Faced some judgment recently about our work/home life.
basically DP works 3 12 hour shifts a week, so full time over 3 days and sometimes over time. He earns £2200 a month take home.
I don’t work at all at the moment. We have tie children with SEN, one with more complex needs, both have high needs at school with EHCP’a, both get DLA and I get carers allowance. We get a small amount of tax credits. We get child benefit obviously and maintenance off my sons dad.
I also have health problems myself and mental health issues as well as that I’m likely to be on the spectrum myself.
we do okay financially with me not working currently. I hope to get back to it one day. I literally don’t stop some days.
but I have faced judgment. Judgment that because dp works over 3 days, I should work over the other days but it’s hard as it’s not the same 3 days every week so not consistent and would be hard to find work around. I can only commit to evenings but our evening routine is so strict… we both need to be home at bedtime.
parenting our children is full on and it also means that me and dp do get some time alone when they are at school at some point during the week. Even if we are just at home pottering around, we don’t go out to do anything and it’s very full on as soon as they get back from school! If we didn’t have time alone on some school days we wouldn’t have any, the kids take hours to go sleep in the evening. We are both tired!
his shifts work for us right now. We have enough money to get by.
yet I am constantly being talked down to because I don’t have a job!
apparently I’m a kept woman and a lady of leisure
^if only! I don’t think people realise what it’s like raising children with SEN and it makes it ten times harder to find and hold down a job. We don’t have any family support.
I am not sure what the point of my post is. Feel rubbish that people seem to judge me.