To not understand how people have an evening.

My kids have chores but personally on weekday evenings I’d rather mine concentrate on homework/spellings/reading/music practice/hobbies etc.

You hoover, sweep out the fireplace and wash the floor every single day??

We always have washing up as well as dishwasher stuff after the evening meal, but it doesn't take 1.5 hours to wash the pans, load the dishwasher and bung a load of washing in the machine. What you do after dinner is exactly what we do. It takes about 20 minutes - admittedly that's both of us doing it. My husband washes pots that need washing by hand. I load the dishwasher, unset the table and wipe the kitchen surfaces down. I would be able to do it much faster if the dishwasher wasn't next to the sink my husband is using. Whoever's finished first runs up and gets a load of washing. I feed the cats, husband feeds the dogs - done.

Never been more happy to live in a house with no fireplace/stove! One less job, I did it for years and it was just my ultimate pet hate.

Why aren't your kids helping with all these chores? You should be doing them as a family.

I only properly cook on one, maybe two nights in the week - Thursday when we have some sort of pasta, and sometimes Monday. Wednesday is beans on toast, Friday is leftovers from Thursday, other days I defrost something I’ve batch cooked at a weekend. I freeze pastas, cottage pie, lentil bake, macaroni cheese, curry with rice all in little kid size portions, ready in 4 mins in microwave.
I also don’t clean in the week. Dishwasher gets run on a quick cycle while I put kids to bed and then emptied straight away that evening so it’s all ready for breakfast things etc. in morning. Lower your standards!

You can likely put most of that on the top rack or short/mild cycle. I don’t wash up anything unless it’s horrendous. All trays go in the dishwasher and painted plates etc

But even so surely you aren’t using all of that stuff every day?
But let’s say you are washing some bits up. 10 min job.
2/3 mins to un stack dishwasher and another 5 to refill. Which someone else can do at same time you are washing up tbh
Then grab washing and shove in the machine another 2 min job.

That would be maybe max 20 mins to get that done. There is no way that can take 90 mins You could have watched a whole film in that time 🤣

OP can’t things like sweeping out the fireplace and hoovering the house be done on your 3 non working days?

I cannot imagine a world in which I would start hoovering and sweeping out a fireplace the minute I got in from work, with kids in tow. Early dinner would be my priority on getting through the door. Save a plate for husband to warm up for himself when he gets in later. I also wouldn't make my kids tidy their rooms as soon as they got home from school - that would take place after dinner once they'd had time to decompress and calm down after being at school all day. If everyone eats earlier, things run smoother I find.

Because that would get in the way if the 90 minutes she apparently has to spend hoovering

Oh wow. I’m a solo dad of three (now 7, 6, and 4) and honestly, evenings used to feel like a never-ending hamster wheel of chores, chaos, and zero downtime.
What helped me was breaking the routine into tiny, 10-minute “micro-wins” (like prepping lunches right after dinner, or doing a 5-min family reset before bath/bed). It’s not magic, but it’s made evenings a bit less relentless.
If you (or anyone else here) ever want to swap ideas or see what’s worked for us, happy to DM. Solidarity to everyone in the trenches—some nights just surviving is a win.

We wash up/load the dishwasher immediately after dinner, and put it on before bed. We also put a load of laundry in just before bed. The evening in between this is ours - sometimes used helping son with his coursework or whatever, sometimes I have to work, but mostly for watching TV or reading. I go to bed at 11pm.

I get up between 6.30am and 7.00am and empty the dishwasher, clear the grate and re-lay the fire, put washing out to dry, feed the animals, sort packed lunches and do half an hour of pilates. My husband does all the cooking and food shopping. We both clean - he does downstairs, I do upstairs, takes 2 hours a week. We religiously put things away as we go along during the week so that never feels like a job.

What bits are you doing, that we're not? I suppose my son is older and needs less support in the mornings.

