DS hates my job

I work in a school. My son had a bit of a breakdown over me not being able to attend a parents curriculum meeting at the start of the year, never mind that we'd just had six weeks off together!
I know he wouldn't rather do holiday clubs and have me go to a meeting all about the maths scheme they follow, but in the moment that's what mattered to him!

So I get it OP. But you're still doing what seems to work well for your family so don't beat yourself up.

It sounds to me like you are doing an amazing job and being an amazing present parent x

It's a way of life job like farming ehich I grew up in. I hated it but it's what my parents did so yough.

Yup.

My daughter, at that age said to me "why can't you stay at home like other mums and then you could ... insert demand here.

I repeated this comment to another mum, who said, it may cheer you up to know that my child said "why can't you go to work like other mums so that we can afford ... insert demand here

That's just kids 😁

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Ha! So true 😂 Particularly with my older child. The younger one not so much but OMG the shit I get if I miss a bedtime…..

When my kids were small,I was a self employed 'tradie' ,earning a pretty good hourly rate as a single mum. Totally absent father from when they were 1&3yrs,no maintenance ,no childcare ,nothing .
I was run ragged but made it all work,providing absolutely everything for them ,obviously doing all the school runs,playing with them, bedtimes,turning up in my messy work clothes to school plays,parents eves etc etc. Spinning so many plates ,but I thought I was doing ok with it all.

Until my eldest at 7yrs ,said "Why don't you have a normal job like other mums ,something much better than what you do now ?!"
I snuck off and quietly wept!

He was just too little to understand .....but is super proud of me now though 😂

My sister ran a pub with her partner while her kids were growing up. They both never had any time to spend with their children. Working most evenings, nights and weekends in the pub and then having to do all the shopping, accounts, event planning and general catching up when the pub was shut. It's very hard work running a pub. Any spare time they managed to grab together they were knackered.
They left the pub trade about the same time the youngest left school - it was obvious for those around them to see this was not an ideal family situation. I never asked what the kids thought about it.
Now my sister is retired all the kids have left home and I know she has big regrets about missing so much of their childhood.

When my 7 year old moans that I’m always at work (I’m not and like you I don’t miss a damn thing) I point out that he seems to quite enjoy spending the money. That usually shuts him up 😂

OP I have exactly the same bedtime disagreement with my DH. It means I always do bedtime too. I think a PP nailed it when they said your DS doesn’t hate your job really, he just loves your bedtime routine. I see this too in my own kids. Please don’t beat yourself up, you’re doing great.

And fwiw your work and home set-up sounds pretty great imo xx

Sounds .ike your dpneeds to make bedtimes more fun and pull his weight more

I was brought up in pubs and hated it. So much time spent upstairs in the flat alone. My siblings and I knew not to complain though.

You are making your child live with people who drink ALCOHOL, OP! These people will be wild and amoral. How terrible of you. And also…The alcohol fumes from downstairs will creep upstairs into your child’s bedroom and into their lungs and do them no end of physical and mental damage. You need to leave the pub and pack in that job - NOW!

You're doing a grand job. You don't need to justify yourself to a 7 YO.

I think the main issue here is your partner is not making bedtime fun on his nights

So is having a parents away on active duty ‘normal’? What about a police officer working odd shifts? Night workers?

What the hell is ‘normal’?

I think children just hate when you can’t play with them exactly on their terms. My DS also hates my job. I do all school drop offs and pick ups and largely work around him. He got up really early this morning like 6:30 instead of 7:45 and I was working. He had a meltdown about it and hating my work. I’m sure in the moment he did but we talked about it and came to a conclusion. Sometimes it feels like it is designed to fuel mum guilt but that’s our reaction to their emotions. They don’t know the consequences really just that they feel sad in the moment. Don’t overthink it. Any job you do will always be wrong at some time or other.

If there is a tendency to be interrupted, I can see how that might be stressful. We have this a bit with DH. He and I both wfh, but I am better at demarcation. He does things like come out for dinner and then go back to work without telling us he needed to work late. The problem isn’t that he needs to work, it’s the change in expectations from relaxed family evening to him disappearing.

I would talk to your son and ask him to work through the good and bad parts of your job from his perspective. There may be some tiny changes you can make that will make his experience better that make absolutely no difference to you.

We have a slightly similar situation where we live where we work, but not a pub. In some ways it's very convenient but other times not so much. The dc have mixed views about it. I often talk to the dc that as parents we have to make choices and there are advantages and disadvantages. Like if you were a sahm you would have a bit more time with him but there would be a lot less money for nice things. We have a lot of time with our dc but we are short of money so days out and activities have to be saved up for. Meanwhile we know a family whose parents work lots of hours so kids are in full time childcare but they go on multiple holidays a year, including disneyland.

I had similar but because I was never there for school stuff, never did drop off or pick up because I work 8-4 every day.

Kids know how to play on the mum guilt.

Unfortunately if he wants you at school stuff and wants to do his clubs, you need to work. As awful as it sounds kids need to understand that it is a trade off.

I knew a manager in South Wales who grew up in a pub. She was energetic, confident, capable and didn't seem remotely badly affected by her upbringing -- rather the opposite.

When I was very young, I used to cry and cling to my mother's skirts when she was setting off for work. Two minutes later and I'd forget all about it. The mistake there was probably ritualizing the goodbye process. If I hadn't been taken downstairs to say bye-bye, I wouldn't have got worked up. Also, I think on some very odd level I may have sensed that I was expected to cry and be upset, and was fulfilling my filial duty by doing so.

In short, don't feel bad about working – you're doing a great job, and one day your son will admire that.

Re: your partner and bedtime. There are more resources out there now for parents with dyslexia who want to tell bedtime stories to their kids. You could maybe ask at your local library for advice/suggestions? e.g. using an e-reader with settings (contrast, colours, font, text size) that work well for your partner.

Quite a few men who are non-readers and value their tough, I'm-too-male-for-fiction personas seem to respond a lot to Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl. Your son would be about the right age for it.

(I know I'm overextending my own experience, but my late and much missed Dad told wonderful stories -- bedtime was exactly that cliché magical ritual that librarians are always trying to brainwash you into believing in.)

Love this. When my youngest was 7 he wanted a "real dad in America" who he could video call like the girl in waffle the wonder dog.

My DD hates my office job too, where I wfh a lot and go to every single event. She hates me seeing friends, reading, watching what I want on telly. She hates anything I do where she’s not at the centre! It’s normal!

I've worked 9-5s and my Dd often told me she didn't like me working. 7 is too young to understand that any job (unless it's within school hours, which isn't easy to find and is usually lower pay) will take you away from him sometimes. It sounds like you have a really good work life balance, not many working parents can do all school runs and activities.

He is seven. He does not understand how life works yet. I would gently try explaining to him that to live you have to work and that this takes time and means you need to spend time away from him. It is however the same living that puts food on the table and means he gets to do the things he enjoys. It is never too early to try and give him this lesson, but yes it is hard for most women and we will most have had this type of thing.