wants to be involved with their children on a day-to-day basis, without giving up the satisfaction of their careers. It's not too much to ask.

Agreeing as a couple, they have made subtle compromises in their careers to allow them to have maximum time with their children. They divvy up most of the duties equally and at weekends, they carefully schedule the hours so that each of them gets personal time. Occasionally, they even manage to organise a weekend alone. It's tough, as I know all too well.

Four years ago I became a shift parent, when full-time childcare became unaffordable. (A properly-trained nanny - working nine to 6pm, Monday to Friday - charges €370 a week. That's nearly €20,000 a year, after tax. Puh-leese.)

Shift parenting is healthier for the bank balance, but it is also a logistical feat that keeps you on your toes, to say the least. There's no question of bunking off for a long, gossipy lunch or a game of tennis. On bad days when my husband and I both feel stretched to the limit, I wonder if the best way to describe shift parenting is to leave out the "f". Then I see how happy the children are to always have at least one parent around, and decide it's worth it.

My solution is that I work from home, which makes my hours flexible. My husband, who works in TV, has an inconsistent schedule. He may be fairly free one day, while working 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. the next. He needs to be available for evening work and often works weekends.

I'm the same. Often, I would have to work unsociable hours. So we constantly balance our work so that one parent is always with the children.

Most mornings, my husband makes the lunches, the breakfast and does the school-run. He's not unusual in this, as the number of fathers dropping children at the school-gates shows you. I only do the morning school-run when my co-parent has to be in the office early, because from 6 a.m. I'm at my desk (after setting out the school uniforms in a row). Four afternoons a week, I collect the children from after-school care at 3 or 4 o'clock. Friday, I bunk off early, collecting the children at 2.15 p.m. Once the children are home, I try to stop working, taking only urgent phone calls. I leave unfinished work for later in the night, when the children are asleep.

Sunday nights, we go over the diaries and look at the important meetings in our respective schedules. Occasionally, we have to decided whose meeting is more important, his or mine? We constantly compromise. But with the interests of our children at heart, we make it work.

It sounds mad, but when we sat down and thought about it, we realised that our flexibility was one of our greatest strengths. We've saved a lot of money and bought ourselves more time to be with our children. One of our children needs extra learning support, so the fact that my husband and I can be flexible and bring her to various appointments with specialists at odd times of the day is crucial to her success.

ALL WE pay for are a few hours of after-school care, with a wonderful mother who minds the children in her own home, and a cleaner, who comes once a week. The fact that the children are in school makes this all possible, of course.

But it's not a perfect solution. Shift parenting turns parents into ships that pass in the night. When one is working, the other is childminding and vice versa. Evenings and weekends are child-oriented rather than adult-oriented. If it weren't for a brilliant babysitter up the road who helps out every second weekend, we'd never manage to fit in a party or the cinema.

We've almost completely forgotten what it's like to be adults doing adult-oriented activities. Weekends are measured in loads of laundry, shopping and cleaning, rather than leisurely brunches and dinner parties.

If I had to give a proper dinner party, I'd crack up. Friends get a bowl of pasta and a salad, that's it.

Not that my friends have much time even for that. Most of us are shift parents. On weekends we're too exhausted to do much except go to bed early.

Is this a life? Sometimes I wonder.

On balance, though, I think that shift parenting is a quiet revolution. Instead of looking for promotions and more money, parents are looking for more time with their children. The children are happier. The parents may pay the price of having less private time with each other. But that's another day's march.