I am failing in every aspect of my life right now - women really can't have it all

[ICantDoItAll]

I am so tired. I am self employed and the main breadwinner but I'm failing at that - business is slow, and we're struggling to make enough to meet all the bills. I have outstanding tax bills that have to be paid and I can't even think about them.

I'm failing as a parent. DS needed to choose his GCSE subjects by this week but I haven't even had enough proper conversations with him. Partly because I missed the emails from the school originally about it, and then since then I've just been so busy and stressed. That's just the tip of the iceberg. He has ADHD and we're trying but everything is a battle. EVERYTHING. and I feel like if I just spent more time with him, sat with him and did his homework with him etc etc, then perhaps things would be better But it's exhausting and I have a million other things to do.

I had to name change because on my usual user name, I'm one of those posters who gets annoyed when men don't step up. So of course, the obvious next question is: what about your DH? But yo know what, overall, he does his best. He's a good dad, a good husband, a hard worker. But while this pisses me off no end, let's be honest here - in 90% of cases, even with a "great" dad, it's the woman who has to think about all this shit at home. In this case, me. So yes, I'm pissed that it's all on me while simultaneously accepting that he's actually stepped up loads compared to how he was socialised as a man to think he had to be in the home.

But at the end of the day, women just can't bloody have it all. Or at least, most of us can't. A few lucky ones manage it. they are more competent or they find a man who genuinely is 100% taking on 50% of everything or both. But we're fighting a losing battle. A battle in which society says that men don't have to think about this stuff or be responsible for it and where most of us, if our partners are doing 25% of it, consider ourselves lucky.

And I'm probably a bit resentful because if he was the main breadwinner, fine. To be clear - he's a hard worker and puts his hours in. He's no cocklodger. But at the end of the day, what he can earn is capped. I knew that going in and I'm genuinely fine with it. But today, I'm pissed. Because today I'm just conscious I don't seem to be getting any of it right and it's my children who are going to suffer as a result.

No, women can’t have it all. It’s a myth.

You're right. Something has to give. Have you spoken to your DH about this? Is there no scope at all for him to earn more?
He needs to take some of the load from you. As he's been socialised in the patriarchy then maybe the easiest thing to approach him about might be money?
I dunno, none of this is easy.

Who told you you could have it all?

I do recall the sentiment at one time, that it was possible to have it all, a la Nicola "supermum" Horlick. They failed to mention that one would need a strong support network, nanny, cleaner, so on, so on, to possibly stop any woman from killing themselves from exhaustion though, without help.

I hear you. I am hanging on by a very thin thread.

He's a good dad, good husband and a hard worker- so what is it that he is not doing then?
I don't really know what "having it all" looks like tbh. On paper I have it all, well paid job, nice home, 2 good kids, husband who genuinely shares the load. You know what though- it's still hard work. I am tired every day, so is he. We are going from one day to the next most of the time. Weekends are busy too. I don't feel like I ever stop till 9 every night and then I'm in bed by 10.

I guess that's life though?

In terms of stuff like DS options, does your DH have scope to talk to him about stuff like this in future?

Yes ideally he'd already have realised and been on that conversation without you having to think about it. So although it won't lessen your mental load in future, would he have time to discuss these sorts of things in your place if you gave him reminders?

I agree. Somewhere along the way "having it all" has morphed into "having responsibility for it all" which is not quite the same.

Go easy on yourself. Don't beat yourself up about not spending loads of time with DS. If he needs you spending hours and hours with him to pass GCSE then those GCSEs won't be a lot of use to him in the future.

Not to mention the fact that support network is almost always women working fairly minimum wage jobs, because they can’t work full time or with proper benefits because of their children, and on and on it goes.

Nobody "has it all". What is that anyway? Being a bloke, apparently I have but I seriously doubt this.

My hardest lessons in life are that I have to say no sometimes, I will not do a great job at everything and its okay to fail at some things sometimes. Beating myself up is demoralising, steals time I could spend doing other stuff and makes everything worse

I get the impression you're being too hard on yourself. Your kids will grow up just fine, the mere fact you care about it makes me confident about that. It's the ones that don't care that we should worry about

We’re often not good at asking for help and delegating. Try that. No one knows you need help - or what with - unless you ask for it.

There's very little scope for him to earn more. He's also self employed. He's going to try and get a bit more work in the very very tiny amount of additional time he has. Truthfully, I'm a relatively high earner so the problem is that I'm not earning as highly as I used to AND things have all gone up in cost due to COL crisis - our mortgage, for example, went up by 45% last year. We are working together to figure out where we must cut even more to reduce our spending. But of course, like everyone who used to be able to afford things, it's so frustrating that we can't any more. It is what it is, but it does add to the stress.

Thank you to those who understand. It IS just life. Life which for many of us is difficult at the moment.

I hear you.

I completely agree with it. It’s men who often have it all. A full time job and a part time working wife ( or SAHP if they are very lucky) to pick up the majority of domestic and kids stuff. Or, a stressed out full time working wife who still does more than her fair share.

I also completely agree that two full time working parents is not great for kids ( no judgement, need to work full time myself) . But you are right. It is painfully clear to me how my SAHM friends have so much more time to give to their kids, think about their issues and then take action to help them.

