..to think that it would have been much better to teach me how to cook, clean and do laundry

[idiuntno57]

...rather than get a degree and postgraduate qualifications to pursue a career.

Because as soon as you have more than a couple of kids so many compromises need to be made that sustaining the family/career balance properly whilst remaining sane is almost impossible.

This isn't a man versus women debate (though usually things do default around gender lines) but a what's the point of creating aspirations which aren't sustainable in the real world?

Now if all I knew were home making skills then perhaps I'd feel less frustrated sometimes.

NB I realise that if I'd learnt more about contraception I might not be having this 'what's it all about' wobble

I wonder.

When I found my SAHM life mundane I think it did actually help having known another life. Boring is even more boring when you have nothing to think about.

Would I have been happier if I had been super-good at it? Not really, I might have set needlessly high standards and become a hyacinth bucket.

But the good housekeeping website is a good middle way for people with a life who just want the fastest way to get poo off sheets.

The two went hand in hand for me. I lived away for uni, I had to learn to cook, clean, wash etc. in fact I was doing these things from the age of 7/8! Now I have my own child (a son) he will learn the exact same things I learnt. His father shares chores and we both value our educations, our careers and our home.

The thing is this is a man versus woman debate. You could be the one working and not having to think about making it fit around kids. But women are expected to be the main care givers for children so it always ends up being women who stall their careers, do most of the housework and completely change their lives to fit around kids.
I REFUSE to let this happen so my partner will be caring equally for our child and the house. It is better for the child, relationship and employers if both men and women make equal sacrifices.

I actually enjoyed my SAHM years as a nice sabbatical from work, having been flat out since graduation. . Now I am earning again, we have a pretty even split of work.

Posted too soon...
What keeps me sane is finding things to do at home. I've just learnt to knit and I'm teaching myself Italian. Anything I can do to keep my brain working!

It is not intended to be a man v woman thing. Aspiration v lack of and relative contentment therof.

Also appears to be about mindless destruction of sheets, the money for which could be going to better use...

No YANBU in my opinion.
the older I get, the more cynical I become about this having it all myth, almost without exception, you simply cannot have it all - something always suffers.

It's not a case of one or the other , I have a degree and a full time job , I also keep the house clean.

50shadesof. Curious how many DC do you have if any at all. I get the impression that it is do-able with a couple. After that you're screwed..

£14 for a fitted sheet?! You're having a laugh! You can get them for around £5 in Wilko's etc. Okay it won't be pure cotton, most likely a poly/cotton mix, but £14 is not necessary.

It may also cost more in the short term to work, but not if you factor in your career.
Losing 5-10 years of a career may well mean you start off from zero when you go back with the corresponding loss of earning potential.

And if you like business so much, why not start your own?

I've got oodles of qualifications. I also have a clean house and am a decent enough cook. The two are't mutually exclusive

Everything you need to know about cleaning and laundry could be taught in a week, if you took Thursday and Friday off. Anything else you can google.

Cooking could be taught in a solid month - that would give you a good grasp of everything you need to follow any recipe.

I'd be in favour of basic CDT classes being ditched in favour of "putting up shelves on walls and making a pair of curtains" classes though.

But the difficult things about running a household are nothing to do with those things. The tough stuff is budgeting, saving, pension planning, choosing the best utilities option, tax returns, buying and selling houses and cars, and arranging their maintenance and insurance, filling in forms, applying for benefits, dealing with legal disputes, choosing schools, applying for statements of SEN, employing childcare, supporting your children with their learning, dealing with health problems and general risk assessments. All those things need a good thorough education, even before you get to work in the morning.

sparkle neither is throwing away a dirty sheet...

You need John Lewis value sheets, and/or sheets in a dark colour rather than white...

I have found that lowering my housekeeping standards has helped since having DC.

It was important to get my standards lower than DH's so that he would do his share without me nagging. (now he nags me which I find amusing)

I think sadly it is a man/women thing - not one man I know has had his career limited by becoming a parent. I know it does happen sometimes though.

But the mismatch between aspirations and reality seems to be a lot smaller for men, in my experience.

I do wonder why you had more than a couple of DCs if you don't like/aren't good at home stuff, because unless you are a very high flyer, it's unlikely you'll earn enough to justify going to work and paying childcare and cleaner costs. Did you find it easy with 2 and just didn't think more would add more work?

However, I do think proper cookery couse would have been more useful than woodwork for me. I'm not very good at keeping the house clean, not because I don't know how to, just because I can always think of something better to do. I have a cleaner.

My DD and I had this conversation when she was baking some cookies yesterday. She was musing on how different recipes worked out when you add different ingredients etc.
She said that she would much rather be taught to specifics of cooking in all its forms at school so that she could then apply this information to a wide range of recipes when she is cooking for herself in a few years. She laments at the poor teaching she is given in cookery and would love to also have some experience of sewing etc .

I use Napisan for poo stained sheets .

Rinse poo down toilet, rinse cycle in machine then 60º wash. No need for scraping or binning.

Home maintenance needs to be brought back in to the fore, whether it is at school or at home. I had a huge challenge learning these skills when I went into my own home mid-teens. I do wish I'd have been taught the most efficient methods, but I'm learning.

I struggle with two children three including the husband but that's more my own problem.

Carrying on a career is all well and good if you had one to start with, many, like myself didn't.

oh and OP, why are you scraping off poo? how bad can it be? Shove it in on a hot wash with nothing else in the machine, with a good glug of bleach and just hang it up, it'll be fine. Don't be a martyr about it. If it ends up a bit stained, so long as it's clean does it matter?

On thinking though, DS1 is 7, he has done cookery classes in school and has done basic sewing, all skills I could build on at home and ones he loves to do.

4dcs here. It is incredibly hard. We have an even lit of everything (work/childcare/housework). Some days I think this just means 2 of us close to the brink, rather than one bored out of brain at home and one stressed to the max at work never seeing the family .

YABU. Hope you don't have any DDs...

idiutno57, i could have written your post myself! this is so true, I spent silly amount of years investing in my education and career, learning various workplace skills, a couple foreign languages, Bachelors and Masters Degrees for what? To be cooking, cleaning, looking after kids and tending to the garden... None of these activities paid or otherwise "recognised" by the society. Sadly, mother's work is invisible and taken for granted.

Sometimes I wonder whether it was all worth it. They say you pass it on to your kids on a subconcious level. Yeah, if you have got a chance in between shedloads of laundry and cooking 3 meals a day.

I totally get your argument that "having it all" is not doable, something has got to give. I have found that I could not let my family and children give, so my career suffered. I had to reduce my hours and take a demotion to be able to provide the level of care to my family that I consider acceptable. Women just know this is so important, to have a tidy house, a home cooked meal and content children. Even if mothers do not get any monetary reward for it or social status.

I have found myself run down and stressed out of my wits trying to balance a demanding FT job and provide a good quality care to my children. In the end, I hit a point when I could not go on like that any longer. If I did not find a part-time job (that in itself was a job!!!), I would have walked out of my FT employment, I was at the end of my tether. I also found things were starting to fall apart around me, my emotional and physical state affecting the whole family.

I still work, but part-time, as this is the best compromise I could achieve. It is far from ideal, as the job is well below my level of skills and experience. But I do get a little more precious time with my family which I really appreciate.