August 26, 2025 • 37 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah share their thoughts, plans, and ideas around back to school -- possibly round 9 of this discussion, but it changes every year!
They chat about routines, new challenges, college (!), homework, bedtime, and more.
In the Q&A, they discuss: packed or school lunch?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
This episode is airing in late August of twenty twenty five,
and this is going to be our annual.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Back to school episode.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So we started this show in August of twenty seventeen.
I don't know if we had an official back to
school episode then we certainly talked about the topic within
the first few weeks. So that means we've been covering
back to school for nine years. This is our ninth
time covering this and eight years of the show our
ninth time covering the topic.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So it's been a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Of back to school though I feel like it's different
every time.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, I guess because the kids are in different ages
there are different grades, different schools, different routines, all that stuff. So, Sarah,
why don't you give us a quick rundown. I mean,
obviously things are different than twenty seventeen, but where are
your children grade wise, school wise all that now?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, so we have a second grader who is at
the same Montessori school where she's been attending since she
was two, And then Cameron is switching schools. He's going
to the school where Annabel goes to and he's in
sixth grade, which is in the middle school, and Annabel
is just rising a year into.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
The eighth grade.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So really the girls have a fairly anti climactic transition,
and Cameron has a very big year this year.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
What about you, guys.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, so I have a kindergartener this well, when this airs,
people have not started yet, but the first week of September,
I will have a kindergartener who will be at our
local elementary school.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I will have a fifth grader and an eighth grader
who will be.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
At our local middle school because our middle schools here
now run from fifth to eighth grade. I will have
a tenth grader at the high school, and I will
have a college freshman. So as this is airing, we
are probably in the process of traveling up to Boston
to drop him off. We have a very short move
(02:40):
in window. He's in a high rise, so there's the
elevator issues. It's also in central you know, it's in Boston,
so there's not exactly a huge parking lot outside the
building where you can park and move your stuff in.
So we have a narrow window in which to get
hell of his stuff in, so we have to kind
of time the travel around that.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
But yeah, it's the year of big transitions in that way.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yeah, you have three out.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Of five, Like entering a new level and then entering
kindergarten and entering college is like extra extra, big extra.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, both big steps in their own very different. But
it's been interesting to see, like the start of college,
what's involved. We did orientation and July I went up
to Boston with Jasper and I stayed in a hotel nearby.
He got to stay in the dorms for a night
and got tour the campus see all the stuff that
was going on there.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
He's chosen all his classes, met with his advisor. I
paid a tuition bill that was that was exciting. You
set up these five twenty nine years ago, and all
of a sudden, you're like, and now we first make
our transfer out of it, it's going to start going.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Down instead of going down. So but that is what
is there for. So yay.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I will be back up in late October for parents weekend,
so I'll get to check on him then. This is
definitely the longest I will gone without seeing him in person.
And Michael does work in Boston some days, so maybe
he'll get to see him. I don't know if they'll
coordinate that to the two of them. Maybe they will,
maybe they won't. Guess it depends if I need to
(04:12):
get anything to desper or not. But yeah, yeah, that's
so exciting.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I feel like when back in the Stone Ages when
we went to college, orientation was not like a separate thing,
but now it seems like it almost always is.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Think different places do it differently, but it is kind
of nice to have it enough ahead of time that
they can just start for real when they start. And
they also were able to do multiple orientations over the summer,
so it was smaller. It wasn't just everybody there at
the same time. So I think that was an upside
to it as well. But I mean, you know, on
(04:49):
some level, it's just a huge transition, and I hope
it goes well.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I guess that's all.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I can say. He seems ready, Oh.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, I think so. I think he's going to do great.
I'm I'm not too worried about that part. But what
makes them back to school time momentus? So we were
pondering this, like why have we covered this nine times now?
Especially in family life and working parent family life, is
that you're probably going to wind up with changed daily
(05:18):
and weekly routines. And that might be because the kid
is going to a different school, starting a different grade.
If the middle school started at a certain time, but
the high school starts at a different time, where the
buses come at a different time, where you shift schools,
or you had one kid in school now you have
two kids in school, or whatever it is, and they
start a different activity. Somebody decides to do cross country
this year but they didn't last year. Everything changes about
(05:41):
your daily and weekly schedule, and we spend a lot
of time thinking about our daily and weekly schedule. So
this exterior forced change is a momentous moment you know
that's a silly way momentous moment, yes, of course, but
it I.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean I always talk about doing like a
ideal week exercise every season, but in reality, the only
two seasons where you like have to do it or
I think it's so incredibly important are the back to
school season and the summer season, because really those are
the two where you're just if you have kids that
are in those school age years, you're just everything's going
(06:20):
to change from your wake up time to the evening schedules,
et cetera. And if your kids are anything like mine,
they're involved in some year round activities where like you
kind of find out the dates and times in August
and like that's going to set your template until May,
which is a long time.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, And it can feel slightly chaotic at the beginning,
when you're not sure exactly where everything is going to go,
or you're trying to sign up for I don't know,
the swim lessons that don't conflict with gymnastics some night
or whatever you have to figure out. But it's also
an opportunity and I think that's one of the reasons
we get kind of excited about this fresh start because
(06:58):
as you change your daily routines and your weekly routines,
it gives you an opportunity to introduce new things or
to change things that might have been problematic, right, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yes, it's like, Okay, this was something that bothered us
all last year. How can we do it differently?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And we'll give some examples as we talk about various
routines later in the episode.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, I mean, so we are definitely going to have
some schedule shifts. I mean I haven't decided all of
them yet, and in conjunction with other family members and
with our child care schedule and all that. But just
as an example, when Alex was in elementary school for
his fourth grade year, last year, school started at nine
to ten, so this meant he did not really have
(07:42):
to get out of bed, tell about eight twenty that
they got in the car at like eight forty five,
eight fifty to go to school be there by nine ten,
So that's kind of a late morning start eight twenty.
Contrast this with this year, where the middle school starts
(08:04):
bright and early at eight am, which means that the
days he is taking the bus, if it's anything like
last year, the bus comes at seven nineteen am, which means.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
You have to wake up.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Even if he is very quick at getting ready, he
would have to be up at about six forty five am,
so that is a different time.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Six forty five is a different time.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Than eight twenty, so that it just changes what time
he can comfortably go to bed the night before. It
changes in the morning with the adults, like how we're
getting him out the door. And then on the high
school front, last year I had a driver who had
a parking spot right, so that made getting the fifteen
(08:51):
year old to school quite easy because he just went
with his older brother, Like the two of them got
in the car together every morning. And I don't I
don't believe that they actually spoke with each other all
that much, but I do they were going off together
and this was really not my business. But now we
don't have that because the driver will be gone and
so Sam has to get to school some other way,
(09:14):
which will be I'm sure a combination of bus and
our driving him or friends picking him up or.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
But it's hill turn sixteen during the school year, though.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
He will oh, but the problem is, and I would
love if he could get his driver's license. We're planning
and getting his permit on his birthday in September. He
will turn then you need it six months in Pennsylvania,
so he could get his driver's license in March, and
in my ideal world, he would start driving himself to
and from school in March. Unfortunately, the parking situation is
(09:46):
a bit grim, and you cannot get a parking spot
until about the last month of your junior year when
the seniors have left, and then there is no street
parking nearby. As I've complained about in the past on
this podcast, all the neighborhood around the high school have
forgote their own on street parking privileges to make sure
that no high school or ever parks in front of
their house.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So sad, it is so sad.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
It is so sad, but that is what it is.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And so unless we figure out some other place he
can park, he can't drive himself until his senior year,
which means he can't drive any other kids either, because
then Ruth will be starting high school the next year.