Next time we do the kitchen I’m having 2 dishwashers installed as ours is always on and then a load on top waiting to go in again. Could feel more on top of kitchen with 2

I don’t have a real fire but I’m assuming you don’t sweep it out every day or hoover and wipe the floor every day. So you could start making dinner about 4.30/5pm and eat at say 5.30.
Im not sure how washing up and the dishwasher plus putting something in the washing machine took 1.5 hours later though.

It sounds like you are doing jobs in an extremely long period of time which could be done in 5/10 mins or jobs that won’t need doing everyday?

I always had an evening. I’d do your evening jobs at other times, so washing/packed
lunches done while making tea, kitchen cleaned and dishwasher loaded and on as soon as we had finished eating. Washing taken out and into the tumbler dryer. Dishwasher unloaded, laundry out of tumbler and folded while kids had breakfast. We would always be sat down by about 7.30pm. I did only work part time though, I could well imagine it’s more of a struggle if your all out all day

Yeah agree with PP’s. We have a 1 and 4 year old and when they’re in bed, we might do the odd thing but generally that’s our time.

We finish work between 1630/1700 and one of us goes home & cooks dinner, the other will go & collect them from nursery. Whoever cooks tries to clean up as they go. We eat dinner together & then while the kids have a bit of play time or a yoghurt or something, one of us runs the bath/packs the bags for the next day while the other is with them or finishing the cleaning up. Bath them, put one down each and then at 1930 we are free for a cuppa and to watch something together. We might sometimes fold a load of washing or put a wash on after they’re in bed but generally by 8pm we are free.

I couldn’t cope with your schedule as I like to be in bed by 10pm, 1030 latest 😆 are you both working as a team to get stuff done efficiently? Do your kids chip in?

We rehash a lot of the same things but do have plenty on rotation! We make loads of chillis, both beef and turkey ones, we have a fab chicken soup/stew using loads of veg / coconut milk on constant rotation at the moment too. We use a LOT of the slow cooker recipes ‘Bored of Lunch’ posts on his Instagram. I’ll batch cook a nice bolognese so we just need to do the pasta on the night. Get a veg chopper cheap on Amazon to help with the leg work!

Yes that was my thought too. Why would emptying the dishwasher and sorting a wash take an hour and a half, rather than 10 minutes ?

No I agree, I definitely have never force fed mine!
ETA by ‘it’s all they were ever offered’ I don’t mean that they’re given food they don’t like and are expected to eat it. I meant they do like it, because they’ve basically eaten the same way since weaning. I don’t feed them anything they don’t like (DD2 can’t stand prawns, for example).

During the week we do laundry, bins, dishes, worktops and occasionally sweep the floor. Anything else is left until the weekend when maybe it will get done or maybe not. Our house certainly doesn’t look dirty. No one needs to do daily hoovering.

I work hybrid, so laundry tasks are done on wfh days in my breaks. Dishwasher either at breakfast time or it goes on as soon as I get home from work/finish work. Packed lunches was always my job at breakfast time when we did them

We have max 30 mins of housework in the evening, mainly tidying the kitchen after dinner and never laundry at that time. Usually sit down for TV at 8.30 or 9, sometimes DH walks the dog in the evening so I'll play computer games. Bed at 10/10.30

Why don't you put a wash on when you get home rather than leave it so late?

My kids aren’t hungry kids. They’d happily not eat any dinner which is what they’d do if they didn’t like it, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. And I don’t think force feeding is good either.

A lot of that would have been done while the kids ate breakfast.
Wash load goes on overnight and in those days, got put into the tumble drier in the morning. Now it gets hung up. You didn't mention ironing - that would be done at the weekend while watching TV.
Lunch gets made during breakfast.
Very small amount of washing up as the dishwasher does most of it. Usually done by one while the other does bed. If really bad, left to steep overnight and I would do while kids had breakfast. Quick clean of kitchen, tidy of lounge and folding of clothes from tumble drier also done during the kids' bed routine or after if DH was away. So probably 30 mins max housework after kids in bed.

And yes, get the kids doing more. Eg. getting their own breakfast, helping empty dishwasher, tidying toys. I was never successful with putting clothes away though 🙁