What exactly is ‘family admin’ ?

[LuckySeventhWave]

I have a calendar on the fridge door. If there’s a parents evening, after school club or dentist appointment I write it on there.

It takes about 12 seconds.

What are mums doing that warrants ‘time set aside per week for family admin’?

But with the parents evening example even queuing up at the school office for a copy of the letter can take 10 mins! It all adds up. Checking the parent is free often means one of us requesting time off work to attend which is certainly not a 2 minute job for either of us.

organising childcare’ is surely just booking them in or phoning your nanny?

Mhm,mhm tell us more.

@Pinkflipflop85 we live near a Spar now, so my new sofa is being delivered to the Spar next week

In all seriousness, 'family admin' is just all of the crap that you can't be bothered with on top of everything else you need to do in a day! The actual tasks themselves aren't that big. But when you work both work full time, have two kids and are just knackered and can't be arsed, all the little five minute add up and can be the final straw.

Last couple of weeks
Sourcing a car
Car Insurance
Car tax
Repair on car
Ordered school trousers
Change bank account
Vets for the dog
Booked school appointment
Filled in leave fro DD1
Arrange doctors appointment
Dentist - always a half term
Rearranged hotel as they mucked it up
Checked in online for flights
Booked carol concert
Booked Panto tickets
Arranging DD birthday party/supplies
Arranged SENco meeting for DS
Emailed school
Found Christmas supplies for a game
Wrote lists/ideas for the kids
Arranged dinner with my sister

Know wonder I’m knackered

It's like those "I clean my house (which is still in show home condition as there's nobody home 18 hours per day) in 20 minutes, what are all you inferior women doing with your time" threads.

Either most tasks are being ignored or only very specific elements of a much bigger tasks are being included.

It takes 56 seconds to renew/ change your car/ contents/ buildings/ life / travel insurance, how dare you include the 56 minutes on hold... (I forgot to include all that shit in my 20 hours)...

What about dealing with elderly parents? I forgot to include all that too...

Someone finally said it.

@KristinaM

OP - I’d love to know how you check your diary and kids timetable
Don’t need to check kids timetables they go to school, parents don’t need to know which lessons they’re having that day.

, phone dentist, get appointment date, note that in the relevant places
I pick up a handset and phone, ask for date, and write it on calendar.

, contact school for time off and get permission,
They’ve never had time off

arraigned time off work for yourself
never had time off but if I did I just speak to the manager, takes ...12 seconds

, leave work, collect child from school, take child to dentist, return child to school and you return to work ALL IN 12 Seconds
none of that is written down admin

You're counting buying stationery?! How much stationery do you go through that it is a special monthly task to replace? Also ferrying children around and watching football matches hardly counts as 'family admin' (also hate that phrase. It's just stuff you need to do - part and parcel of being an adult).

I have to log in and request time off from work. I then have to email my manager separately as I don’t always see her and she doesn’t get automatically notified when someone makes a request. She’s busy so I need to chase her to get a response. Takes a lot more than a few seconds.

If you have a disorganised child at a very strict secondary school then buying stationery absolutely can be a regular task. As can knowing their timetable so you can help them to use it and hopefully become more organised.

this week:

book consultant for ailment 1
book consultant for ailment 2
book consultant for ailment 3
book consultant for ailment 4
online prescriptions x 4 separate ones
moan to GP re above, get scrip 5
book consultant for ancient parents
hassle Next for refund
repeat 3x
row with TV licence as I have 0 telly
bday presents post abroad
book vet
replace broken light
call in workmen re broken window catch, now using teaspoon to secure property (works brilliantly, pleased with self)
buy bloody stamps in industrial quantities after every shop bar 1 runs out
upgrade phone in 10 sec (Tesco, efficient)
chase EE for overcharging (again)

It's only Friday. And I'm single. All the bills get paid via DD, too.

Be honest though, a few of you are calling your husband a t*at because you think he can’t phone someone to make a dentist appointment for the kids, or he can’t email the school office to check when the parents evening date is?