So yeah, he will be a junior and she will
be a freshman and they still will not be able
to drive together.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, I know you got a while, You've got a while,
and there has to be something slightly more painful about
having had a driver and then losing it. Losing because
of course I'm going through in my head and I'm like,
well that won't actually it will happen to me when
Cameron goes to college, but it will not happen to
me when Annebell goes to college. If everyone gets their
license sometimes Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, well, so like you're gonna have to change your schedule.
I mean, Sarah, you're not. You don't have any major well,
because Cameron will just go with Annabel, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Correct, All the drop off morning situation is kind of
like the same, with the exception of like I don't
have as much much of a convoluted drop off situation
at the Montessori School, which is fantastic because it's not
any fun.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and
then we'll be starting come back talking about the different
places to look at in back to school routines and
what you might.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Decide to do.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, we are back with sort of our ninth discussion
of the back to school transition. So one thing that
obviously the morning we've already been talking about the mornings
and all that, But Sarah, what is something you are
going to change this year about your morning routine?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, we talk about dividing and conquering and we just
don't do it.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And I think we're what do we mean by this?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Like if one parent is driving the kids, my philosophy
is like the other parents should be able to do
whatever they want because our kids just don't need that
much hay hands on wrangling. I mean, the only things
that like Genevieve needs help doing her hair and it's
not always Josh's forte, but worst case, Annibal is better
than me at doing her hair at this point, So
(12:11):
like it doesn't need to be a two parent job,
which is great, Like Josh can go running while I'm
doing it, or I can be at pilates while he's
doing it or whatever. And I just think we need
to talk about that and the kids have to understand that.
Like I do think there's a certain amount of like, oh, well,
since both parents are here, I know that I could
just stay in my room until I get screamed up.
But like if they know they're not done against, no
(12:33):
one's going to be available to poke and prod them
out of bed and like get their cereal out. They
could take a little bit more ownership of that process.
And when I'm on when I'm the driving parent, I
don't line like really kind of running the show on
those mornings. So I just I think we need to
do a better dividing conquer job.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay, yeah, I'm still trying to sort this out in
my mind. I would probably like to minimize the number
of times that Alex takes the bus for various reasons.
But Ruth actually likes taking the bus. She's got friends
on it, and so we'll sort of sort that out potentially.
(13:13):
So a lot of mornings last year, Michael wound up
driving Ruth because that way we all didn't have to
get up as early as we would have to if
she was on the bus. So if that would happen,
we would get them up at seven, He would drive
them around seven thirty. Our nanny would come at seven
thirty three days a week, as she did last year.
(13:34):
Probably Sam will just take the bus. But I mean,
the reason for the seven thirty start, even though Henry
doesn't start school till nine ten, I mean it just
I want the mornings. I don't want to start my day.
I don't want to start my work day at nine thirty, Like,
that's just.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
That's really late. It's really late. It's really late.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, I have control over my hours, but I mean
it's like seven thirty to nine thirty is gold time
for me in terms terms of concentration. So that is
the current plan, and then I do a lot of
driving on Wednesday and Friday, although I have a backup
option that our house manager works Wednesdays and Fridays and
(14:13):
she can come earlier if she needed to, if I
needed to help on those mornings.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Because I can imagine that even with childcare, by the
time everyone starts filing back into the house in the afternoon,
it might be a little bit harder to concentrate. At
least I certainly find that to be the case. If
I need to concentrate, I would actually rather like go
to Starbucks or something like that.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So if you're not.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Getting going until nine thirty and people are starting to
clump in at three, like you're I'm in trouble.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, I mean, you got to protect your time to
work at least to some degree, which brings us to
the after school routine. I mean, because that's the other one, right,
how do people get home? Is their after care? Are
their activities? I mean, this is a challenge for a
lot of people. There's a lot of after school activities
are after school, and not only at the school. But
then if you're working, you can't really drive them around
(15:05):
unless you've organized your hours to stop working at like
three o'clock.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, we have a lot of challenges here. And by
the way, I didn't mention our nanny and our morning
routine because we don't have her come in early. We
would rather have her be available for the evening stuff.
This year's afternoons are honestly like the most complicated that
we've had, perhaps because we are kind of planning on
Cameron doing some school sports and a lot of them
(15:30):
are like four to five thirty practices at school, which
sounds really nice, except like, well, first of all, I
need to find out what the deal is in terms
of like.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Staying at school, because there's no time.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
We live far enough away that you cannot pick him
up and then drop him off again at four like
that would be nuts. But then also the girls they
love dance, which is awesome, especially Annabelle, and between that
and gymnastics, they have their own sessions to start on
the entire other side of town, usually somewhere between four and.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Five fifteen, So it's like it's complex.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
And one downside of private school is you are less
likely to find carpoolers in your neighborhood. Because I love
the school we go to, and it's not actually that far,
but it draws people from every direction, and so she's
got friends that live in like the total opposite direction,
like almost on the beach, that it could be an
hour from our house, and the chances of having somebody
(16:24):
I think there's like one girl at her gymnastics gym
that goes to her school, but not like a large contingent,
so it's a little bit trickier to find carpool stuff.
I think at the end it'll be okay, because I'll
just end up grabbing a kid on like I can
grab Cameron on my way home from work. The school
is fairly on my way home, and if he's done
at like five point thirty, that timing would work out.
(16:44):
But this is actually logistically the most like I'm not
sure exactly how this is going to work.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
That I've been going in.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
By the time it's airs, we've already figured it out
because school have started like two weeks prior.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I mean my goal is to have a schedule
that only requires there's one driver, but that is just
not realistic. It's gonna be two with the problem is
then you don't always have two people there. But then
we're just gonna have to sort that out. I mean,
this is good news of public school as there are buses.
The activity bus is a huge help for after school
(17:19):
activities for both the middle and high school, and so
that is an option.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Too that helps with the logistics quite a bit. How
do you guys handle homework?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Like that's another routine like figuring out when people do
their school work and things like that.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Well, Annamo made a list of like her activities next
year of which she's doing again. I think she has
something every single night, including Friday night and then like
three hours of gymnastics on Saturday.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm like, remember homework, like that has to fit.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
In there somewhere, and she's like, well, dance doesn't start
until seven or eight on these days, so I'll do
it beforehand. So I mean she kind of has it unlock,
she has it figured out. She does have a study
hall and is able to get some stuff done there.
I have been pretty darn hands off on homework for
a long time. With Cameron starting middle school, I want
to be a little more aware.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Of what's going on, I guess, I'll say.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And Genevieve as well, as her load has is starting
to I mean, she's only in second grade, so it's
not like a ton, but there are areas where we
have to make sure we stay at least on grade level,
and that's important.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
So yeah, I mean, I see.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The one wonderful thing is that Cameron's not doing travel soccer,
so we're not going to be like as stressed in
the evening. So I really think most of that homework
time with my oversight will be in that like.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
After dinner kind of a window. So Annabelle may still
be at gymnastics I need to pick up, but the
other two should be home, So between like six and
eight that should be enough time.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
So yeah, our homework time.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I mean we as family policy last year we would
take away devices at eight thirty. Lights out generally wasn't
til ten, So then that ninety minutes is a great
time for people to be doing homework who have homework
to do.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Although Ruth tended to do hers right after school.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
She would come home and just get it done so
that then she could read or whatever from eight thirty
to ten. We shall see what Alex chooses to do.
