Modern life is overwhelming

I only have space for a small freezer so we found that didn’t work.

Because my eldest is too young to go the shops at the times we invariably realise we have run out of milk.

Not supermum by why are the parents doing homework?

My parents helped with my homework when I was a dc & sometimes my dc need help. Helping isn’t doing & why wouldn’t you help if able?

Likewise!

I agree 100%. Dh and I talk about this often. In both our careers in companies he has worked and in the education sector where I work, job roles have been removed endlessly and replaced by technology. What you end up with is all the admin previously handled by assistants and secretaries is now your job. All the support in schools is now the teachers job. Technology just creates layers and layers of work for every bit of time it saves. Everything needs a password, authentication apps, signing up to accounts before you can do anything just so companies can harvest your data.

I used to like life when you didn't need to download an app to be able to park, or order food in a restaurant. When you didn't get a billion emails a day. When could ring a number and speak to a human. My brain is so overstimulated all the time.

Your issue isn’t modern life @PlumPlumb . you very clearly have marriage issues that are weighing you down

What great advice! Why didn't I ever think of cancelling Tarquin's fencing lessons and selling Jemima's pony so we can afford a gardener?

Silly me 😆😆😆

I like “modern life”

Mind you I am anally organised and tidy, so that probably helps

To be fair, we needed to know the coach was coming so we could send them in with a gumshield. Yeah the rest is pretty much guff. I just read briefly and close the message.

Because they can't work out how to do it themselves because they have a shit mum who is failing at mumming.

That's what I tell myself in the shower anyway.

Not supermum by why are the parents doing homework?

Oh and if you wash school shirts / tops and put on hangers at 5/6pm then generally are dry next morning

Out of those 13 messages how many were actually needed? Why do you need to know a sports coach is coming. Weekly news is just guff, anything kids want to tell you they will.

The good luck message is irrelevant ( unless it's your kid)

So only the early closure messages were necessary really

But fully agree with you at only being as overwhelming as you make it.

My kids homework was their responsibility If it involved me having to do it then it's not THEIR homework is is. ( Listening to reading being the exception) Secondary school if they didn't do it then they had to deal with the consequences . I've still never forgotten DD1s maths teacher telling me I HAD to make DD do ger homework. Strangely enough she had no suggestions exactly HOW I could make her do it. Yes she had to stay in but shed happily sit at the table and just refuse

Clubs? Well they went brownies or cubs in village hall 2 mins down rd. . No big deal. And did more stuff once they got to secondary on the proviso of they joined these things it was their responsibility to get themselves to and from them

So making sure I wasn't overwhelmed by doing a load of unnecessary stuff

I don't know why I posted

These threads always result in the super mums telling the rest of us that we must be doing it wrong because they can manage to be a full time brain surgeon, cook from scratch every night, have piles of clean folded school uniform, pick the children up every night and get all the home work done etc etc and life is lovely and stress free 😆

No accounting or recognition at all for the intricacies of people's lives that might mean they don't have the same resources to cope with it all for whatever reason.

In my case it's a job that means people die if I don't do it correctly. No family help, no help from the DCs other parent. Auto immune conditions and other external responsibilities that also pull on my time and energy. Not everyone's lives are the same!!

I can't believe nobody has replied 'Modern Life is Rubbish'.

I was thinking back and I don't remember endless notes. There were notes for things like a school trip or parents evening but there could only have been at most 2 or 3 of those a term. If I wanted to join an after school club I went home and asked my mum and then just turned up the next week. The last day of term we could wear our own clothes and bring in a toy/game but that didn't get a note either. There wasn't really costume/theme days like there are now. Any homework that there was I was expected to just do myself; my parents didn't get involved (other than saying "have you done your homework?").
I took myself to school from age 7 (even when I changed schools at 9, to a school necessitating a bus ride to get there) so no parental involvement there. My mother was also a SAHM as it was perfectly possible to survive on one salary and I genuinely have no idea what she did all day once her children were at school.

I just have no idea what some schools are doing!!! The whole of april my dc’s school sent 13 messages.
a few were just the weekly news from the teacher with pics
a few were reminders about a sports coach arriving the next day.
one was to wish a student good luck in a comp.
and a few were about various early closures etc.

my dc do 4 clubs between them. Thats enough. They start at 6:30/7 in the eve so still time to cook, so homework etc.

they do homework by themselves mostly- I ask my ds his spellings and that’s it.

after that I have uniform to last the whole week -I do all my laundry on a Saturday.

I have no cleaner- my house is tidy and clean.
I cook from scratch Every Eve.
We both work full time…i think it’s as overwhelming as you let it tbh

Why are you helping with their GCSE homework? Are you a teacher? Surely by that age they should be able to sort it themselves or if there's something they don't understand then they should ask the teachers

Stick some in the freezer. Behind a pack of frozen peas. Won't get swigged down quite so fast. As it's defrosting there be enough defrosted for a cup of tea but not a pint glass of milks

Besides if the kids are drinking it at that speed why can't they go to the shop and buy more

@PlumPlumbI had three in three different schools and didn’t have as much admin as you seem to have. Perhaps as a parent collective this is something to be discussed with the school?

@crackofdoomhopefully most of us don’t let life happen to us and make decisions to suit? What is compulsory and what is optional? If you can’t outsource some things maybe some of the optional activities need to go?