I have no doubt that the rise in the poor MH of kids and teenagers is in part due to most HH having two full time working parents who just can’t give them the time they need.

Women like Nicola Horlick have SAHPs or Nannies. . They are just doing what high achieving men have always done: contracting out child and domestic duties so that they can concentrate on their jobs.

I hear you. I work FT as does DH but I pretty much pick up all of the mental load. It doesn’t occur to him, for example, to regularly measure their feet to see if they need new shoes, or think if they need a new coat or new clothes due to a change in season. Forget him having any concept of thinking about cover for school holidays in advance. His bloody mother messages ME even if it’s something she’s arranged with DH, like im his bloody PA.

i am also the higher earner (albeit not by much these days - if I went back to what I was doing pre-kids I’d be earning twice his salary - but no chance of that).

Im bloody sick of it. I do all the laundry and deal with all of the life admin. He does, like yours, more than most but he just does not get how draining the mental load is and he doesn’t do half of that.

Sorry but I don't agree with this.

I have worked minimum 30 hours and DH 40 hours since DS was born. He gets plenty of quality time spent with him.

My observation is that people like to fill their lives with activities and day trips and after school/extra curricular activities. Almost every one of our friends where the mum works part time or is a SAHP have this pattern. DC ferried from activity to activity, constantly on the go and needing to be entertained but none of it actually quality one on one time with their parents.

Parents and DC all frazzled and constantly exhausted. DC shoved in front of screens and tablets because their parents "need some peace".

We always had the rule of one extra curricular activity at a time. Weekends spent together as a family, sometimes out of the house but not always, sometimes it was just playing board games. Even now at 16 DS spends most of his evenings sitting with us, talking to us, we eat together as a family. He retreats to his room later on to do homework or relax/chill before bed.

One of the reasons we chose to only have one DC was so that we could devote quality time to him.

I'm the higher earner, I have a career and hobbies. DH also has hobbies. We do things separately and together as a family.

We split all household chores, actually DH probably does more household chores and I do more of the mental load, but to me that's fair, it's still equal and the way we split is by playing to our skills (I'm a natural planner but I HATE doing housework 😂, DH doesn't mind housework but hates having to think about or plan things!)

Was I lucky to find "a good one"? I doubt it. DH was brought up in a household of traditional roles, breadwinner dad and SAHM. His brothers have married with a similar set up.

But I told DH from the early days of dating (we were 16 and 18) not to expect a housewife or SAHM. My career and being self sufficient was important to me and there would be no DC until my career was established and we were in a financially stable position (I was 27 when I had DS).

I know this might come across as gloaty and I don't mean it to be, but women CAN have it all if having it all means being in an equal relationship.

But I don't think you can decide you want it all after getting married and having DC, it has to be an up front conversation. It has to be thought about in advance (how will we give our DC quality time, what hours will we both work, will we use nursery/childminders.... etc etc).

How many threads on here do we see with women saying "nursery is going to be more than my wages", "DH can't do flexible working, it will all fall to me" - why are people not thinking and talking about this stuff BEFORE they decide to have children?

I grew up with the ideology that women doing everything was progressive.

I do recall the sentiment at one time, that it was possible to have it all, a la Nicola "supermum" Horlick. They failed to mention that one would need a strong support network, nanny, cleaner, so on, so on, to possibly stop any woman from killing themselves from exhaustion though, without help.

Ah yes, I remember Nicola Horlick, who had a team of au-pairs (or similar) as it turned out.

I also remember the phrase: 'having it all, means doing it all'

I don't think you are "failing" at life though @ICantDoItAll that's such a sad phrase and hurts my heart to hear women talk like that 😔

I think maybe you just have expectations of what "having it all is" ?

I have a friend who realised during lockdown their life was too hectic and she was striving for the perfect family and life and it was affecting her mental health.

She cut back on activities, told her DC they had to chose just 1 and drop the rest. They now focus more on doing things as a family instead of running from one activity to the next to the next.

She (and the whole family) is much happier and even increased her hours at work.

I feel you. I have a terrific partner who is really stepping up this week - I'm extremely unwell on a cocktail of antibiotics, steroids, antifungals, etc. 6 prescriptions yesterday and 2 more that dp needs to go get today for me. 2yo has an obscure virus affecting mouth so can't eat (breastfeeding like a beast still). 5yo has tonsillitis for perhaps the 6th time this year, has had a mild temperature for 2 months. We both work full time, pretty equal pay, but I'm struggling with absolute deadlines next week (behind due to all illness) ahead of 2 weeks annual leave to cover Easter holidays.

Things are very much slipping. I'm cutting everything down to the very bare basics - clean clothes, food in stock, medicines stocked up, slowly tackling work, and managing small but quality time with kids, although there are more screens than I'd like. Ignoring the flat and everything else. We have no help except nursery.

It's hard, but I'll get some catch up time with just ds over easter. This is just how it is I guess. It's a bit gutting that with 2 full time professional jobs, 1 stem PhD, and an affordable mortgage - we remortgaged for 15 years again last year just before rates went crazy, should have been 10, but we had double childcare then - things are hard. But we can afford things like robot hoovers to keep life more manageable at least, if not a property with a garden for ds, who really needs one. I appreciate and remind myself of the fact that others are struggling for food with col.

Sorry I did a rant! I'm usually the healthy one so feeling a bit glum.