To be confused by the two working parent set up

I'm South Asian too but my mum went back to work when I was a few months old and continued working till she retired. They paid for childcare. Most women I know in my immediate family or friends of the same culture have always worked - they are educated. graduates, so it was very much a working culture for the women.

Possibly
Im Late 50s
My mum and all aunts and mums friends worked
I worked as did all my friends
I know a few women who didn’t but as these are Private school mums I’m guessing financially they didn’t have to, although most did.

We all juggled with everything, just as you are having to now and very few had family nearby. Even when they did they were all working aswell.
It seems all a blur now. Taking one day at a time and with the exception of remembering being totally exhausted all the time I really don’t know how we got through it with twins and one three years older. I wasn’t obsessed with cleaning….perhaps that helped 😁

I have started putting home life first, as they say you can be replaced in an instant at work but not at home. I don’t do all that above and beyond stuff at work and I still take home the same pay.
I just save some energy for when I get home. Life is short and when I’m gone it’s my children who will remember me not my employer.

All very good practical advice but I do kind of resent that we have to let our standards drop -eat less healthy, live in mess, kids on screens too much (my house) just to get by.

im 30s my mum was at home full time so we’re both my grandparents.

Where I live there are Victorian houses that were built for workers in the local industry. Now it would certainly take 2 middle class full time incomes to buy the same house. I do sound a misery but think strain on families increasing with each generation.

All very good practical advice but I do kind of resent that we have to let our standards drop -eat less healthy, live in mess, kids on screens too much (my house) just to get by.

im 30s my mum was at home full time so we’re both my grandparents.

Where I live there are Victorian houses that were built for workers in the local industry. Now it would certainly take 2 middle class full time incomes to buy the same house. I do sound a misery but think strain on families increasing with each generation.

Same here.
My Mum would have been 80 this year. She worked a full time day job, plus three evenings a week for a few years.
I'm in my 50s and have always worked. Although I did have the luxury of going PT for some years when the children were young.
My DDs wih children are both in their 30s. One doesn't work and the other works part time.
So based on that, my mother's generation had it the hardest.

Yes. The vast majority of women with children have always worked. Mn seems to have a weird sociological blind spot where a disproportionate number of posters think women were rosy-cheeked SAHMs with not a thought in their heads outside Kinder, Küche, Kirche because of the Stalwart Providers they’d married, until nasty old feminism ruined the idyll.

I'm in my 70s and gave up work when first was born (1978) and went back part-time when second one started junior school (1987). A lot of the mums were able to do the same though none of us were rich.

I grew up in a pretty poor area, everyone worked, hard manual jobs, men working 60 hope weeks labouring or machine work if they got lucky, women with multiple part time jobs cleaning, shop work, fruit picking, factories etc. Benefits couldn't be lived on, you left school and got a job at 14, you made do, everyone helped each other out, 50p for the meter, one mum picking up 5 different kids one day, another doing it the next, primary age children walking home from school and letting themselves in. Only in middle class idylls did daddy go to work in an office while mummy stayed at home and baked. I'm grateful to now have access to education, I went to university which was a fantasy to my parents generation, we have funded childcare, wrap around exists, flexible working, condensed hours, statutory sick pay. There's no way life is harder than it was for my parents.

I don’t think this is true at all.

I think people are SCREAMING out for “the village”- they’re just not sure how to make it work alongside the demands of modern working life.

Millennial / Gen Z parents are working SO many more hours, as so many more mums are working FT, that our more limited time with children / families feels like it needs to be super intensive. We’re trying to make up for a lack of time, with extra attention/ entertainment / opportunities - so we schedule our time with our kids so much more- and that leads to families becoming quite isolated as we all pursue our packed schedules.

Meanwhile grandparents etc are also still working, largely, and not available in the community in the same way they would once have been.

Generationally, we’re also trying to “correct” some of the less positive parenting practices of the 80s/ early 90s - and the pendulum is swinging too far the other way in that correction (I imagine what you’re talking about is permissive parenting- which is not the same as gentle parenting just for the record). I suspect we’ll settle somewhere more moderate socially, but we have to go through this correction first.

Im not sure what the answer is, but pointing the finger at “parents who don’t want anyone to discipline their kids” isn’t it. It’s more about macroeconomic forces and socioeconomic policy, than individual parents- and there will need to be a major shift in how we think about work, childhood, community and family, before we see anything like a return to closer knit communities.

So much of this!!!!

we run a 2 full time, often abroad travel with 2 children and a dog. No outside home help and they still both make after school activities and get school drop off daily and a pick up on a Friday.

grandparent help on odd days on the school holidays.

it’s doable you just need to be beyond organised, we see the time spent together on holidays far more valuable than ensuring a 3pm pick up when they go to clubs.

I will never understand the concept of people continually adding to family if it’s not working for them, you made the choice.

Whereas I didn't know anyone whose mum didn't work 🤷🏻‍♀️ they couldn't afford not too

You’re not wrong. When I got divorced, and was back commuting and working full time with four children in nursery/school, trying to keep up with the various sports and activities they were involved in, I needed to hire in 25 hours of childcare, and if I’d had money to spare (which I didn’t) I’d also have hired in four hours of weekly cleaning and four hours of weekly laundry/ironing, as I had no leisure time and indeed was sleep deprived for a few years until I got a hybrid role.

The flip of this though is my DGM - wasn’t allowed to attend university because ‘it wasn’t worth it for girls’ and was (fairly clearly looking back) clinically depressed as a result of having to spend he whole life as a housewife when far more academic than her (lovely but of his time) husband. I’m not convinced it was better for her…

Agree
and OP says they are 40?
perhaps it’s a different country or culture ?

Agreed. I think it’s a western secular mentality. The sense of community is still strong in many religious sects and different cultures generally. Some cultures still live with extended family and very much believe in the village mentality.

Women didn't work in your parents' generation? How old are you? My mother worked (and didn't have her parents around to help), my grandmothers worked, they also shouldered much more of the housework than I do. I'm not going to say that being a working mother is easy, because it's not, but it's not the impossible feat that some seem to think it is.

It's a lot but having said that a lot of women with young children - or any age children actually - do work PT.

The main thing is getting your partner to do their fare share, which will likely mean more than half when you are ill.

You can get nannies who are willing to shop and do basic housework, but you need to negotiate all that.

I have a slightly different perspective as I’m nearly 50. My parents both worked, had two kids and a big house. But they were unhappy and divorced when we were mid teens. I have one child as we knew we could afford that comfortably. We bought a small house in an area with good schools, and did it up but stayed there. I work full time, DH was stay at home dad and then worked part time. He went to all school events etc.
We deliberately decided to live the life we could afford. I know it’s not the same for everyone but it worked for us.

I pray every week that I come into a decent sum of money that would enable me to give up work and become a house wife. I've struggled and juggled 3 kids into adulthood whilst always working full time. I think i'm about done now, i've had enough. I would quite happily retire (mid 40's), have some hobbies, me time, less stress, cook home cooked meals every night, spend more time with parents while I can and look after my grandchildren.

I’m mid 40s and my mum worked from when I was 3 until she retired. We didn’t have a car until I was 10 as they couldn’t afford it. All commuting and big shops done on the bus/walking. Only one grandparent still alive when I was born and she lived an hour away. (She also still worked in her 70s as a part time cleaner). I don’t think any women in my family have ever been just stay at home parents.