What exactly is ‘family admin’ ?

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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’?

Wow, OP you are so amazing and so much better than other parents. We could all learn a lot from you.

Does that help?

Just out of interest, do you feel the same way about people who use phrases like "laundry" or "housework" or "emails"? After all they're all standard parts of daily life (at home or in the case of emails at work) - do they really need words to differentiate them from other parts of daily life?

Also, a lot of the people who use this phrase tend to be the ones who claim that it takes up loads of their time.

Hmm I can't say I've seen that, but of course it's always possible that people who claim find that a particular type of activity takes up a lot of their time are more likely also to find themselves using a specific word to describe it...

And really, in that situation, I would say it's whether it takes up a lot of their time, that matters, not whether it takes up a lot of your time, or whether they are meeting some minimum approved standard of efficiency to justify having a word for what they're doing.

I hope you feel better soon Elbowed. I would say someone could call those things 'family admin' (or 'house stuff' or 'kid stuff' or 'not more fucking forms' or whatever you want to call it!) regardless of how efficiently you happen to be doing it right now or how efficiently you did it in the past. It's the same stuff, regardless.

If you care about getting a better deal for like car insurance/house insurance/house appliances, you do a bit of research for each of these. Family birthdays/Christmas and planning holidays (at least the childcare side)/getting to weddings if you have a lot of relatives is hard. Kids health can be hard. DH has to do Meter readings for electricity. Home improvement (if it is too big a job for yourself) requires a lot of research and management.

AIBU to say that a huge number of posters on Mn have 20 children and are all autistic or SEN. Really? Shout me down or whatever perhaps this is high family administration.

Laundry increases exponentially for each person so is not insignificant. Cleaning takes up the time you wish to get it to the standard you like (different people have different standards) and depends on the age of your kids. Household admin can easily take up lots of time. If you don’t care about seeing lots of relatives or getting good deals on stuff then I guess you could spend less time on it.

A woman on another thread was told off for giving her DH a date reminder months too early. So it doesn't just involve making the appointments but remembering to remind family members at the most convenient time for them.

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

Well you might not. But those of us who have children who have a lot of appointments often try to ensure that they don’t miss the same subjects / those they struggle with all the time. Or that they will miss less important classes. Some children find certain appointments upsetting and struggle to go back to school, so we try to make them at the end of the school 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

Really ? How do you arrange all the consultants clinics, physios orthodontists, x rays , speech therapy etc to be outside school hours ?
Do you go privately for everything ?

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

Again, I’d love to know how you get all these things to be outside your work hours ?

And how you would check your work diary for important commitments,, try to get colleagues to cover for you ( and wait why they get back to you ) , email you manager to ask for permission and wait for her reply

All in 2 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

Ah , so time only counts if it’s writing things down?? That’s a very odd concept of admin. I’m sure that my admin staff at work would be upset to hear that most of their work Doesn’t Count to you.

I’m so pleased for you OP with your super perfect life, your super healthy NT kids and your super flexible ( no doubt enormously well paid ) job with no responsibilities .

But not all families , children and employers are EXACTLY the same as yours.

Ds has severe sn and when you have a child with those needs you can spend hours having to sort things out. Preparing for meetings including writing things for meetings, writing your own minutes after meetings, looking up relevant laws, having relevant paperwork and being ready with your arguments. Dealing with short notice meetings when professionals behave like no one in the house works and both parents can drop everything with a days notice to attend a meeting.
Chasing up appointments that haven't been sent or have been sent for ridiculous times and once again being ready with relevant laws.
Writing your child's ehcp and preparing for tribunals and gathering and sorting relevant evidence. Chasing up those who said they were going to do something and haven't. Doing complaints etc.
Applying for DLA and blue badges etc. Again putting together evidence and writing your argument including researching the law and relevant case law.
Going anywhere requires lots of preparation and research - checking out facilities and suitability.
Making sure all medication and practical things are available when needed. Putting prescriptions in at the right time ( not too late but not too early because the medication goes off).Chasing up prescriptions that haven't been done. Lots of looking for things online because they aren't available in the shops and arranging delivery and making sure you are there at that time. Researching new wheelchairs, safety equipment etc.

20years should sorting out say car insurance meant a whole day ringing every company to get a price, competing then phoning back the best fee to get them to undercut each other.

Now it’s about 30 minutes if that running through the comparison sites in moneysavingexpert order.

Of course if you have a child with a health issue there’s more work. That’s one reason why having a disabled child is the biggest tipping point into poverty for a family; it’s massively time consuming and takes time and energy away from generating income.
There is no denying the impact and that’s a different set of circumstances.

But the majority of families don’t and in the majority of cases people making out it’s a full time job to run a house are just trying to justify themselves because they feel insecure.🤷🏻‍♀️

Family admin is such a wanky way of describing stuff that everyone does.