They do have a study hall in middle school, and
so probably he will get some of his work done
during that time, but we'll see how much more he has.
I will probably strongly suggest that, I mean, Sam can
manage his own coursework, but I happen to know that
(19:35):
some of the classes he's taking this.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Year are very, very challenging.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Having been through this now before, so strongly suggests that
the windows start earlier, that the homework window begin more
like eight instead of eight thirty. So there's even if
he goes to bed more like ten thirty eleven, he's
got that to two and a half hours available for it.
(19:59):
Were other things are not as much of a temptation
because they're not options.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
And they're really good about transitioning from like video games
to homework.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well, I mean I make them. I don't know. I mean,
you get used to whatever you have.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I'm not saying it's a wine free experience. And actually
I prefer video games to just watching YouTube videos.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I mean, I'd rather somebody be playing a video game
that has a point and like you're pursuing a goal
versus watching some obnoxious person like doing something ridiculous on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
So some video games are both because they're like social
media in disguise.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
So it's like, I guess, so I don't know, but yeah,
I mean we shall see. I mean we may change
what they said, but generally, I've said, if devices go
at a certain point at night and people aren't home
from school until a certain point and they have activities,
there's only so much time that is available, and whatever
you choose to do with that time is kind of
your business, as long as you show up for family
(20:59):
dinner and do you know require dishwashing on your night
or whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
No, that's great for us.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Like I just find that for whatever reason, once the
video games start getting off is like so torturous that
I don't want to even have the battle. So we
just said, you know what, Monday through Thursday, like no
video games. You can play that on Friday night. You
can enjoy it on the weekend to have fun, but
let's just like not see.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
My challenge is making it be a little bit more automatic.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, some children go at eight thirty, I hear
the sound of feet chomping.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Through the hall to go.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's amazing, put their devices in my room. So it's
a way other children do not do that and need
to be told to do it. I would like to
make it more automatic for everyone, because the problem is
Henry still needs a lot of handholding to go to sleep,
and so if I am occupied at eight thirty, then
(21:49):
I cannot be telling people to put their devices away.
And so then if I am stuck in the room
with Henry until let's say eight forty five nine, then
sometimes people still have their devices. And sometimes that's true
even if I am not the only adult at home,
which is another thing that needs to be nipped in
the bud this year.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Delineated, delineated, clearly defined.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Clearly defined, But there are alarms that can go off
on people's phones at that time.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, Well we're gonna take one more quick ad
break and then we be back talking back to school routines. Well,
we are back for our ninth annual discussion of the
back to school season. Sarah, what time do your kids
(22:38):
have to go to bed?
Speaker 4 (22:40):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I'm just kidding, honestly, Genevie've probably I'm gonna say, like
around eight thirty. The other kids I tend to as
long as I can't use devices, then I leave that
up to them. Knebell sometimes would stay up doing homework
till pass the point that I was asleep, so I
don't have like a strict bedtime for her specifically, And
(23:02):
I go to bed pretty early, so she's not staying
up till one in the morning or something like that,
but maybe till ten thirty or something like that. And yeah,
so Jennevy's really the only one with a specific bedtime.
I think we're gonna have an all devices off at
eight rules, so that makes staying up fairly self limited.
If they have homework to do, they'll do it, but
I don't see. If they want to read, then fine,
(23:23):
read until you're tired. I think that will be self
limited because their alarm is going to go off in
the morning and then the next.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Night they will be tired. Yeah, a lot of days,
Annabel's not going to be home until nine, honestly.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
But you guys were pretty good about getting the transition
from end of last activity to the bedtime.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, that was at a necessity last year because Cameron
kind of needed to go to bed and his soccer
ended so late.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
But we won't have that.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
We won't have that this year.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Well, you can also figure out sort of in the
going back to school and getting some of the excitement
about it, in the fresh start energy, it might be
an opportunity to do a little psychological to school prep
with the kids to chat about their goals for the year.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
What are they excited about? What are they nervous about?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Ask them when they are looking back on the year
in May or June, whenever you get out of school,
what would they like to have had happen over the
course of the year, To get them thinking a little
forward on that.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Obviously some kids are a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
More introspective than others, but it might be a good conversation,
or you can ask how can I support you in
your goals?
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yeah? I love that.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
We always do that end of the year thing at
melting Pot. So I'm gonna be like picture is at melting.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Pot six, Yes exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
We're going around the table with the our biggest accomplishments.
What do you want to be most excited? I feel
like they're going to get that.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We haven't done this at the beginning of the school year. Really,
we tend to do more of a reflection at the end.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
But I'm going to do it this year. I like that.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, we'll see if I can get my kids to
have that conversation with me. And then, of course, what
would be back to school episode without a discussion of
school supplies. So Michael and Jasper actually went to to
Target and to Ikea yesterday and got a lot of
dorm associated stuff. So he's I guess got most of
(25:10):
the things on the list, which is great. His roommate
is renting the fridge and microwave combo and I guess
we're just kicking in money for that. But this the
rest will take a trip to Target the last week
of before school or something like that.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
I forgot about the fridge microwave combos. That's so college.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
We went to Office Depot and I also got a
bunch of stuff from Amazon, so a combination of those two.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I like Office Depot, like I feel like I've got
a target in years past.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
They do have some cute things, but Office Depot has
like everything. And then it kind of occurred to me
that I want them to stay alive because when you
need a printer cartridge and you need it now, that's
like the only place to go. So I don't want
them to close. So I supported them, just supported my
back to school hall.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, well, I want to convince some of the kids
to do more of a calendar kind of thing. I mean,
I had an enlightening conversation with a child at one
point to shell be nameless of like, well, how do
you remember when something is going to happen?
Speaker 4 (26:06):
And they probably said you remember?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oyeah, well that was about what it came about, you know,
And I get asked with lots of kids like am
I free at this point? I'm like, okay, I can
answer that for you, but it would also behoove you
to know this yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And I know it's hard.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I mean, like the teens aren't going to keep track
of everyone else's schedule and so they don't know that
like other kid has something, so it makes it actually
harder for me to pick you up at this time.
But I don't know, it's I don't like being the
sole keeper of the family calendar.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
No, that's fair. I mean, we still use what I
call the board.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
So it's like we have our whiteboard that has Monday
through Sunday and I put everything everyone has for the
upcoming week, and so people can refer to that, and
our kids do refer to that, like, oh, I can't
ask my friend to do sing Sunday because we're all
going to this thing or we're traveling.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Or something like that.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I am waiting for the point where Annabel wants to
be like all on good calendar and then we'd be like,
maybe share that, but she hasn't asked for that yet,
so we'll kind of take it year by year. She
has a whiteboard she uses in her room to put
like her homework kind of stuff. I mean, all their
stuff's electronic so they can see their assignments, but in
order to visualize like when things are due. And then
I bought Cameron a planner. We'll see if he uses it.
(27:19):
She wants a paper planner as well. So you know,
they are my kids, so yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah. So back to school could also be a time
of renewal for you. It is a fresh start, so
if there's habits that you want to start, you might
be able to convince yourself to build something into a
morning routine or evening routine for yourself. I guess if
I'm saying this, I'd better do it. I was pondering
doing a September reset, similar to some of my past challenges.
