Clean house, kids, work full time. Impossible right?

[Greenapples1]

Seems to me that I run around like a headless chicken from work, kids, meals and tidying but the house is still an embarrassment. DH does a bit when asked as do DD's but it's always with a sigh and the bare minimum of effort. Is there an answer to this or am I destined to be a nagging mother. AIBU?

Internatinoal travel is a picnic compared to minding 3 under 5s single h anded and up every 2 hours all night for 6 months. I do it. You get on that plane - okay it's stressful it may not take off and you may be up at 4am to get it but then you can concentrate solely on that. When the work is done you get a whole night in a hotel room with no children and no cleaning to do. Never believe the man or woman who says it's stressful. Or they're out having fun in a bar or pretty often in bed with colleagues although perhaps not all will have so many queuing outside the bed room (Berlousconi apparently gave up after number 7 one night and coudl not manage numbers 8 - 11).

Of course they will feed you the yarn of their tiredness from work but it's just a con. Never be taken in. Anyway there will be more UK couples where both work full time in similar sorts of jobs than the few of us who go abroad to work on trips and that kind of thing.

Ithink it's only those silly women who won't delegate and want to be mistress at home becuase they have no power at work who fuss about keeping control over things domestic (more fool them).

I think iy depends on how you cope with lack of sleep and being on a schedule. I find childminding far less stressful.

I certainly don't find it easy. Only one proper day off (Sun) a week and I sit here yawning and wanting to have a lie down, the idea of doing a few hours housework seems impossible or at least, I would then be even more tired for Monday morning. I don't have an ideal solution, I do stay on top of clean clothes, cooking dinners and so on, it's the background cleaning and sorting of chaos that goes out of control. Paying someone else to do it if you can afford it is the best way if you are both working long-hours, I could before the recession but not now.

You obviously find bringing up children immensely difficult, Xenia . I find it very easy!

Well, she does have 5 of them, bonsoir. And I think you have just the one?? Not stalking you but have a vague recollection that that's the case.

I went straight in at the deep end as I have two DSSs - so no, I have never known what it is like to have only one child!

Living with you full-time? Makes a difference if not.

I have worked full time since DS was 8 months old. We have a cleaner twice a week. It is doable without but you have to lower your standards or both spend significant amounts of time doing housework. We don't want to so we have a cleaner.

I think Bonsoir and I mix in similar circles; my dh just got back from Poland very late Friday after a full on week of meetings going on till late at night through dinner etc, he's home for a week but then in Japan for a week, comes home on the Sat then taking me off on the Sunday morning for a week for our anniversary "somewhere several time zones East of here", that's all I know.

He's always had what Bonsoir describes as an all guns blazing job, when our kids were little he worked till 8pm every night then until 2am worked on his distance learning MBA.

Of course he didn't do any housework, childcare etc for those years, I did the lot because I've been part time as a lawyer for 18 years now, so was always home to do the domestic stuff and when I couldn't manage everything paid for cleaners, nannies, ironing ladies, gardeners etc.

Most of my friends in the village have very similar marriages, where the husband is either in the City so not home till 9 or 10 at night, or doing intercontinental travel most weeks.

The upside is that the men all earn North of £150k so the women can afford to take part time jobs or not work at all, and it seems to work, although I know it sounds a bit Stepford.

If both parents are working 9 to 5 and doing zero work or studying at home in the evenings or weekends, then there should be equal sharing of domestic stuff, but I think that's actually pretty unusual these days, so for the one working their bollocks off, it is only fair that the one working 16 hours a week or whatever does the rest, except when on holiday in which case they should split it

Happiness is realising that giving your children a good home is more important than a clean house!

Though of course there are limits!

Don't agree about the down-time, really. I worked for years as a freelancer based mainly from home, with DP doing a relatively full-on job with conventional hours. We split the housework (such as we do - the Inferiority Complex is not, it is fair to say, a vision of domestic gorgeousness ). We split the cooking - I did more during the week, he did more at the weekends.

YY Housework must be shared, but in our house it will never be a 50/50 split. My DP works 70hour weeks often and is simply away for many others. I work and am in my final year at uni so while busy and tired I am at least physically there to do a lot of the chores. Even when I qualify my career will have to take a back seat for a bit while he is building his. I will be working full time but only "normal hours" . His job is such that at the moment that he just can't be around to help much and his hours are never regular. Unfortunately he got in there first with the work oppurtunities so I am taking the supporting role at the moment. It is OK though as I know he appreciates it and when he can he will take a back seat for a while so I can do the big huge career thing if the time comes up.

We are not rich yet so can't have a Nanny or anything (and struggle with nursery or CM fees)and have just had to move to London so DP can progress so not seeing the benefits yet, but one day.... hopefully

clam - living with us 50%, coming and going all week - the logistics of shared parenting are quite something (which I fully understand that people who haven't lived in a shared parenting set up do not appreciate). For example (one tiny one), although the boys stayed overnight with their mother 50% of the time when they were at primary school, DP did all the morning school runs, which meant that he had to get up extra early, drive over there, walk them to school etc. Think about it - it was a lot more work than if they had been staying here every night - those mornings we all got a lie in

I think pl;enty of women just find it morally wrong and something ghey cannot live with to be in these unequal relationships where man has important away a lot job which means he doesn't have to worry himself with domestic stuf and woman is there cleaning the loos although of course if the man is rich enough then you have someone you manage to do that. The concept of living off male earnings and being kept etc is pretty iniquitous to many although there are some groups which tolerate that a good few of whom are on th is thread.

