Rubbish holiday

[LorelaiVictoriaGilmore]

I don’t know why I am posting really - just stuck in bed and feeling so miserable. Dh and I were worked so hard last year and our relationship has really suffered through the pandemic. I booked three weeks in the UK with our two children just so we could be somewhere else and reset a bit. And it’s awful. During the first week, I had some work stuff to wrap up and DH had to job interviews. Kids decided about a week into the holiday to start going to sleep at 10pm. We are now at the end of week two. Dh and I are exhausted. I have a stomach bug or food poisoning and I am stuck in bed. Dh got rejected from one job but the other one really wants him - he just had to get through a psychometric test. He tried to do it this evening while I was sick in bed. Naturally the kids played up and he got locked out of the test. He is now stomping around and shouting. The toddler is in bed with me. I would just go home (dh wants to) but it’s ds’s birthday on Wednesday and everything is organised here not at home - so we really can’t. I can’t believe the holiday has gone so wrong. We’ve had some nice-ish times but we are both so tired and have to go back to 50-60 hour working weeks. I feel like it might break us. 😢

Sorry OP but I think you had unrealistic expectations here. Most people in professional jobs couldn’t take a 3 week holiday without a little bit of work having to be done at some point. And 3 weeks away with just yourselves doesn’t sound like a holiday. If you want a break, book your kids into holiday clubs and have a few nice day trips with your DH. Then keep the family holiday to 1 week max, or maybe a little longer if you can get other family to come along to help. Going away with young children just means the same shit but different scenery. Often it makes for more work as they don’t have friends or toys around for entertainment. Sorry to hear you’re ill though, that does suck.

Sorry you're having a hard time. I really hope your husband is successful in the job hunt and that allows things to be a bit more settled.

I agree with @2kool4skool and I'm glad there's someone with comparable experience here.

Try not to dwell on your son's response to SAHMs - kids always find things outside their bubble of normality hilarious. My daughter laughs because her grandad is bald!

If you have young children I’m afraid your dh will have to come out of his shell a bit and stop being a hermit- even on holiday. Unfortunately it’s no longer an option for him.

What you’re describing is a holiday that would have been lovely pre children but the sort of thing that just doesn’t work with them. Splash out on Center parcs or similar if you can- even if you go away less and for shorter breaks, the whole point of a holiday is to relax. You can have a break while the kids are doing organised activities and it’s a win all round!

If it makes you feel better, a holiday with kids that age is not a holiday. You have to tag team. Wrote off the last few days. Book a massage or treatment each somewhere and tag team it. Give each other a lie in. Eat out and Uber.

Oh my god it sounds terrible!! How come you booked three weeks? That’s so long! Your job sounds very full on, do you really love it?

@2kool4skool That’s exactly how I feel. Really unwilling to give up a job I have worked so hard for. That said, I am on a 4 day (hahahaha) week at a silver circle firm, so I am not earning enough to have the kind of luxuries that make the long hours and pressure bearable.

I booked three weeks to try to get a real break - more fool me! I also felt like the kids needed a long period of time with me and dh to re-settle them post pandemic disruption and after a period of time when I was working all the hours.

I do love my job - it makes hunting for a job with less pressure / less money / less hours feel really quite depressing. But given that I don’t ever want to make partner, it might just not add up staying in my current role.

3 year old was in bed with me by 5:30am. She only went to sleep at 10pm. Obvs she went back to sleep…

It's their ages and the shift from nanny/school to you looking after them. Really hard work.

Still different expectations next time?

What holidays do you usually book?
Could you up your holiday annual budget? When my DC we’re young I was a SAHM and my DH had a highly stressful job and we had to accept the only way of getting through the year was with good holidays that cost. We booked Mark Warner’s which have childcare and activities, Center Parcs (used childcare, did spa sessions together, got meals delivered etc and was able to stick more or less to DC’s routine). Then once a year we’d also do something like a Haven holiday and so kids stuff all day long. I didn’t risk booking longer than a week for years because of the possibility of it being a muck up, I thought one of us could get ill or the weather was terrible and it could be a disaster.