(27:47):
People have an opportunity to track their time for a week,
likely that would be September eight through fifteen. Then in
the course of that, I'll have people practice building in
certain habits. It's like giving yourself a bedtime, or having
a designated weekly planning time, or thinking about adventures you
might do on the weekend, or thinking about your evening routine.
(28:09):
So those are all ideas that we can layer in
after we know where the time is going. So that
will be a challenge. Look for on my blog or
my newsletters to sign up for that.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
That sounds super fun. I do plan on doing some
time tracking in August. That tends to be like the
month when I well, this airs at late August, so
September would work as well. But as Q four dawns,
my time tracking energy is fairly high, and I guess
I just want to like understand my new routines a
little bit better. So I think it's a great time
to do it. So Laura's challenge sounds is like it
would be perfect for many people.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, well exciting. I hope everyone is having a wonderful
back to school season. Whether you've already been in school
for like two weeks now or or maybe weeks away,
two weeks away, who knows at this point. So all right,
that brings us to our question. So, Sarah, I guess
(29:01):
do you want to pose this one?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, school lunch versus home lunch. Do you have like
bringing lunch? Do you have thoughts?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I do have thoughts, Sarah, not that Well, let me
put it this way. One is not inherently better than
the other.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I guess that is. My first thought?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Is this gonna be a rant? There might be at alert?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
There should be a.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Rant alert music.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Trademark Vanderkian Ahead, okay, go ahead ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Now I will be calm in my rant, which is
that if you consume social media or parenting blogs or
things like this, sometimes there is a bit of a
narrative that if you are a good parent, you are
making your kids lunches. Sometimes there's the whole visual of
doing that with little cutout stars in their sandwiches that
(29:51):
are then in other little parts of the Bento box
and such. Many of the people who are doing this
are doing this as a professional kind of thing. The
photo or what is earning them endorsements, and so you
can understand that that is professional content creation. It has
nothing to do with what a regular parent should be
doing with lunch packing.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
But this is the key thing.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
I don't know that it is the parent's responsibility to
pack lunch. And in fact, I would go so far
as to say that if your kids are past a
certain age and you are packing for them, you are
missing an opportunity to teach them the skills of pack
thinking ahead about what they might like, about what needs
(30:36):
to be on the grocery list, about what a balanced
meal might entail. All those are important skills as they
will be feeding themselves for life. So even if you
elect to be a family that brings lunch to school,
you as a parent, should probably cease to do that
at a certain point. In our family, it is age eight.
(30:57):
You can come up with your own family rule, but
if you are I would challenge the narrative that you
are a good parent doing this for a much older kid.
Right now, with that, there's nothing wrong with school lunch,
and in fact, there's been plenty.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
There's another narrative that.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
School lunch is terrible, it's bad, it's like a cop
out or something like that. School lunches are designed by
nutritionists and as such are almost guaranteed to have whatever
the USDA recommended allowance of what children are supposed to
have of various nutrients, which is not the case for
home packed lunches. It is the only way you're really
(31:37):
going to safely have something that is hot. Most kids
do not have access to a microwave as part of
their I mean maybe if you're in a very small
school you would, but certainly as not a part of
a bigger school. Would that ever be something that was
And then most thermoses, there has been research on this.
Most thermists do not in fact keep stuff in the
zone long enough for, especially a child with a later
(32:01):
lunch break, for it to have been safely consumed. So
if you want your kid to have a hot lunch,
school lunch is pretty much the only way to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Now, I'm worried about the times I've like microwaved mac
and cheese and put it in the liddle.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, it's a hard thing.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It is a hard thing to keep food hot for
a long period of time and keep it above the
zone of where where bacteria is really growing in it.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
No, that makes sense. We're doing school lunch for the
big kids. I don't want to say it's free, but
it's included. So let's just say, like, I don't want
to be paying extra and bring your home food when
there's lunch there for you. Genevieve is not yet eight,
and their school lunch is not included and is disgustingly
expensive for what you get. So I go the like
(32:46):
halfway route, which is like I buy something like a
pre made salad for three ninety nine and I put
that in her lunch box with a couple of snacks, and.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
She likes that. Yeah, so everyone's happy.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, And certainly the quality of the food.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I mean, by the time you get to like the
middle school and high school in our district, I mean
it's more of almost like deli style, which I'm not
saying it's the most affordable thing. I mean maybe we
would be saving money by packing lunches at this point,
because I know Jasper was getting this like fruit cup,
which is like a pack of strawberries, like you might
buy at a high end deli and it was about
what it was costing every day is the same as
(33:21):
like doing this at Chopped or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
But it's just like, this is not a battle.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I'm not looking to save money by keeping my kids
from buying fruit for lunch.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Let me put it that way.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Totally fair.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, so do what works for your family.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
But we would just strongly encourage you that you can
buy school lunch without thinking that you are failing your
children somehow, that if your kids are bringing a lunch,
you do not personally need to pack it for them,
and there might be some upsides and having them learn
how to create a lunch and make sure things are
on the family grocery list and be in charge of
that for themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's an opportunity to build a lot of dependence. So
go for that, all right. So, Sarah, Love of the Week,
what do you have?
Speaker 3 (34:06):
What if I name some YouTuber that made like fancy lunches?
We did have family fudge on our Love of the Week.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yes, that would be really hypocritical.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
No.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I was doing Genevieve's hair and I was like realizing
that we've bought the same detangling spray for at least
a decade, and I don't think I've ever shouted it out.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
So the Babo Botanicals Berry and Primrose conditioning spray available
on subscribe.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
And saep at Amazon.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
I really like the smell and it definitely makes detangling
hair easier. Yeah, recommend, recommend, Okay, all.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Right, yeah, I yes, my children don't have hair that
requires detangling. I guess I didn't really understand that that
was a win in any way.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
It's like my niece to sleep on it and it's
like perfectly straight. No, I'm not my.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Care's lovely beautiful things with hair with lots of texture.
I'm not implying it anyway, but in terms of like
time it takes to manage it, that can be more
efficient if your hair does not require that. So yeah,
we had the funny thing the other day was Ruth
was trying to braid her hair to go to before
she was going to camp, and I was like, well
I can do that.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
She's like, I didn't even.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Know you knew how to braid, And I was kind
of like packing lunches. By just not doing things for kids,
they learned to do it all by themselves. And then
you never have to be involved in it, So there
we go. But my love of the week is going
to be Beethoven's sixth Symphony. So the week before we
recorded this, I was doing a lot of driving around
(35:30):
for various camp drop off, pick up, et cetera, and
kid activities. And I've been listening to all the works
of Beethoven this year. So each day I get an assignment,
and one of my assignments last week was Beethoven's sixth Symphony,
and so I was listening to that one day and
then I wound up like listening to it again other
days when I had gotten through that day's selection, because
it's just so awesome. It's amazing. It is an amazing symphony,
(35:53):
the pastoral symphony. So if you have not listened to that,
and you were looking for something to make your drive
to and from school or reactivities or work.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Whatever better today, give it a listen.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
You do it all right? Well, this has been best
of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
With our ninth annual discussion of back to school season,
I guess, sir, I think.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
We're going to make it to a tenth I think so.
I was just thinking that the first time I only
have like one kid in actual school, like so cute.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I don't think we definitely did not have an official
BTS episode. I think that first year, I think it
was more that we were just discussing families, rituals and
things like that. So I don't know, but we've done
it pretty much every year since. I'm pretty sure I've
called it a million things too.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Yeah, I enjoy doing it, so I hope people enjoy
listening to it.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yes, absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
We'll tune in for the tenth one next year, and
in the meantime, here's to making work in life fit together.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
This episode is airing in late August of twenty twenty five,
and this is going to be our annual.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Back to school episode.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So we started this show in August of twenty seventeen.
