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Original poster

What exactly is ‘family admin’ ?

375 replies

LuckySeventhWave · 08/11/2019 22:48

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’?

OP posts:
habipprtyh · 09/11/2019 09:18

This thread is a great example of how not to be.

Posters literally tripping over each other to go 'one up', whether that's doing loads of 'admin' or none at all. It's quite horrible.

LolaSmiles · 09/11/2019 09:22

habipprtyh
Twas ever thus on MN.
Either one must be totally overwhelmed with listing the tiniest detail of basic life things to prove how utterly exhausing life is, or claim to be so efficient that arranging to swap your gas provider can be done in 7.5 second with glowing efficiency.
Smile

Meanwhile most of us are busy getting on with basic life stuff just fine not really feeling the need to be in either camp.

GrumpyHoonMain · 09/11/2019 09:24

Job applicants often ‘family admin’ as a skill when returning to work after a career break. In real life that is the only context where I see the term. Interesting if the applicant uses technology / online booking systems etc to facilitate that planning; but not if all they do is collect letters and put the details down in a physical diary.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Families
Lumene · 09/11/2019 09:28

This thread is a great examples of how not to be. Posters literally tripping over each other to go 'one up', whether that's doing loads of 'admin' or none at all. It's quite horrible.

I just see people feeling overwhelmed or puzzled by why others are overwhelmed. Oh and the odd person judging how others should ‘be’.

InDubiousBattle · 09/11/2019 09:31

I've been on mn for years and read loads of SAHP threads, I've never seen 'family/life admin' given as the reason a parent doesn't work. I've seen it occasionally described as an extra benefit, as in 'I get the family admin done during the week so it doesn't need to be done on weekends' type of thing but never the reason for SAH.

kiki22 · 09/11/2019 09:33

It's just living life but we all need to justify why we are so so busy now.

hazeyjane · 09/11/2019 09:34

Thank you @LolaSmiles.

I should get off the thread I think. Falling apart a bit here (hiding in the bathroom having an enormous cry)

I foolishly thought the thread might be others bemoaning the sheer weight of 'family admin', organising stuff....whatever people want to call it....and thought, how timely considering I have just made the painful (possibly wrong) decision to end a job I love to try to keep on top of it all. But it turned out to be the worst thread ever for this particular time! As it is making me feel as though, in fact, I am just a bit shit!!

I do think Mumsnet seems a but more brutal than it used to in this respect, but admit that I am probably a bit raw for it all at the moment.

happycamper11 · 09/11/2019 09:35

Depends on your individual and your DC's daily lives doesn't it really, OP. This is a typical post where many are unable to imagine any way of living outside their own. DC have 5 clubs between the 2 of them on a Wednesday alone.. brownies being one of them where it's nearly a full time job responding to emails and filling in consent forms for each individual activity (you need to print these off, hand write, scan then email back) 😆. As well as the juggle to coordinate lifts make sure they have what they need for that day which is ever changing.

WhiskeyLullaby · 09/11/2019 09:40

However people justifying staying home to do "family admin" are stretching it a bit

This keeps being said in this thread under one form or another, but no has actually said that they stay at home to do family admin.

If anything most examples that used family admin mentioned taking time from work . In my examples my friends all work or are training.

So it does seem that a lot of people posting just used this thread to have a dig at SAHM.

WhiskeyLullaby · 09/11/2019 09:41

@hazeyjane Thanks

I hope things get better for you .

Therarestone · 09/11/2019 09:43

Here we go again, a troll disguised as a genuine question to get a reaction.

itsgettingweird · 09/11/2019 09:43

Lumene but that goes back to what I said. It's just semantics. People are just using a label as they do to describe their parenting. I don't do this.

But I also don't think anyone should have to do this. SAHP shouldn't have to justify their family choices by making 'family admin' a FT job and parents shouldn't have to justify their choices by stating 'I'm an attachment parent that's why I act as I do when DC does x y and z.'

Different courses for different horses.