Isn’t it just trying to pretend that being a parent is harder than it actually looks? Phoning someone, or booking an appointment online, and people on here are saying they spend 20 hours a week doing this sort of stuff!

I need to fill in a form for time off,then half the time I need to chase to check it was approved. I also need to inform the people I work directly with and check with them it's convenient (because I'm a dumbass) before filling in said form. It's not that much of a chore really or time consuming, but it's not a 12(magic , is that like the 4 day chicken) second job ether.

It's not so much the actual physical phonecall or writing in the calendar, it's the space it takes up in one's head. I was at work today, and I received 2 emails and 1 text with dates I have to do things/something I have to remember. I am constantly busy at work so I glanced at them and thought "I'll need to ask DH about that/I need to check that date/I'll have to put that on the calendar" and throughout the day the thought popped up again, and I thought "mustn't forget". Then I got home and DH had a whole big issue with a delivery of some timber that we had to talk about and decide when to reorganise, then DD wouldn't sleep, and I didn't get the time to just sit down and look at a calendar and write things in and see what was happening until just now, actually.

I do get that some people aren't bothered by that sort of thing, but I am, things either niggle at me or I forget them, so I need to stay on top of it all

MargotLovedTom1 every sheet of paper, every exercise book, every glue stick, paint brush, paint pallet, art material, pen, pencil, coloured pencil, fountain pen, cartridge, paper clip, specialist item the teacher decides they need with 16 hours notice, every workbook, most CDs - everything that could be consumable, everything except text books returned at the end of the year. 2 pages left in your maths exercise book = buy a new one. Obviously you can over buy bit you'll need different margins or something with next year's teacher. Photocopy money in exact change 3 times per year is extra. Everything - around 600-800€ per year for 3 children.

I'm self employed and my kids are home educated, so that involves a fair bit of work finding and researching activities they'd like, contacting organisers, working out travel arrangements etc, making sure we have appropriate packed lunch stuff in and then fitting my work around it all.

Then there's social stuff - parties (presents, cards, actually going to the things), making arrangements for visiting friends, hosting friends, planning trips, booking tickets.

Shopping for birthdays and Christmas, researching presents and planning and hosting parties, writing thank you notes, finding places to put everything!

I spend an inordinate amount of time on the library website (we have more than 60 books out most of the time), ordering books, renewing them, checking when they need to be back and still somehow paying fines (oh, and actually going to the library).

There's all the ad hoc stuff like sorting through clothes after growth spurts plus going shopping for or ordering new clothes; sorting through toys and taking unused ones to the charity shop etc; sewing up damaged soft toys; researching, planning and booking holidays and weekends away.

Most of these either take a while, but only every few months, or take a couple of minutes but it's relatively frequent, so added to the daily washing, tidying, cleaning, cooking, shopping and sorting things out, working and the actual spending time together, it's just the knowledge that there's literally always something that's waiting to be done.

Poor teddy has had a hole in the back of her head for months now, but she's got to wait until after the thank-you cards and robot dog research, by which time there will be another laundry mountain to tackle and another library book due for return! The headspace required to keep track of it all is the thing I find the worst tbh, but most of it is theoretically optional, so I can't really complain!

LuckySeventhWave admin doesn't mean writing things down. Look at what office administrators do.

LuckySeventhWave your title asks what it is, yet you're refusing to consider that you've got the definition wrong. You're talking about scheduling not administration. Scheduling is about 5-10% of the broader category of administration.

Some people like to make “family admin” sound like a full time job. It isn’t, it’s just normal life that every one has to do.

Exactly.

Shopping for clothes/presents/food etc., taking children to activities and supervising homework are just part of life, not admin. Some people have just listed everything that they do that isn't actual paid work or leisure activities.