I don't know if we had an official back to
school episode then we certainly talked about the topic within
the first few weeks. So that means we've been covering
back to school for nine years. This is our ninth
time covering this and eight years of the show our
ninth time covering the topic.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So it's been a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Of back to school though I feel like it's different
every time.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, I guess because the kids are in different ages
there are different grades, different schools, different routines, all that stuff. So, Sarah,
why don't you give us a quick rundown. I mean,
obviously things are different than twenty seventeen, but where are
your children grade wise, school wise all that now?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, so we have a second grader who is at
the same Montessori school where she's been attending since she
was two, And then Cameron is switching schools. He's going
to the school where Annabel goes to and he's in
sixth grade, which is in the middle school, and Annabel
is just rising a year into.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
The eighth grade.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So really the girls have a fairly anti climactic transition,
and Cameron has a very big year this year.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
What about you, guys.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, so I have a kindergartener this well, when this airs,
people have not started yet, but the first week of September,
I will have a kindergartener who will be at our
local elementary school.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I will have a fifth grader and an eighth grader
who will be.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
At our local middle school because our middle schools here
now run from fifth to eighth grade. I will have
a tenth grader at the high school, and I will
have a college freshman. So as this is airing, we
are probably in the process of traveling up to Boston
to drop him off. We have a very short move
(02:40):
in window. He's in a high rise, so there's the
elevator issues. It's also in central you know, it's in Boston,
so there's not exactly a huge parking lot outside the
building where you can park and move your stuff in.
So we have a narrow window in which to get
hell of his stuff in, so we have to kind
of time the travel around that.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
But yeah, it's the year of big transitions in that way.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yeah, you have three out.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Of five, Like entering a new level and then entering
kindergarten and entering college is like extra extra, big extra.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, both big steps in their own very different. But
it's been interesting to see, like the start of college,
what's involved. We did orientation and July I went up
to Boston with Jasper and I stayed in a hotel nearby.
He got to stay in the dorms for a night
and got tour the campus see all the stuff that
was going on there.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
He's chosen all his classes, met with his advisor. I
paid a tuition bill that was that was exciting. You
set up these five twenty nine years ago, and all
of a sudden, you're like, and now we first make
our transfer out of it, it's going to start going.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Down instead of going down. So but that is what
is there for. So yay.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I will be back up in late October for parents weekend,
so I'll get to check on him then. This is
definitely the longest I will gone without seeing him in person.
And Michael does work in Boston some days, so maybe
he'll get to see him. I don't know if they'll
coordinate that to the two of them. Maybe they will,
maybe they won't. Guess it depends if I need to
(04:12):
get anything to desper or not. But yeah, yeah, that's
so exciting.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I feel like when back in the Stone Ages when
we went to college, orientation was not like a separate thing,
but now it seems like it almost always is.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Think different places do it differently, but it is kind
of nice to have it enough ahead of time that
they can just start for real when they start. And
they also were able to do multiple orientations over the summer,
so it was smaller. It wasn't just everybody there at
the same time. So I think that was an upside
to it as well. But I mean, you know, on
(04:49):
some level, it's just a huge transition, and I hope
it goes well.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I guess that's all.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I can say. He seems ready, Oh.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, I think so. I think he's going to do great.
I'm I'm not too worried about that part. But what
makes them back to school time momentus? So we were
pondering this, like why have we covered this nine times now?
Especially in family life and working parent family life, is
that you're probably going to wind up with changed daily
(05:18):
and weekly routines. And that might be because the kid
is going to a different school, starting a different grade.
If the middle school started at a certain time, but
the high school starts at a different time, where the
buses come at a different time, where you shift schools,
or you had one kid in school now you have
two kids in school, or whatever it is, and they
start a different activity. Somebody decides to do cross country
this year but they didn't last year. Everything changes about
(05:41):
your daily and weekly schedule, and we spend a lot
of time thinking about our daily and weekly schedule. So
this exterior forced change is a momentous moment you know
that's a silly way momentous moment, yes, of course, but
it I.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I mean I always talk about doing like a
ideal week exercise every season, but in reality, the only
two seasons where you like have to do it or
I think it's so incredibly important are the back to
school season and the summer season, because really those are
the two where you're just if you have kids that
are in those school age years, you're just everything's going
(06:20):
to change from your wake up time to the evening schedules,
et cetera. And if your kids are anything like mine,
they're involved in some year round activities where like you
kind of find out the dates and times in August
and like that's going to set your template until May,
which is a long time.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, And it can feel slightly chaotic at the beginning,
when you're not sure exactly where everything is going to go,
or you're trying to sign up for I don't know,
the swim lessons that don't conflict with gymnastics some night
or whatever you have to figure out. But it's also
an opportunity and I think that's one of the reasons
we get kind of excited about this fresh start because
(06:58):
as you change your daily routines and your weekly routines,
it gives you an opportunity to introduce new things or
to change things that might have been problematic, right, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yes, it's like, Okay, this was something that bothered us
all last year. How can we do it differently?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And we'll give some examples as we talk about various
routines later in the episode.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, I mean, so we are definitely going to have
some schedule shifts. I mean I haven't decided all of
them yet, and in conjunction with other family members and
with our child care schedule and all that. But just
as an example, when Alex was in elementary school for
his fourth grade year, last year, school started at nine
to ten, so this meant he did not really have
(07:42):
to get out of bed, tell about eight twenty that
they got in the car at like eight forty five,
eight fifty to go to school be there by nine ten,
So that's kind of a late morning start eight twenty.
Contrast this with this year, where the middle school starts
(08:04):
bright and early at eight am, which means that the
days he is taking the bus, if it's anything like
last year, the bus comes at seven nineteen am, which means.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
You have to wake up.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Even if he is very quick at getting ready, he
would have to be up at about six forty five am,
so that is a different time.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Six forty five is a different time.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Than eight twenty, so that it just changes what time
he can comfortably go to bed the night before. It
changes in the morning with the adults, like how we're
getting him out the door. And then on the high
school front, last year I had a driver who had
a parking spot right, so that made getting the fifteen
(08:51):
year old to school quite easy because he just went
with his older brother, Like the two of them got
in the car together every morning. And I don't I
don't believe that they actually spoke with each other all
that much, but I do they were going off together
and this was really not my business. But now we
don't have that because the driver will be gone and
so Sam has to get to school some other way,
(09:14):
which will be I'm sure a combination of bus and
our driving him or friends picking him up or.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
But it's hill turn sixteen during the school year, though.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
He will oh, but the problem is, and I would
love if he could get his driver's license. We're planning
and getting his permit on his birthday in September. He
will turn then you need it six months in Pennsylvania,
so he could get his driver's license in March, and
in my ideal world, he would start driving himself to
and from school in March. Unfortunately, the parking situation is
(09:46):
a bit grim, and you cannot get a parking spot
until about the last month of your junior year when
the seniors have left, and then there is no street
parking nearby. As I've complained about in the past on
this podcast, all the neighborhood around the high school have
forgote their own on street parking privileges to make sure
that no high school or ever parks in front of
their house.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So sad, it is so sad.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
It is so sad, but that is what it is.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And so unless we figure out some other place he
can park, he can't drive himself until his senior year,
which means he can't drive any other kids either, because
then Ruth will be starting high school the next year.
