Confusion and Coordination

If the concept of both the husband and wife of a large family returning to school sounds at all convenient then you have clearly not had the benefit of my experience. I have found that the challenge of returning to school offers a level of difficulty to a nontraditional student such as me, which extends beyond the obvious challenges of time management between study and work. There are even greater challenges in coordination with the other members of the family, particularly with transportation.

It would seem that careful planning would reduce the stress associated with meeting everyone’s needs within the home. However, coordinating the schedules of seven different people within a household can be nearly impossible. The odds of the various activities of five children aligning in a fashion for us to provide transportation for each of the activities are slim. In my home there are two children in high school and their class schedules do not align with each other. Since my daughter drives, my teenage son must either go to school early or stay late as needed because there are not any other transportation options for him. Both my wife and I are unavailable to transport him at his convenience due to our class schedules. The schedules my wife and I have at school and work also conflict with the needs of my three younger children who luckily attend the same school and have the same schedule. My daughter has the responsibility of getting them to school every morning except Friday when my wife is available. My wife picks up the three younger children every day except Wednesday when no one in the home including myself is available. On those days my mother in-law retrieves the children. In return for the service provided by my mother in-law, my wife periodically house sits with her elderly grandmother. When my wife has to house sit this makes her even less available and further complicates the scheduling process.

Every week we sit down as a family and schedule out all our activities and transportation needs. It can become contentious at times as individual activities have to be prioritized. Unfortunately some activities have to be skipped. My younger children often have to scrap plans to visit friends or go to movies and such because of transportation issues. At other times they have to walk or ride their bikes if it is within a reasonable distance and they can return before it gets dark. The struggle for what is most important can become heated at times. We often rely on my daughter to help with transportation of her brothers. Because we provide her with a vehicle and a gas allowance she will normally consent to helping out, however she is employed and sometimes is not available. Her brothers do not always comprehend the order of priority and can in fact become upset when their activites get moved down the list. My daughter also gets upset when time she would like to spend with friends is interrupted by the needs of her brothers. She sometimes feels like an on call taxi service.

Even with all the planning it doesn’t always work. There is the human factor to consider. If a ride is missed because someone forgot to pick someone up or a meeting runs late everything can get ugly real quick. For example I was to pick up my boys from an activity at a certain time because my wife had a planned study session with some fellow students. I was meeting with a client and the meeting ran long. My daughter had already left for work and was unavailable. My wife had to leave her activity to pick up the boys from theirs. When things don’t go as planned it can cause a lot of confusion and frustration. With both me and my wife in school coordination of the activities with our children is essential but often it’s not enough to prevent confusion and resentment.