But surely it's a choice to attend at least half of this stuff

The trick is to figure out what's actually necessary for survival and what's extras.

I cry most days through exhaustion and overwhelm. In the shower so I don't upset the children.

Full time stressful job.
2 primary school age children
A 'partner' who doesn't help due to working self employed 7 days a week (that's another story, but it would still all be to do by me if they didn't exist so...)

Expectations from school every week
3 x reading a week per child to be logged on a specific app
30 mins maths homework per child set on Wed handed in Monday. Additional practice encouraged on times table rockstars
30 mins spellings sheets per child set on Tuesday handed in Friday
Additional practice encouraged on Spelling Shed
Additional timetable practice 2 x a week for the older child.
PE Kits to be sent in 1 x per child per week
Waterproofs for outdoor education to be sent in 1 x per child every 2 weeks.
Lunches to be booked and paid for on one app
Afterschool club to be booked and paid for on another app
All school communications are now done by Microsoft Teams x 2 due to each child having their own account. This week that has been 8 notifications for one child and 6 for another. If I unmuted the lost property chat and the PTA chat there would be many more. The different class teachers all use teams in different ways so trying to remember where to find stuff for each child just adds to the stress.

And then there is the weekly school newsletter where other things are communicated that haven't been communicated by teams. This is sent by email and has to be read to e.g know if your child has got a headteachers award with a mild expectation that if your child has one a parent can attend the assembly to watch them get it. Newsletter goes out Thursday night assembly is on Friday afternoon so a twice a term scramble (because it's rigged so each child gets at least one a term) to rearrange my Friday afternoon at work.

This week there has been four Microsoft forms to fill in and send back x 2 children (so eight to fill in), one for a school trip next week, one for parents consultations (also required a separate action to book the consultation through another link) one for a sports event being held in school and another one asking us to indicate if we were planning to use the summer holiday club and which weeks so they could plan staffing.

Both children have additional music lessons at school so instruments to remember, money for lessons as required and be nagged to practice at home.

Children are in afterchool club 3 nights a week. I work from home for the last few hours 1 day a week and finish work at 3 on 1 day a week. Weekly gymnastics lessons which are on the one night I finish work early - facilitated by me working compressed hours so short lunches and early starts. I race to afterschool club after work. It gets to the weekend and I'm exhausted. I can't remember the last time I went for a leisurely child free browse in a shop with no immediate time pressure attached.

They are filthy creatures who like playing in mud so need clean school uniform every day.

Just constantly feel like a failing flailing mess and my entire time with the children after work and at weekends is spent trying to get exhausted children to do homework so they don't get told off at school and lose playtime.

It's an absolutely miserable way to exist and absolutely not how I or any of the families I was with at primary school with grew up.

I wrote a MASSIVE post. It may help some, or annoy others! You have been warned...😁

You are correct OP. It is really exhausting, there is definitely not enough help for families, and so much extra is pilled on the shoulders of two adults trying their best. Especially schools.

My tuppence worth, being on the side of late teen years now.

The only way out of it is through it and by simplifying.

At a certain point we simplified everything. We reduced the amount of clubs, and with them, removed considerable pressure. My modus was - is it complicated? Not doing it!

Other parents will be feeling the same thing. A group of us got together and helped each other out.

Twice a week, each child had a friend over after school, on the same day. It was penciled in. They would all eat, do homework and lounge about. That worked really well, as there was a range of ages, which always seemed to ease things. The added advantage was that there was no running about collecting children. The guests went home with their homework done and fed. Your own children are satisfied and ready for quiet time when their friends leave. The other parents did likewise. No tech allowed, but a film was ok.

Once a week mine went to their friend's house - I usually tried to have them go on the same day.

TV, social, computer games etc cause anger, frustration, and irritation when they dominate. They are a period of enjoyment when used wisely.

DH and I divided the domestic stuff up by "sectors" for six months - laundry, groceries, doctor, dentist, etc. We worked with our professional demands. The house was divided into upstairs or downstairs, again for six months.

Don't buy a lot. We are persuaded to spend on this and that.

All the so called building memories and so on, expensive (and usually disappointing) days out and bloody magic moments? Mine hardly remember any of them. Turns out, memory does not work that way. So - everything you are thinking of spending? Save two thirds of it, you will need it when they are teenagers.

Christmas? We hid the gifts. So Xmas day was a treasure hunt! Now THAT they loved! They used to leave a note for Father Xmas asking him to do the treasure hunt. DH and I would sit and chuckle having a relaxing breakfast while the kids got all Famous Five on the house!

Major hack - dh and I used to book a baby sitter for afternoons, early evening. We would go out and tool around, have an early drink or late lunch. Sometimes, we went to the local library just to read in silence! It felt so free. By the time we got home, sitter would have the kids in bed - so we had a stress free evening at home too. We got great millage out of that one actually!

You come out the other side and wonder how the hell you did that! Good luck to all in the trenches.

Hmmm....perhaps those of us who have to do our own cleaning and gardening don't have quite as much time to stay on top of admin...🤔

You need to take advantage of what is available in modern life to your advantage. I have turned my notifications off but allocate time in the day to go through any admin. Delegate as much as I can. Reapond to any queries as soon it is possible for me so I don’t forget and I do delegate as much as I can do outside sources such as a cleaner, gardener, direct debit etc

My mum now mid 60’s, doesn’t use it regularly and still manages. In fact she uses social media accounts and all that way better than me