Everyone's situations and circumstances differ and what work for one doesn't for another. No need to label it.

MuddlingThroughLife · 09/11/2019 09:49

Family admin?! When did that become a thing? Isn't it just life?

Winesalot · 09/11/2019 10:00

Well there are lots of tasks that don’t take 12 seconds.

Having to change utilities, organizing MOT, chasing up insurance, banking. It takes anything up to 20-30 minutes to just wait in the queue to talk to someone. And they fall into the realm of family admin in my house.

Winesalot · 09/11/2019 10:03

we take turns in doing them when we can. But if needed we tackle them for an hour or so when both are home .

LolaSmiles · 09/11/2019 10:03

hazeyjane
It does sound like the wrong thread at the wrong time for you right now.

Sometimes life is tough for people. We all have those times. You're certainly not alone.

I do think most of the replies on here are more amused by the concept of calling basic life stuff "family admin" and listing every element of this admin rather than calling it "life stuff" and accepting we all do it and life goes on.

Oblomov19 · 09/11/2019 10:05

12 seconds? Hmm
Booking Ds2's Parents Evening took me a good 10 minutes!

Phoning dentist, optician etc, putting it in your i phone calendar.

School trips, school football matches, team football matches, county football matches.

12 seconds? Yeah. Right.

LolaSmiles · 09/11/2019 10:09

Family admin?! When did that become a thing? Isn't it just life?
It's just life, unless there's a desire to show how tough and busy people are.
I'd never paid attention to the phrase on here until a brilliant thread months ago where one poster argued that they are so much busier than any other adult on the thread because they do all the family admin and gave the example "but it's mental load, after all who is the one in your house who organises the family photographs"
Grin
It had me in stitches, rightly or wrongly.

Though DH is tidying "the drawer of stuff" this morning (I'm assuming it's not just us who has a drawer in the utility with old batteries or new, warrantee leaflets, takeaway fliers, assorted screws for things Smile). I'm not sure now if this should be added to his family admin list.

JacquesHammer · 09/11/2019 10:10

Booking Ds2's Parents Evening took me a good 10 minutes!

I’m so sorry, you’re just not as wonderful as the OP.

Will you cope with that knowledge? Wink

Lumene · 09/11/2019 10:10

Everyone's situations and circumstances differ and what work for one doesn't for another. No need to label it.

Personally I find it very useful to label it, so it can be shared and/or acknowledged when someone in the family does it.If you don’t like to label it then as you say horses for courses.

The administrative tasks that arise as part of family life exist and take up someone’s time and energy whether you call them ‘family admin’, something else, or nothing.

DonnaDarko · 09/11/2019 10:13

Family admin = shit you have to deal with because life

EggysMom · 09/11/2019 10:14

I can occasionally spend c.20hrs/wk on family admin as our son is disabled, so there's an EHCP / social care review / grant applications etc to formulate. But other stuff? It's minutes. Finding the best deal for insurances, broadband etc is done on a laptop in front of the telly, so I don't count that as admin time.

Oh, hang on, I remember the longest (!) time I spent recently on admin. Waiting in the queue for online chat to Hermes when a parcel went missing. Couldn't speak to them any other way, was determined not to give up .. 3.5 hours in the chat queue before I got to a human Grin

WhiskeyLullaby · 09/11/2019 10:14

I remember the photos one. Grin

Just because some people have ridiculous lists and "standards" and just make up busy work though, doesn't mean that life stuff or family admin or ffs not another thing(call it what you want) can't be hard,or overwhelming especially in some circumstances. Also it's worth remembering that some women have very little or no choice in what they need to do or put up with a man child due to abuse,finances,visa status etc.

C8H10N4O2 · 09/11/2019 10:15

I’m so sorry, you’re just not as wonderful as the OP

Or as drunk and bored as the OP may have been late on a Friday night. This is always a good frothing topic.

wonkylegs · 09/11/2019 10:15

I suspect it's more about what you include as family admin - some people will include everything that goes into running a household others will do things without thinking so don't count them