As for being home with small children, I was referring to when we had a baby, 1 and 3 year old, all in nappies at night, none slept, not much help. I think being home with that set up if much h arder and tiring then these supposed macho business trips where you're going to completely unnecessary dinners and thus getting rather fat and drinking so much your health with later suffer and then pretending to your wife how much you hate it whilst you're stuffing her knickers into the girls lying next to you on your hotel bed to keep her quiet.

There is no moral issue, Xenia, providing the couple is jointly providing for its family and is not a burden on the state. The way couples organise their domestic arrangements to their own satisfaction is no-one's business but their own, and the only moral issue that regularly crops up among my friends and acquaintances is the one of children not getting enough parental time and attention.

Perfectly possible IF:

1. You get DC and DH to do their fair share. Its not just your responsibility! Your DH and DC's need their own things they are responsible for doing. It shouldn't be down to you asking. Sit down and agree what each of them will do every day/week. For example, as a teenager I was responsible for washing up - absolutely everything!

1. You and everyone else gets used to doing things as you go along that reduces cleaning e.g. you spill something you wipe it up. You hang up coats when you come in. etc.

1. You have a bit of a routine. Might seem boring but it is much easier to keep on top of things if for example you do ironing regularly rather than letting it build up.

1. With meals get your DH to be responsible for planning and cooking for so many nights. Get your DC together to be responsible for 1 night a week.

If the above changes are too hard for you to do, get a cleaner if you can afford it.

There is a policial and moral decision every time a woman choosesn to stay home and the man comes first at work. It is a decision which damages other women. There is also a policial decision which affects others when both work b ut muggins silly woman takes on more than 50% of stuff at home - she damages her own prospects at work, she makes children of the family think women are there to be put upon and she allows her husband to continue to be sexist.

It is also in my view morally wrong for one parent to leave too much to the other one (and for both to give them no time of course). Fathers in the 60s and 70s did a lot more. My father did story time and bed time with one of us every night etc. Far too many men gfet a housewife set up at home and then even renege on working father duties with children so woman has 12 hours a day alone with babies and man shirks everything. That is morally wrong too.

Your opinion is that the scenario you describe damages other women. Other people may believe that the scenario you describe is the damaging one to women and children. You don't have a monopoly on morality, Xenia

And there is rather a lot more to parenting than reading bedtime stories - personally, I would not be polishing the halo of any man who crowed about reading bedtime stories/putting to bed and thought he was being a good parent because of it! Your standards of fatherhood are very low

Re: story and bed time, We take it in turns, doesn't matter who has been working out of the home that day or who has been doing the 'housework'. This only changes if one of us is working late and can't get home in time. 50/50, as with everything else really.

I'm with Xenia on the fact that how one family arranges its homecare/chilcare/work balance does have an impact - because those families all contribute towards statistics, which tell us what is 'normal' and therefore what we should be doing.

and the idea that the wohp somehow 'trumps' the effort required to be a sahp is laughable. apart from the fact that each child & family are unique, so generalisations are hard to draw, it goes back to the patriarchal view that family/home life is 'less' than money/business life.

Sometimes the unmarried second partners of divorced men with chidlren (Ms Allsop et al and may be bonsoir) have to bend over backwards to keep the man with whom they live but won't marry them by trying to be as different from the first wife as possbile. We have Ms Allsop going on about always doing what her boyfriend wants (he's not her husband so she has no rights, no protection so has to be very careful if she wants to keep him in a sense that those who are not married are not).

Of course you can put a very different slant on it and say if you're unmarried you are both there because you want to be and these men are just as lucky to have their other half. If that were so the other male half would be on egg shells all weekend hoping he'd ironed the shirt right in case she threw him out and he lost her income etc if it weren't etc etc... all good fun stuff.

I cannot bear it when women bleat on about housework dominating their lives and moan about their partners not helping.
I have a friend who literally does everything at home , have told her to have 'martyr' tattooed on her forehead...am fed up listening to her whingeing.

I def agree with Xenia that travelling for work shouldn't get you off work within the home - I travel a lot for work (alas, no mega bucks or extravagant dinners), and even flying to LA in economy for 3 days is nothing compared to what I leave dh to do (work ft, look after ds, cook etc). I get a guaranteed nights sleep, and to eat in peace - but I note that travelling mums will be on the pc doing grocery orders/ buying birthday presents/ enagging teens, but I've never seen a travelling dad do that

If you marry the right man there is no reason to have a dirt house. Dh and i both work full time. We have three young dc's and our house is immaculate. This is because we SHARE the chores. I am amazed by the number of women whose dh do sweet F.A. When i married my dh, i made it clear that i expected him to help with the household chores and if he couldn't manage this for any reason, he better damn well pay for a cleaner.

I agree with those who say that you should have a place for everything and that you should declutter regularly.
My living room only has a sofa , television , lamp table.
BTW, cleaning the house is a good way to lose weight.