So yeah, he will be a junior and she will
be a freshman and they still will not be able
to drive together.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, I know you got a while, You've got a while,
and there has to be something slightly more painful about
having had a driver and then losing it. Losing because
of course I'm going through in my head and I'm like,
well that won't actually it will happen to me when
Cameron goes to college, but it will not happen to
me when Annebell goes to college. If everyone gets their
license sometimes Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, well, so like you're gonna have to change your schedule.
I mean, Sarah, you're not. You don't have any major well,
because Cameron will just go with Annabel, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Correct, All the drop off morning situation is kind of
like the same, with the exception of like I don't
have as much much of a convoluted drop off situation
at the Montessori School, which is fantastic because it's not
any fun.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and
then we'll be starting come back talking about the different
places to look at in back to school routines and
what you might.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Decide to do.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, we are back with sort of our ninth discussion
of the back to school transition. So one thing that
obviously the morning we've already been talking about the mornings
and all that, But Sarah, what is something you are
going to change this year about your morning routine?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, we talk about dividing and conquering and we just
don't do it.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And I think we're what do we mean by this?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Like if one parent is driving the kids, my philosophy
is like the other parents should be able to do
whatever they want because our kids just don't need that
much hay hands on wrangling. I mean, the only things
that like Genevieve needs help doing her hair and it's
not always Josh's forte, but worst case, Annibal is better
than me at doing her hair at this point, So
(12:11):
like it doesn't need to be a two parent job,
which is great, Like Josh can go running while I'm
doing it, or I can be at pilates while he's
doing it or whatever. And I just think we need
to talk about that and the kids have to understand that.
Like I do think there's a certain amount of like, oh, well,
since both parents are here, I know that I could
just stay in my room until I get screamed up.
But like if they know they're not done against, no
(12:33):
one's going to be available to poke and prod them
out of bed and like get their cereal out. They
could take a little bit more ownership of that process.
And when I'm on when I'm the driving parent, I
don't line like really kind of running the show on
those mornings. So I just I think we need to
do a better dividing conquer job.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay, yeah, I'm still trying to sort this out in
my mind. I would probably like to minimize the number
of times that Alex takes the bus for various reasons.
But Ruth actually likes taking the bus. She's got friends
on it, and so we'll sort of sort that out potentially.
(13:13):
So a lot of mornings last year, Michael wound up
driving Ruth because that way we all didn't have to
get up as early as we would have to if
she was on the bus. So if that would happen,
we would get them up at seven, He would drive
them around seven thirty. Our nanny would come at seven
thirty three days a week, as she did last year.
(13:34):
Probably Sam will just take the bus. But I mean,
the reason for the seven thirty start, even though Henry
doesn't start school till nine ten, I mean it just
I want the mornings. I don't want to start my day.
I don't want to start my work day at nine thirty, Like,
that's just.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
That's really late. It's really late. It's really late.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, I have control over my hours, but I mean
it's like seven thirty to nine thirty is gold time
for me in terms terms of concentration. So that is
the current plan, and then I do a lot of
driving on Wednesday and Friday, although I have a backup
option that our house manager works Wednesdays and Fridays and
(14:13):
she can come earlier if she needed to, if I
needed to help on those mornings.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Because I can imagine that even with childcare, by the
time everyone starts filing back into the house in the afternoon,
it might be a little bit harder to concentrate. At
least I certainly find that to be the case. If
I need to concentrate, I would actually rather like go
to Starbucks or something like that.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So if you're not.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Getting going until nine thirty and people are starting to
clump in at three, like you're I'm in trouble.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, I mean, you got to protect your time to
work at least to some degree, which brings us to
the after school routine. I mean, because that's the other one, right,
how do people get home? Is their after care? Are
their activities? I mean, this is a challenge for a
lot of people. There's a lot of after school activities
are after school, and not only at the school. But
then if you're working, you can't really drive them around
(15:05):
unless you've organized your hours to stop working at like
three o'clock.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, we have a lot of challenges here. And by
the way, I didn't mention our nanny and our morning
routine because we don't have her come in early. We
would rather have her be available for the evening stuff.
This year's afternoons are honestly like the most complicated that
we've had, perhaps because we are kind of planning on
Cameron doing some school sports and a lot of them
(15:30):
are like four to five thirty practices at school, which
sounds really nice, except like, well, first of all, I
need to find out what the deal is in terms
of like.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Staying at school, because there's no time.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
We live far enough away that you cannot pick him
up and then drop him off again at four like
that would be nuts. But then also the girls they
love dance, which is awesome, especially Annabelle, and between that
and gymnastics, they have their own sessions to start on
the entire other side of town, usually somewhere between four and.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Five fifteen, So it's like it's complex.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
And one downside of private school is you are less
likely to find carpoolers in your neighborhood. Because I love
the school we go to, and it's not actually that far,
but it draws people from every direction, and so she's
got friends that live in like the total opposite direction,
like almost on the beach, that it could be an
hour from our house, and the chances of having somebody
(16:24):
I think there's like one girl at her gymnastics gym
that goes to her school, but not like a large contingent,
so it's a little bit trickier to find carpool stuff.
I think at the end it'll be okay, because I'll
just end up grabbing a kid on like I can
grab Cameron on my way home from work. The school
is fairly on my way home, and if he's done
at like five point thirty, that timing would work out.
(16:44):
But this is actually logistically the most like I'm not
sure exactly how this is going to work.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
That I've been going in.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
By the time it's airs, we've already figured it out
because school have started like two weeks prior.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I mean my goal is to have a schedule
that only requires there's one driver, but that is just
not realistic. It's gonna be two with the problem is
then you don't always have two people there. But then
we're just gonna have to sort that out. I mean,
this is good news of public school as there are buses.
The activity bus is a huge help for after school
(17:19):
activities for both the middle and high school, and so
that is an option.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Too that helps with the logistics quite a bit. How
do you guys handle homework?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Like that's another routine like figuring out when people do
their school work and things like that.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Well, Annamo made a list of like her activities next
year of which she's doing again. I think she has
something every single night, including Friday night and then like
three hours of gymnastics on Saturday.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm like, remember homework, like that has to fit.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
In there somewhere, and she's like, well, dance doesn't start
until seven or eight on these days, so I'll do
it beforehand. So I mean she kind of has it unlock,
she has it figured out. She does have a study
hall and is able to get some stuff done there.
I have been pretty darn hands off on homework for
a long time. With Cameron starting middle school, I want
to be a little more aware.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Of what's going on, I guess, I'll say.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And Genevieve as well, as her load has is starting
to I mean, she's only in second grade, so it's
not like a ton, but there are areas where we
have to make sure we stay at least on grade level,
and that's important.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
So yeah, I mean, I see.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The one wonderful thing is that Cameron's not doing travel soccer,
so we're not going to be like as stressed in
the evening. So I really think most of that homework
time with my oversight will be in that like.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
After dinner kind of a window. So Annabelle may still
be at gymnastics I need to pick up, but the
other two should be home, So between like six and
eight that should be enough time.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
So yeah, our homework time.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I mean we as family policy last year we would
take away devices at eight thirty. Lights out generally wasn't
til ten, So then that ninety minutes is a great
time for people to be doing homework who have homework
to do.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Although Ruth tended to do hers right after school.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
She would come home and just get it done so
that then she could read or whatever from eight thirty
to ten. We shall see what Alex chooses to do.
