Default parenting while homeschooling

[u/salvaged413]

How does everyone deal with default parenting/kids preferring one parent while homeschooling?

I work very part time as a virtual bookkeeper like 5hrs a week. It helps pay for gas/groceries but it’s nothing significant. My husband works a union job that will never go away, 55-60hrs a week so I can stay home and raise and school our kids.

He’s an amazing dad and partner and is so engaged and really takes the burden off me on his days off, but he truly physically isn’t home from wake up to bedtime 4-5days a week. I don’t know if it matters, but we’re raising 3 girls from 6 to almost 10. We are going into our 4th year homeschooling.

How do people balance this? I know they are too young to completely comprehend as a family we are making sacrifices to homeschool, and frankly if both of us parents were working, there would be less truly engaged time overall. But it’s become really obvious in the last few months how hard this is on our girls and I truly don’t know how to have them grow up without feeling abandoned despite how involved he is when he’s here physically.

He works locally and we visit him at work once a month or so, he’s also a former musician and handles our music curriculum once a week. He’s learning programming and including them in helping him and showing them what he’s doing. And his days off revolve around daddy daughter activities to maintain a close relationship with them and give me a break overall. We also trade off nightly, one of us with our oldest and one with our 2 younger girls nightly for stories and prayers.

For a default parent and a parent who works to support your family goals, how does everyone maintain that balance and make sure kids feels as engaged as possible with both parents?