Confidential to "Parenting for 4 days"

 My mother raised 5 children.  You have to get buy-in if you want to get them to school on time.  First?  No picture taking of the darlings in the morning.  They have to get to school on time.  Snap em all you like, AFTER school.  Second?  Rush em along, even if it makes them... "unhappy".  There's a bell.  You're an adult who knows how to read a clock.  Every child has the same starting time...

Finally?  There's a reason adults with school-aged children -- even the most elite ones with paid professional help -- don't take romantic vacations on school days/nights.  You get all of June July and August off for trips if you're an academic.  Respect your kids' school years?

If you have three children -- and between the pandemic, the sabbatical and the maternity leave -- you really have not worked a full-time job (although you've collected full pay checks) and gotten into a routine of raising three children with paid care, then you need to up your game...

Step up with your partner, and develop a proper parenting plan.  Who will pick the children up, timely?  Every day?  Who will drop the children off, timely?  Every day?  Can one parent "cover" if the other has necessary out-of-town-travel during the children's school years?  It's best, even with paid help, to have at least one parent in the home to keep the children on an at-home routine.

Bless your hearts for letting the little one explain that her parents are vacationing -- after counseling couples in the state of Wisconsin couples to ... "hold hands"during times of trouble voting (ok, but do you really need to take 4 days to celebrate yourselves and your 10 years of marriage, bit indulgent coming after the pandemic stay-at-home-times, no?), and that's why she's late to school today... but please play by the rules?  No child is so special that the times should change for her because her parents are academic biggies with some pull in the local region. She's just another school child to others.

Good luck.  Let them parent! (It's easy to want to step in and "help" your children, of whatever age. But sometimes, the best thing you can do is tell them 'you got this!' and encourage them to step up and meet the responsibilities they have undertaken in life for themselves.  You really can't do it for them, parents, and you cripple them -- and those who are paying for them to do the double duty work of raising three children AND meeting the job responsibilities they have undertaken outside of the home.

It's really not so easy as it looks, but you don't understand that until you get into the day-to-day-today grind, and keep it up until the youngest is 18 and out the house.  Strike "easy peasy" childish words from your vocab already.  And remember that while there are government homes in America you can check your elders into, when their care gets to be too much, parents are still the primary caregivers for their children...

Do your jobs, the number one of which is to be present to raise your children every day...  

If not now, when?  

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ADDED:  Perspective from actual working parents who have jobs where they have to be there on time.  Adults:  do your drills at home so you don't slow down others who respect the rules, the clock and have the routine down to get their children to school on time...