When my husband and I made the life-altering decision to relocate our small, close-knit family from California’s Bay Area back to the spirited density of New York City, we truly believed we were crafting a nearly ideal arrangement for the next phase of our collective life. We are a deliberately small family of three, having consciously chosen our family size. Each of us holds deep affection for the work that gives shape and meaning to our days. I am both a writer and a college-level professor specializing in composition and creative nonfiction, roles that allow me to guide students toward developing their voices. My husband, on the other hand, is a computational designer whose professional world lies at the intersection of technology, mathematics, and art.
Our move to the Bay Area in 2020 stemmed from an excellent opportunity that advanced my husband’s career. As his project neared completion in the autumn of the following year, fortune smiled on us again—he was offered another remarkable position, this time back in New York. Not long afterward, and almost serendipitously, I was presented with a fulfilling teaching position there as well. Each of our new roles came with a certain flexibility that we cherished, for it made the idea of raising our elementary school-aged son in a bustling urban environment not only possible but even appealing, at least in theory.
We meticulously mapped out our days around our son’s school schedule, an exercise in balancing parental responsibility, professional dedication, and emotional presence. Our plan was elegantly simple in concept: my husband’s new workplace was only a ten-minute walk from the elementary school, which meant that he could manage the morning drop-offs and one afternoon pickup per week. I adjusted my teaching schedule to include early morning classes, leaving my afternoons free twice each week to handle pickups myself. To enrich our shared time, I even interviewed a part-time babysitter who could remain late once a week, granting us the rare luxury of a consistent date night. For holidays and inevitable sick days, we decided to split responsibilities equally, confident that a cooperative rhythm would ease the strain of busy lives.
Fully aware that juggling work and family life in a metropolis like New York would present challenges, we nonetheless felt cautiously optimistic. Believing convenience would help sustain our equilibrium, we decided to stretch our housing budget to its limit in order to secure an apartment within walking distance of both my husband’s future office and our son’s school. I dutifully synchronized our digital calendars with the New York City public school schedule and designed my semester’s course outlines accordingly, determined to stay ahead of every planned closure and abbreviated day.
But life, as it often does, introduced an unexpected twist. On the very morning we received confirmation of our new lease, my husband learned that the facility from which he was supposed to work would not yet be operational by our move-in date. Instead, he would need to commute to a temporary site far north of the city until the end of the year, a grueling ninety-minute drive each way. Suddenly, the flexible arrangement we had counted on evaporated, replaced by hours lost to transit and fatigue. His new reality made it virtually impossible to assist with day-to-day childcare or make impromptu adjustments when our son’s school schedule deviated from the norm.
As any working parent knows, school calendars rarely align neatly with professional ones. Minimum days, professional development breaks, winter holidays, and those sporadic single-day closures accumulate swiftly, demanding more from parents than time alone. For families operating within budgetary constraints, these minor disruptions can ripple into major stressors—especially when one partner’s work schedule becomes rigid.
After committing a significant portion of our income to rent, we quickly realized that employing additional childcare or extending our babysitter’s hours was financially out of reach. Sick days became logistical puzzles; with his long commute, my husband could no longer work remotely for a few hours while I taught, nor dash home in between meetings. Simple but meaningful engagements—like classroom volunteering or ferrying our son to extracurricular activities—inevitably fell squarely on my shoulders.
Over several long conversations, it became clear that the comfortable balance we had imagined was slipping away. The more we dissected the situation, the more uneasy we felt about our ability to both excel professionally and nurture our family without burning out emotionally or financially. Reluctantly, we reached the conclusion that for this season of our lives, living on opposite coasts might paradoxically be the best way to maintain both our careers and our sanity.
We cancelled our lease in New York and devised an alternate plan. My husband secured a modest and more affordable housing arrangement there, while our son and I returned to the Bay Area, where my teaching schedule happened to align far better with the local school day. Although single parenting is undeniably demanding and rarely without exhaustion, I found that the rhythm here allowed for better consistency and predictability. We committed to parenting together—though separated by time zones and thousands of miles.
My husband adopted a semi-hybrid work structure, flying to see us approximately once a month. During those visits, he worked remotely for several days from our home, taking on the practical household duties that so easily accumulate—grocery runs, laundry piles, dishes waiting in the sink. Alongside those chores, he channeled his love through food, preparing and freezing several batches of our family’s favorite dishes, which helped sustain us during his absence. Our son often joined him in the kitchen, learning by observation and participation—a gesture that preserved the sense of partnership that distance could otherwise erode.
When he returned to New York, we made every effort to maintain connection despite geography. We established nightly family FaceTime dinners, a ritual that became sacred in its consistency. These video calls offered a window into each other’s daily worlds—sometimes featuring him stepping away from a work event to participate, projecting our family circle into his professional life just as we held space for him at our table. Every Sunday, after the household quieted and our son settled in with a movie, my husband and I caught up privately, reweaving our emotional threads.
We also discovered comfort in shared stories. No matter where we reside, we read one book as a family—a tangible link between our worlds. I read the story aloud to our son at bedtime, and when the timing overlaps, my husband continues the tale once he is home. These simple rituals help stitch our two coasts into something that feels, at least temporarily, whole.
Although our arrangement is far from ideal and certainly not the version of family life we once envisioned, we remind ourselves that it is temporary—a necessary adaptation to unpredictable economic and professional currents. Yet there are still days when doubt creeps in, when I question if we chose the right path. Then I glance at my meticulously organized Google calendar, see that New York schools are closed while I am teaching in California, and I remember why we made this difficult, bittersweet choice—to preserve the life we are building, even if it means parenting with distance but unwavering devotion.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/kid-school-schedule-made-us-decide-to-work-opposite-coasts-2025-11