Chasing your boss for time off during the working day is part of work surely? You're doing it on company time so how is that family admin? Instead of doing your work, you're requesting time off so it's not taking anything out of your free time or week to do it. Attending appointments to me isn't admin. Using the term admin means form filling, making appointments, making calls, paying bills etc. None of us are spending hours a week doing that. Meal planning is admin? Isn't that part of the food shop? There just seems to be this thing nowadays where (mostly SAHM's, sorry but it's true!) Are classing basic life skills that most people have to do as this term 'family admin' for a reason I don't really understand. Everyone has to pay bills, renew insurance, make appointments, sign permission slips, do a food shop etc. It's part of life, it's not a job as such. If someone is going to hunt around for hours to save £10 a year on their gas or ignore the internet to make life easier, they're making a rod for their own back and creating work.

It's perfectly ok to get overwhelmed by life but life isn't a job. It doesn't need a name in my eyes. I also hate this idea where women that work full or part time have less of these things to do and less cleaning etc. I certainly don't have any fairies that come into my house and clean while I'm working or fairies that take my son to his appointments, check the bank account, pay the bills or set them up. I have to juggle and do it all but still don't forever go about claiming I have this massive job of family admin to do 🙄. The term irritates me and the enormity of the responsibly put upon it irritates me too. I think if anyone wants to start giving names to the basics in life, they need a hobby or something else to do

OP, you clearly don't have a child with SEND. And you definitely don't have two.

One example:
Don’t need to check kids timetables they go to school, parents don’t need to know which lessons they’re having that day.

DH and I go through with DC1 what lessons they have the next day to ensure they bring the correct subject folders to school. DH has an alarm in his phone. DC1 knows their timetable but they have SEND that means they forget when juggling a lot of subjects. Reminding them doesn't take long admittedly, but bringing in their history folder to school before lunchtime because they forgot and have whipped themselves into an autism & anxiety-led frenzy and NO ONE needs to have to deal with that so you comply when you can to make things easier for the school, your child and yourself when you can... Well that takes quite a lot longer.

It really depends how much stuff your family are involved with tbh.

Myself and DH have pretty much always worked full time since DC started school and he worked part time prior to that as well as looking after them. probably a fairly common family set up.

My Dc were involved in quite a lot of stuff. Beavers then Cubs then Scouts, that was mostly paying fees, checking out stuff for camps, doing admin on badge stuff plus sorting out lifts to various activities. Lots of permission slips requiring Drs details and details of vaccinations etc Judo, sort out fees, memberships, competitions. Swimming ditto to Judo, Football/Rugby ditto again and then add in fundraising events, some scout things required quite a lot of fundraising stuff too. Art club, book club, canoeing, then DofE. add in school stuff, booking parents night appointments especially for high school takes ages , then medical and dental appointments, haircuts, orthodontist, optician, skin clinics. Pet vaccinations.

Then other house stuff, bills, insurance - house/car/personal/pet, banking, car and boiler services plus MOTs, savings and investments, mobile phones, broadband, managing repairs and tradespeople, research for tech type gifts, booking holidays/travel insurance/currency.

Loads of stuff which granted doesn't all have to be done every day but there are at least a couple of things every week. Some of which take a few seconds and then a variety up to a few hours. I must say, we can see it far enough sometimes if you've been working on a PC all day and then come home to log in and deal with other stuff.

Supermarkets sell stationery. It smacks of making life harder for yourself to devote specific time to this every month as opposed to putting some pens or a ruler in with the shopping.

I have three children; orthodontics are involved! I also have a house, a car, a pet and a job. There is absolutely no way I have 20 hours pw to devote to 'family admin'.

For the love of christ, why is there a comma and a space before each line?

, contact school for time off and get permission,

^
Is it just me?

Also :

Be honest though, a few of you are calling your husband a t*at

^^

Please, call a spade a spade. Just, please. TWAT is how you spell it.

@AgnesGrundy I don't think the OP is actually asking what family admin covers; I believe what she actually meant was, why do some people feel the need to give normal life activities the wanky label of 'family admin'?