I used to feel over whelmed with the admin side of kids / life but now I tackle it like work. If it takes say less than 5 mins to arrange I will do it there and then (like yesterday I had to buy new school shoes for one of my girl, pay school trip and some else that I've forgotten now.Thank god for prime btw) but I had to sit down with my husband the other night and arrange Christmas child care as all childcare closes in our area for a week and a half ffs and I'm unable to take leave so we have to juggle our rotas together then ring around parents to see if they can help and if not then juggle again. It took at least an hour. Also we have 3 children so 3x dentist apps, hospital apps and all the other stuff that comes along with that. It's not as easy as putting it on the calendar and hoping it doesn't clash with something or that one of us isnt working so we can attend or that we then need to book child care for the others

No idea really, I’m a lone parent, don’t really do any parenting admin, no one suffers because of it. My son has a disablilty, no admin created, I just read the letter and turn up to the appointment, hardly rocket science.

Car stuff: booking MOT and sorting insurance renewals 6-5 weeks before due as this gives the best quote.

School: Book lunches online and check both accounts if they need topping up. Check school newsletter and add dates to diary.

Children: medical appointments. Party invitations and buying gift and card.

Birthday and Anniversary, sending cards or a message.

Bills: set up new contracts with utilities and phone provider when contracts end. This is time consuming in itself. Knowing the date when they end so you can shop around in advance.

I don't care at all what people call all this stuff that we all have to do.

What irritates me intensely, especially from the OP, is the assumption that mums are the ones who have to do all of this. Where are the dads in all of this? Why don't they do some of this?

I understand that if you're a SAHM or SAHD that a lot of this stuff will be in your remit, but I'd put money on it that even in families where both partners are working, that it's the woman who's doing all of this stuff.

There's even a book about this

I do all this stuff because I am better at it than OH.
He would happily let insurance and utitities self renew. I am a bargain hunter and can save us hundreds of pounds by switching.
It's worth the effort for me, he has a different view.

I've never heard the term family admin. Reading this thread has been an eye opener though and has made me feel immensely shit about the fact I've just handed my notice in on my part time job, mostly because I am so overwhelmed by the amount of 'stuff' (which I realise is family admin) I am juggling. I am clearly not grouteat at it or I would be sorting this stuff out in seconds!

I guess it’s like saying some jobs are harder than others (I moved from hard job to relatively chilled). Different families care about different things and have different personalities so spend time on different things.

It certainly can be a full time job to run a household - if you want it to be. Our standard of cleaning is not that high, but you could spend hours making it better. Same as helping kids with homework, music practice etc. You can do a lot, a little or none. Same with researching/picking appliances, car insurance, tradespeople. People have different priorities and that’s fine!

I do all of this admin type stuff in my lunch break or if I've a quiet spell at work - I'm self employed and have flexible hours. Everything is mostly done online - banking, emails, shopping, all school admin is on their portal (2 x dcs, different schools). As for the less regular stuff (insurance, holidays, birthdays, Christmas), I do all of this a month ahead, all online.

This thread is hilarious.

Family admin is "general life stuff that most adults do as part of running a household" but given a title to make it sound like some mountain of onerous responsibility.
Depending on the discussion is can also include any other takes that people may not do very regularly but can get thrown in as an example, usually when trying to justify why one's existence is so much more difficult than anyone else's.

My favourite element of "family admin" that I saw on MN was 'yes, but who organises the family holiday photos!'.

Family admin is such a wanky way of describing the stuff that everyone does

Except it isn't the stuff that everyone does is it? In a lot of families it's the stuff that women do on behalf of the entire family.

We've already established from this thread that it consists of lots and lots of small tasks which vary week to week. You can't name them all individually when describing what you do for your whole family. Giving it a term like family admin allows you to at least be acknowledged as doing that stuff.

No idea! Clearly I do it because I'm a LP.

Reading here:
car insurance - once for maybe an hour if I compare once a year.
Kids activities: ds swims 6x a week. Competitions etc. Takes me 10 mins to complete his application once a week.
Medical apt's: ds has 4 consultants. They send letters for apt's. Takes me 5-10 mins to change if needed.
Dentist: twice a year a book via the app when I get a reminder check up is due.
House insurance: again 30-60 minutes a year.
Shopping: 30 mins a week via ASDA app.
Calendar: add staff as it comes up.
Reading school stuff: read emails in evening with coffee and action. Maybe 5-10 minutes a day if there's one.
MOT: take car once a year.
Car tax: online once a year for 5-10 minutes.
Bills: paid by DD.

I can imagine that for some setting aside time per week to sort it makes sense and helps with organisation. But I cannot see how it's more than an hour a week max.
I'm either doing something wrong or I'm super organised as I manage it all fine alongside working FT and raising a disabled child.

I just guess it's like anything. People like to label what they do in the family alongside labelling what type of parenting they adhere to?

Just wanted to wave to Sockwomble 👋 We are sorting out our DD's EHCP review and secondary transition and it's a bloody nightmare. We are on our 3rd SEN officer this year and none of them seem on top of their job (I'm not unsympathetic I'm sure they are stretched and under resourced) but it means I have to be all over it.
I'd bloody love to be able to spend 20 mins a week or whatever on family admin.