That's why people leave these types of jobs. They screw you when you have kids. Although you can have a great standard of living as a single person or a couple, if you're not a partner you can't afford the 24/7 on tap childcare that is required since you have to be available 24/7. And if you're London-based, housing is expensive so you can't necessarily cut costs with a live-in nanny or nanny/au pair combo.

Ultimately it only works if one of you is the 'lead' parent and accepts they work 9-5 (or whatever your nanny hours are) and then can't really work the rest of the time.

What you should have done was booked a local babysitter to cover your DH's interviews/tests. Since you weren't available and he really needed to be undisturbed, you needed someone else looking after the kids.

I'm sorry, it's just very tough trying to balance the type of job you do with family life . That's one of the reasons why I left a similar job, though I completely understand why you don't want to do that.

Next time, either go somewhere with a kids club, go for a shorter time or holiday with family if they'd be willing to help out with childcare.

Our annual holiday budget is about £3k. Tell me what I should be planning next time please?!

At least then I can fantasise about a good holiday while enduring the remains of this one! 😂

I've not RRFT OP and I doubt I'm going to say much that other people haven't said already, but your holiday just sounds like your every day life. Which doesn't sound like a lot of fun!

What is the point in having a career if it kills your marriage and your entire family is miserable and your kids end up resenting you never being their in 20 years time? And I would give the same advice to a man.

We are in the fortunate position now where DH is in high demand and could earn a lot of money. But he would be away from home for long stretches. He has made the choice to stay in a job which means he can come home every night and tuck his children into bed. Some people might say it's unambitious. I don't care. It makes our family happy.

I lost sibling who passed away in their 30s. It really does make you take stock of what is important in life. And to me it is not work.

I think 3 weeks all together is too much. It sounds like you all generally don't spend much time together so this has all came as a shock.

Things will get better with the kids as they get older, and you may then regret giving up a job you love for a temporary (although it does not feel it now) problem. Of course, in a role like yours you cannot switch off completely on holiday and that is fine. It’s a shame that circumstances meant a load of commitments intersected at once, and I hear you saying this may break you and your DH, but I promise it does get easier as the kids get bigger. Holidays with small kids are always harder work than they feel they should be. We found using Sitters.co.uk for a dinner out when on hols helps (they have sitters all over the UK), making us feel like we at least had some time together (and not cooking!). This past 18 months has been rubbish and so holiday expectations are high, which adds to the pressure. Maybe try to be a bit lower key for the rest of the holiday so it’s a bit more restful? At this age we always booked places with an extra bedrooms poss, so one adult could sneak off for a lie in /have an early night and the other could be on kid duty

Op- one of my best friends could have written your post ten years ago! She also worked ‘four’ days in law, had a nanny and ALLLL the mum guilt! Her children are now 13 & 15, gorgeous happy children and she is so fulfilled by her work and is forever thankful that she stuck with it.

On the flip side, do many of my friends that were SAHM are really feeling aimless and unfulfilled with their lack of career.

I was a SAHM for a long time and holidays with young children were often shit because you want r&r but the children are relentless - I promise as they get older it gets easier. Our first truly amazing holiday was when the youngest was six/ she could stay up late without being broken the next day, could eat meals without making a mess or a fuss snd, most importantly, learnt to play cards really well!!! Made evenings so much more fun when we could all play cards together then tell them to take themselves off to bed.

Hang on in there

Thanks for the ‘hang on in there’ messages. I guess that is what my heart is telling me to do.

My job does give me some flexibility - I am there every morning for my kids and every bedtime. I also make pretty much every nativity play, sports day etc.

But my husband thinks that the kids are unsettled because of my job and is constantly trying to think of ways we could step down work.

I think part of the reason that this holiday is rubbish is that I am lifestyle shopping…. not very successfully!

Honestly you need to rethink everything. You acknowledge that your life is stressful as it is - life really is too short. Time to rethink.

Both my OH and I had stressful jobs and both of us at different times jumped off the wheel and reset how we lived, recognising that a whole life can be wasted trying to sustain too many spinning plates with the inevitable effects on your health and happiness. On both occasions we took a financial hit, but we treated it as a family decision with the children involved and on board with the reasoning behind it all.

My OH has now died - I do not regret bailing him out from a stressful life and making it possible for him to live more reasonably and less stressed. He too had a great deal of time and money and commitment that had been invested in achieving his professional success - but it was not making him happy.

