Parents Face Challenges of Rearranging Careers and Schedules : For some moms and dads, guiding and disciplining kids means giving up higher-status jobs or working split shifts.

Parents juggle budgets, schedules and lives to pay the high price of raising their children in Ventura County.

Long commutes, costly housing, and expensive day-care force some to change the hours they work. And others sacrifice careers to spend more time at home.

Erin Quinn, a single mother and associate dean for women at the USC School of Medicine, is one of them.

When a heart attack killed her husband, Nick Vlaco, 36, last year, money and parenting time grew tight for Quinn, who also faced a daily three-hour round-trip commute between Ventura and Downtown Los Angeles.

She gave her son and two daughters an ultimatum: Help more with chores or move back to Los Angeles, closer to her job.

“They’re like, ‘Oh no, Mom, no!’ ” recalled Quinn, 36. “Now when I get home, the table is set, the kitchen’s been cleaned up. They don’t do everything, but they definitely make a conscious effort to help me more.”

And, while the children have done their part, Quinn has decided to more than meet them halfway. Within the year, she said, she plans to quit her job for a new one in the health or college administration fields in Ventura.

“It’s my first priority,” she said firmly. “When the kids are off in college, that’s when I can do something else.”

In addition to sacrificing higher-status jobs elsewhere, many two-parent families in Ventura County work split shifts to keep at least one parent with the children at all times.

When Renato and Lena Guarin moved to Oxnard from the Philippines in 1986, he worked nights and she worked days so someone would always be home for their three boys.

For the Guarins, parenting time to guide and discipline their children was vital, especially in the teen years.

“During adolescence, the so-called transition period of ages, they begin to thrill-seek,” said Renato Guarin, 49.

Even split shifts cause some Ventura County parents a little guilt, however.

Gregory Buice pulls a graveyard shift most nights to keep his Simi Valley janitorial service running from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m. while Donna Buice, a schoolteacher, gets the day shifts, allowing her to stay home afternoons and all summer with their two children, Matthew, 14, and Allyson, 8.

Matthew says his mother has taught them how to relate well to girls and women, but he adds that he wishes he had more time to spend with his father.

“I also need to learn how to cope with my Dad,” Matthew lamented. “I should have the male characteristics, too. I feel like I need to spend more time with him, and I desire that close relationship.”

Gregory Buice sighed.

“It’s very frustrating sometimes,” said Buice, 43. “I don’t think you should spend every minute with them--they need their own time. But you’re their role model. You’re their teacher. You’re the one who’s responsible to raise them, to teach them moral standards and your belief systems. . . . And they want to spend time with their Mom and Dad.”

But for two-job couples like Jon and Jean Ainsworth of Thousand Oaks, who both must work to support their Thousand Oaks household, the privilege of raising their children in Ventura County is worth any sacrifice.

The Ainsworths also work split shifts, so they don’t see each other as much as they would like. They keep Jami, Jenna and Jesse busy with after-school sports programs, sometimes pitching in on coaching and chauffeuring their kids and teammates from game to game.

And they often opt for family chats over fast-food dinners instead of home-style meals, when work deprives them of time and energy to cook.

“It’s still sitting down to the family dinner table, but it’s at Carl’s Jr.,” said Jean Ainsworth, 40, a Los Robles Regional Medical Center nurse.

“Whether it’s the schools, work, sports or social activities, we want to be both as involved as we can,” said Jon Ainsworth, 48, a Simi Valley police lieutenant. “You only get one chance to be a parent.”