They do have a study hall in middle school, and
so probably he will get some of his work done
during that time, but we'll see how much more he has.
I will probably strongly suggest that, I mean, Sam can
manage his own coursework, but I happen to know that
(19:35):
some of the classes he's taking this.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Year are very, very challenging.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Having been through this now before, so strongly suggests that
the windows start earlier, that the homework window begin more
like eight instead of eight thirty. So there's even if
he goes to bed more like ten thirty eleven, he's
got that to two and a half hours available for it.
(19:59):
Were other things are not as much of a temptation
because they're not options.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
And they're really good about transitioning from like video games
to homework.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well, I mean I make them. I don't know. I mean,
you get used to whatever you have.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I'm not saying it's a wine free experience. And actually
I prefer video games to just watching YouTube videos.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I mean, I'd rather somebody be playing a video game
that has a point and like you're pursuing a goal
versus watching some obnoxious person like doing something ridiculous on YouTube.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
So some video games are both because they're like social
media in disguise.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
So it's like, I guess, so I don't know, but yeah,
I mean we shall see. I mean we may change
what they said, but generally, I've said, if devices go
at a certain point at night and people aren't home
from school until a certain point and they have activities,
there's only so much time that is available, and whatever
you choose to do with that time is kind of
your business, as long as you show up for family
(20:59):
dinner and do you know require dishwashing on your night
or whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
No, that's great for us.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Like I just find that for whatever reason, once the
video games start getting off is like so torturous that
I don't want to even have the battle. So we
just said, you know what, Monday through Thursday, like no
video games. You can play that on Friday night. You
can enjoy it on the weekend to have fun, but
let's just like not see.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
My challenge is making it be a little bit more automatic.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I mean, some children go at eight thirty, I hear
the sound of feet chomping.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Through the hall to go.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's amazing, put their devices in my room. So it's
a way other children do not do that and need
to be told to do it. I would like to
make it more automatic for everyone, because the problem is
Henry still needs a lot of handholding to go to sleep,
and so if I am occupied at eight thirty, then
(21:49):
I cannot be telling people to put their devices away.
And so then if I am stuck in the room
with Henry until let's say eight forty five nine, then
sometimes people still have their devices. And sometimes that's true
even if I am not the only adult at home,
which is another thing that needs to be nipped in
the bud this year.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Delineated, delineated, clearly defined.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Clearly defined, But there are alarms that can go off
on people's phones at that time.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, Well we're gonna take one more quick ad
break and then we be back talking back to school routines. Well,
we are back for our ninth annual discussion of the
back to school season. Sarah, what time do your kids
(22:38):
have to go to bed?
Speaker 4 (22:40):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I'm just kidding, honestly, Genevie've probably I'm gonna say, like
around eight thirty. The other kids I tend to as
long as I can't use devices, then I leave that
up to them. Knebell sometimes would stay up doing homework
till pass the point that I was asleep, so I
don't have like a strict bedtime for her specifically, And
(23:02):
I go to bed pretty early, so she's not staying
up till one in the morning or something like that,
but maybe till ten thirty or something like that. And yeah,
so Jennevy's really the only one with a specific bedtime.
I think we're gonna have an all devices off at
eight rules, so that makes staying up fairly self limited.
If they have homework to do, they'll do it, but
I don't see. If they want to read, then fine,
(23:23):
read until you're tired. I think that will be self
limited because their alarm is going to go off in
the morning and then the next.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Night they will be tired. Yeah, a lot of days,
Annabel's not going to be home until nine, honestly.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
But you guys were pretty good about getting the transition
from end of last activity to the bedtime.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, that was at a necessity last year because Cameron
kind of needed to go to bed and his soccer
ended so late.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
But we won't have that.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
We won't have that this year.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Well, you can also figure out sort of in the
going back to school and getting some of the excitement
about it, in the fresh start energy, it might be
an opportunity to do a little psychological to school prep
with the kids to chat about their goals for the year.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
What are they excited about? What are they nervous about?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Ask them when they are looking back on the year
in May or June, whenever you get out of school,
what would they like to have had happen over the
course of the year, To get them thinking a little
forward on that.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Obviously some kids are a lot.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
More introspective than others, but it might be a good conversation,
or you can ask how can I support you in
your goals?
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yeah? I love that.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
We always do that end of the year thing at
melting Pot. So I'm gonna be like picture is at melting.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Pot six, Yes exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
We're going around the table with the our biggest accomplishments.
What do you want to be most excited? I feel
like they're going to get that.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We haven't done this at the beginning of the school year. Really,
we tend to do more of a reflection at the end.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
But I'm going to do it this year. I like that.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, we'll see if I can get my kids to
have that conversation with me. And then, of course, what
would be back to school episode without a discussion of
school supplies. So Michael and Jasper actually went to to
Target and to Ikea yesterday and got a lot of
dorm associated stuff. So he's I guess got most of
(25:10):
the things on the list, which is great. His roommate
is renting the fridge and microwave combo and I guess
we're just kicking in money for that. But this the
rest will take a trip to Target the last week
of before school or something like that.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
I forgot about the fridge microwave combos. That's so college.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
We went to Office Depot and I also got a
bunch of stuff from Amazon, so a combination of those two.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I like Office Depot, like I feel like I've got
a target in years past.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
They do have some cute things, but Office Depot has
like everything. And then it kind of occurred to me
that I want them to stay alive because when you
need a printer cartridge and you need it now, that's
like the only place to go. So I don't want
them to close. So I supported them, just supported my
back to school hall.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, well, I want to convince some of the kids
to do more of a calendar kind of thing. I mean,
I had an enlightening conversation with a child at one
point to shell be nameless of like, well, how do
you remember when something is going to happen?
Speaker 4 (26:06):
And they probably said you remember?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oyeah, well that was about what it came about, you know,
And I get asked with lots of kids like am
I free at this point? I'm like, okay, I can
answer that for you, but it would also behoove you
to know this yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And I know it's hard.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I mean, like the teens aren't going to keep track
of everyone else's schedule and so they don't know that
like other kid has something, so it makes it actually
harder for me to pick you up at this time.
But I don't know, it's I don't like being the
sole keeper of the family calendar.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
No, that's fair. I mean, we still use what I
call the board.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
So it's like we have our whiteboard that has Monday
through Sunday and I put everything everyone has for the
upcoming week, and so people can refer to that, and
our kids do refer to that, like, oh, I can't
ask my friend to do sing Sunday because we're all
going to this thing or we're traveling.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Or something like that.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I am waiting for the point where Annabel wants to
be like all on good calendar and then we'd be like,
maybe share that, but she hasn't asked for that yet,
so we'll kind of take it year by year. She
has a whiteboard she uses in her room to put
like her homework kind of stuff. I mean, all their
stuff's electronic so they can see their assignments, but in
order to visualize like when things are due. And then
I bought Cameron a planner. We'll see if he uses it.
(27:19):
She wants a paper planner as well. So you know,
they are my kids, so yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah. So back to school could also be a time
of renewal for you. It is a fresh start, so
if there's habits that you want to start, you might
be able to convince yourself to build something into a
morning routine or evening routine for yourself. I guess if
I'm saying this, I'd better do it. I was pondering
doing a September reset, similar to some of my past challenges.
(27:47):
People have an opportunity to track their time for a week,
likely that would be September eight through fifteen. Then in
the course of that, I'll have people practice building in
certain habits. It's like giving yourself a bedtime, or having
a designated weekly planning time, or thinking about adventures you
might do on the weekend, or thinking about your evening routine.