Your holiday sounds grim. We do tend to place high expectations on holidays and then when things go wrong it seems a total calamity.

I do not think that a holiday is going to solve your problems - a life rethink might go some way towards it.

@GoldBar You are completely right. That’s the trap that DH and I have fallen into. We are both on six figures but the money just disappears into mortgage and childcare. We pay for private school (which I am ok with but dh doesn’t really agree with ideologically) because it’s the only school near us that covers 7:30am to 6:30pm and offers all the activities during that time. We’re also terrible at spending money on takeaways and convenience foods because we are so bloody exhausted all the time.

I am hanging out for things to get better once the kids are a bit older. Financially things will be easier once we don’t need a full time nanny anymore… although we’re always going to need some level of help.

I just wanted a holiday! 😭😭😭 I do feel a bit less sick this morning though so that’s something!

@LorelaiVictoriaGilmore

Our annual holiday budget is about £3k. Tell me what I should be planning next time please?!

Bloody Hell OP I don’t have a solution for you but it sounds like there is something very wrong in your whole set up. Surely the only reason to live at the pace you are with all the stress and to outsource your child rearing to other people to the extent that your son doesn’t get the concept of a parent raising their own child is for the money and it doesn’t sound like you have a lot of that. This is no criticism of working parents at all but I have friends who live like this and it must be absolutely exhausting and I know I am very very lucky to have the balance that I do but you need to ask yourself what is the point if nobody is happy and/or you aren’t rolling in money what is the point? You must have worked so hard and given things up to get to where you are in your career but are you happy? Maybe as a family you need to work out of there is a different way to live? Please don’t think I am saying give it all up and be a sahp or anything like that and this is not a criticism but I think sometimes you get on a treadmill and don’t know how to get off. I have seen this with friends in London with fantastic careers, Nannies, cleaners, expensive houses in the “right” area, struggling to get dc into the “right” school and to pay ££££ for it but when you ask if they are genuinely happy they just look baffled - they have bought into the ‘this is just how life is” rhetoric. As I say I don’t have a solution but you sound so tired, fed up and just stuck really.

@Mischance I am so sorry about your OH. This is my dh’s point of view too. My self worth is so tied up in my job. And I really do love it. I have a terror of being bored and was miserable during my two maternity leaves. Makes considering a whole-life change super alarming. Also, there is no going back from a step like that.

We only have one DC (almost 4). Pre-Covid we went on a couple of all-inclusive European holidays with our then 2yo which they enjoyed. They were a bit young for the kids club unfortunately but swam in the pool and played in the play area all morning, slept all afternoon and then came out with us in the evening.

In the UK, we book self-catering (usually seaside) with takeaway options and pubs/restaurants within walking distance (so no cooking to do). We usually try to find somewhere with an indoor pool and play area (usually a cottage complex or farm cottages rather than a property on its own). We take our DC along to the pool/playground in the morning, tire them out so much that they nap in the afternoon and then go out somewhere late afternoon and have dinner wherever we're visiting around 7pm. They're usually so tired afterwards that they fall asleep in the car on the way home and we have to wake them up to brush teeth and do pyjamas !

@Hoppinggreen All true. I started this thread because I was stuck in bed and wanted a pity party but I am so glad I did because it is really making me think.

I think I might need to find a way to stay in law but step it back a bit for a while. Just need to work out how to do it…

You live and learn but I think trying to book 3 weeks when you both have demanding jobs was v optimistic.
The kids need you both to be 100% invested in the holiday whilst you're away from their usual routines and comforts.
Perhaps try a week next time, out of office on, make sure you won't be disturbed.

I don’t think giving up your job is the solution, life is hard for pretty much everyone with preschool DC.
Are you sure you want to go down the private school route? I have 3 DC and we moved house to a good catchment area and then had an absolute massive holiday budget. It’s made life so much fun. My DC did really well and went to good unis and we have so many incredible holiday memories.

@LorelaiVictoriaGilmore, you say there is no going back from a step like that, but rather than give up the job you love completely, if i were you I'd start a thread asking if others in your position have successfully managed a side step, like a reshuffle, whilst the kids were young?
You may get advice that opens your eyes up a bit.
Good luck