In the past week, not one or two, but three of my friends have separately wished for the exact same thing. “I need a wife,” these friends have moaned, and they are not single men looking to tie the knot.

These are all married women with part-time or full-time jobs, who have two or three children. To me, their longing needs no explanation. They want someone to pay their bills, submit their family’s health insurance, drag the children to the doctor and dentist, fill in the camp forms, remember to buy the teachers’ gifts, turn in the school medical forms, and whip up dinner.

“I cannot crawl out from under my desk,” a lawyer and mother of two said. “And it’s not my job that is taking up the time. It’s the end of year parties and class trips. And if the camp calls me one more time about those medical forms I’m going to hang up the phone on them. They’ll get them as soon as I get a second to take my kids to the doctor,” she grumbled.

There are many peculiarities to raising children in New York, but perhaps one of the most glaring is the fact that June presents a finish line. It’s not just because June marks the end of school. Unlike those living in Los Angeles or Chicago or Miami, many New Yorkers leave the city in the summer. Sometimes it’s just for a few weeks in August, and sometimes it’s from the middle of June until the beginning of September.

Because you can’t count on everyone — or anyone — to be in the city during the summer, a whole lot has to happen before school lets out.

“One of my kids has 12 birthday parties between now and the middle of June,” a mother of three boys said. “All the kids that are born in May, June, July, and August are having their parties before school gets out. All 12 of them need gifts, and some are at Chelsea Piers and some are at Asphalt Green. Some are in the middle of the park, and some have rain dates. Can’t they just all have one big party together?” she asked.

It’s not just the junior set that has to celebrate before the mass exodus.

“There are so many cocktail parties and benefits in the next few weeks, I don’t know if I have enough energy to survive,” a dermatologist and mother of three said. “I know New York has a particular rhythm and that it heats up in May and June, but I’m just so tired at six o’clock I want to collapse. Instead, I have to get dressed up and go to some shindig.”

Another woman who wants a wife said that properly thanking her children’s teachers is going to take far more time than she would like. “At my daughter’s nursery school, the parents are discouraged from buying individual teacher’s gifts in December, but are free to do so in June,” she said. “And on top of getting a cute gift for each teacher, many parents write lengthy letters to the teachers, and have their children draw some little doodle. There are three or four teachers per child. I have three children. I have a job. I would also like to have a life,” she groaned.

One mother of three, a writer, said that some class parents are organizing books to be presented to the teachers. “These aren’t normal books,” she growled. “These are books filled with our children’s deep appreciation for their teachers. The only thing my child appreciates right now is that there are 8 more days of school, okay? So guess who’ll be drawing a little picture and then forcing her kids to write something on the paper? You got the idea,” she said.

Even in the dead of January it’s hard to return the calls, the e-mails, the bills, the forms, the birthday gifts, and the RSVPs on time, all while getting some form of dinner on the table, picking up the gang from school, and getting the job done well enough.

But the end of May and the first half of June are like the last stretch of a grueling race. The finish line is in sight, but getting there will be exhausting — especially without another wife.

sarasberman@aol.com