(28:09):
So those are all ideas that we can layer in
after we know where the time is going. So that
will be a challenge. Look for on my blog or
my newsletters to sign up for that.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
That sounds super fun. I do plan on doing some
time tracking in August. That tends to be like the
month when I well, this airs at late August, so
September would work as well. But as Q four dawns,
my time tracking energy is fairly high, and I guess
I just want to like understand my new routines a
little bit better. So I think it's a great time
to do it. So Laura's challenge sounds is like it
would be perfect for many people.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, well exciting. I hope everyone is having a wonderful
back to school season. Whether you've already been in school
for like two weeks now or or maybe weeks away,
two weeks away, who knows at this point. So all right,
that brings us to our question. So, Sarah, I guess
(29:01):
do you want to pose this one?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, school lunch versus home lunch. Do you have like
bringing lunch? Do you have thoughts?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I do have thoughts, Sarah, not that Well, let me
put it this way. One is not inherently better than
the other.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I guess that is. My first thought?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Is this gonna be a rant? There might be at alert?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
There should be a.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Rant alert music.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Trademark Vanderkian Ahead, okay, go ahead ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Now I will be calm in my rant, which is
that if you consume social media or parenting blogs or
things like this, sometimes there is a bit of a
narrative that if you are a good parent, you are
making your kids lunches. Sometimes there's the whole visual of
doing that with little cutout stars in their sandwiches that
(29:51):
are then in other little parts of the Bento box
and such. Many of the people who are doing this
are doing this as a professional kind of thing. The
photo or what is earning them endorsements, and so you
can understand that that is professional content creation. It has
nothing to do with what a regular parent should be
doing with lunch packing.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
But this is the key thing.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
I don't know that it is the parent's responsibility to
pack lunch. And in fact, I would go so far
as to say that if your kids are past a
certain age and you are packing for them, you are
missing an opportunity to teach them the skills of pack
thinking ahead about what they might like, about what needs
(30:36):
to be on the grocery list, about what a balanced
meal might entail. All those are important skills as they
will be feeding themselves for life. So even if you
elect to be a family that brings lunch to school,
you as a parent, should probably cease to do that
at a certain point. In our family, it is age eight.
(30:57):
You can come up with your own family rule, but
if you are I would challenge the narrative that you
are a good parent doing this for a much older kid.
Right now, with that, there's nothing wrong with school lunch,
and in fact, there's been plenty.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
There's another narrative that.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
School lunch is terrible, it's bad, it's like a cop
out or something like that. School lunches are designed by
nutritionists and as such are almost guaranteed to have whatever
the USDA recommended allowance of what children are supposed to
have of various nutrients, which is not the case for
home packed lunches. It is the only way you're really
(31:37):
going to safely have something that is hot. Most kids
do not have access to a microwave as part of
their I mean maybe if you're in a very small
school you would, but certainly as not a part of
a bigger school. Would that ever be something that was
And then most thermoses, there has been research on this.
Most thermists do not in fact keep stuff in the
zone long enough for, especially a child with a later
(32:01):
lunch break, for it to have been safely consumed. So
if you want your kid to have a hot lunch,
school lunch is pretty much the only way to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Now, I'm worried about the times I've like microwaved mac
and cheese and put it in the liddle.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, it's a hard thing.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It is a hard thing to keep food hot for
a long period of time and keep it above the
zone of where where bacteria is really growing in it.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
No, that makes sense. We're doing school lunch for the
big kids. I don't want to say it's free, but
it's included. So let's just say, like, I don't want
to be paying extra and bring your home food when
there's lunch there for you. Genevieve is not yet eight,
and their school lunch is not included and is disgustingly
expensive for what you get. So I go the like
(32:46):
halfway route, which is like I buy something like a
pre made salad for three ninety nine and I put
that in her lunch box with a couple of snacks, and.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
She likes that. Yeah, so everyone's happy.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, And certainly the quality of the food.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I mean, by the time you get to like the
middle school and high school in our district, I mean
it's more of almost like deli style, which I'm not
saying it's the most affordable thing. I mean maybe we
would be saving money by packing lunches at this point,
because I know Jasper was getting this like fruit cup,
which is like a pack of strawberries, like you might
buy at a high end deli and it was about
what it was costing every day is the same as
(33:21):
like doing this at Chopped or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
But it's just like, this is not a battle.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I'm not looking to save money by keeping my kids
from buying fruit for lunch.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Let me put it that way.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Totally fair.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, so do what works for your family.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
But we would just strongly encourage you that you can
buy school lunch without thinking that you are failing your
children somehow, that if your kids are bringing a lunch,
you do not personally need to pack it for them,
and there might be some upsides and having them learn
how to create a lunch and make sure things are
on the family grocery list and be in charge of
that for themselves.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It's an opportunity to build a lot of dependence. So
go for that, all right. So, Sarah, Love of the Week,
what do you have?
Speaker 3 (34:06):
What if I name some YouTuber that made like fancy lunches?
We did have family fudge on our Love of the Week.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yes, that would be really hypocritical.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
No.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I was doing Genevieve's hair and I was like realizing
that we've bought the same detangling spray for at least
a decade, and I don't think I've ever shouted it out.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
So the Babo Botanicals Berry and Primrose conditioning spray available
on subscribe.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
And saep at Amazon.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
I really like the smell and it definitely makes detangling
hair easier. Yeah, recommend, recommend, Okay, all.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Right, yeah, I yes, my children don't have hair that
requires detangling. I guess I didn't really understand that that
was a win in any way.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
It's like my niece to sleep on it and it's
like perfectly straight. No, I'm not my.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Care's lovely beautiful things with hair with lots of texture.
I'm not implying it anyway, but in terms of like
time it takes to manage it, that can be more
efficient if your hair does not require that. So yeah,
we had the funny thing the other day was Ruth
was trying to braid her hair to go to before
she was going to camp, and I was like, well
I can do that.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
She's like, I didn't even.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Know you knew how to braid, And I was kind
of like packing lunches. By just not doing things for kids,
they learned to do it all by themselves. And then
you never have to be involved in it, So there
we go. But my love of the week is going
to be Beethoven's sixth Symphony. So the week before we
recorded this, I was doing a lot of driving around
(35:30):
for various camp drop off, pick up, et cetera, and
kid activities. And I've been listening to all the works
of Beethoven this year. So each day I get an assignment,
and one of my assignments last week was Beethoven's sixth Symphony,
and so I was listening to that one day and
then I wound up like listening to it again other
days when I had gotten through that day's selection, because
it's just so awesome. It's amazing. It is an amazing symphony,
(35:53):
the pastoral symphony. So if you have not listened to that,
and you were looking for something to make your drive
to and from school or reactivities or work.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Whatever better today, give it a listen.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
You do it all right? Well, this has been best
of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
With our ninth annual discussion of back to school season,
I guess, sir, I think.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
We're going to make it to a tenth I think so.
I was just thinking that the first time I only
have like one kid in actual school, like so cute.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I don't think we definitely did not have an official
BTS episode. I think that first year, I think it
was more that we were just discussing families, rituals and
things like that. So I don't know, but we've done
it pretty much every year since. I'm pretty sure I've
called it a million things too.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Yeah, I enjoy doing it, so I hope people enjoy
listening to it.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yes, absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
We'll tune in for the tenth one next year, and
in the meantime, here's to making work in life fit together.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
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