Aibu to wonder if everybody life is like this?

[Laraaussie]

So today I got up at 6am, coffee, breakfast, then rushed around getting ready sorting kids eldest just sits around and does nothing unless told, no common sense, youngest 4yo spends all morning moaning and having tantrums because he can't get his socks on.

Left house, dropped dc at childcare, struggled through bad traffic to get to work. Left work, got stuck in unexpectedly bad traffic, was going to be late to collect dc so had to ring my mother who thankfully was able to collect them but I was super stressed.

Got home, youngest heads straight to the toilet for his usual after school poo, calls me to wipe his bottom. I then leave him to wash his hands while I have a tidy up, can hear water, he's left the tap running with the plug in and had flooded the bathroom, water pissing through the ceiling so I'm trying to dry it all up with towels while youngest is crying because he's flooded the bathroom

I nag eldest to pick up after himself as he leaves a trail of mess in his path.

I cook dinner, then go out to swimming lessons, more traffic, no parking spaces at busy leisure centre despite leaving in plenty of time we only make it in in the nick of time. After swimming queue for showers, people pushing in gives me the rage.

Head to shops for milk/bread top up, forget the bread.

Home, eat the dinner I've cooked, dh home by then, by the time we've cleared up, got kids to bed, sorted bags/uniforms for tomorrow, stuck a washing load on, we've just sat down.

I'm knackered and tomorrow I do it all again.

Sounds like my life but add in an elderly mother with health issues and mental health problems. I have reduced my hours at work since ds started school but here are a few of the things I do

Make lunches/sort bags/ uniform/showers the night before.

Only housework during the week I do is hoovering downstairs/empty bins/washing and a quick clean of the toilet. Deeper cleaning is left till the weekend.

I do washing everyday to keep on top of it so not left with piles at the weekend.

Ds only attends 2 clubs but I get lunches/tea/showers etc done before we go to his club so that way when we get in it's just snack and bed and then I can sit down.

Dh works shifts and long hours but he will do bits and pieces when he has time and ds has a few jobs he has to do to which all helps.

Why on earth do you take the kids swimming on a weekday evening? Wouldn't it be easier at the weekend?

This thread is so good! I seem like I have it all together, I always look nicely put together and my kids are always dressed smartly in good clothes. In reality I work nights then have to stay up all day just to get things done! I can cope with it 3 weeks of the month but that “grumpy week” is hell x

No, that sounds hellush and exhausting. Is going part time impossible op?

Sorry if that sounded smug. I've forgotten the madness that is young kids, whether you work or not. Mind you teens come with their own problems. Lifts at midnight, always starving, girlfriend /boyfriend staying over....

@CheeseToastMarmite I agree with you. It feels like women kind of got the wrong end of stick with feminism. Great! have financial independence and every one will judge you if you don't work but also bear kids, look after them, feed them, take days off when they are sick, arrange childcare, take them to activities...and the list goes on.

I also believe that we have made our lives even more difficult by trying to fit all the activities after school. What's wrong with staying at home after school and doing nothing? Yes kids might need an activity or two but it should be enjoyable not stressful. Our parents would have just let kids play with each other at home instead of all this malarky. Even if we would bite each others head off it would have been less stressful than all this.

My life was like that until one day when I said "fuck this". I quit my job, I now work freelance two days per week from home. I know that's not an option for most but it saved my sanity!

Also I know it's been said but there are some things that simply aren't necessary even though we think they are. It took me ages to wrap my head around the fact that no one NEEDS to cook a dinner from scratch every day, it's simply not necessary. Dinner was the most stressful time of my day, I hate cooking, the DC would always be hungry/cranky while I was trying to get it done and would whinge/scream/cling to my legs until I'd eventually lose the plot, shout at them, eat dinner while seething and spend the rest of the evening feeling guilty about it all. So I simply stopped. I now cook three days per week, two of those days are when they're at the childminders so it's all done before I pick them up so I plop them straight at the table as soon as we're in the door. I can't tell you how much this helped. Depending on what I'm cooking I'll usually make enough for two days to warm up the next day or make salads with leftover chicken/salmon. Otherwise it's beans or scrambled eggs on toast, chicken goujons chucked in the oven for 15mins, porridge and banana, "picky bits" etc. I've also found my eldest is eating better since I started this, she used to resist dinner all the time but now that the "dinners" she was resisting is only served a few times per week she laps it up veg and all.

I also do any cleaning in the hour before bed while the DC are pottering. If I don't get something done I simply leave it. After they go to sleep I consider that my time and I'm hugely protective of it so by 7:30 I have around three hours to do what I want. I do love a clean house so this was hard but it's not worth it if it means I'm snapping at the DC and feeling frustrated with the lack of down time so I've simply decided that this is a season, it will end, and I'm going to enjoy my DC as much as I can instead of buying into the pressure placed on mums to have it all "perfect". It's been quite liberating!

For many years I left for work at 7.15am having got up at 6.45. DH got DS ready and took him to school. I had compressed hours so could pick DS up from school. I also had free lunch every day at work in the student refractory this was years ago and that bonus is long gone so I was very lucky.

DS had about 12 swimming lessons at school and a retired swimming instructor who we got chatting to improved his swimming when were on holiday.

I had a few swimming lessons at school and then swam in the sea as grew up four minutes from a beach. How many swimming lessons do dc need?

IfNot to get teens to do stuff plus dc at other ages is threaten a sanction and mean it. My sis used to constantly threaten withdrawal of privileges to her dc but never ever followed it through. They knew they could get away with it. I’m not doing this constantly by the way it’s just that both DH and DS know if I say something I mean it. I find many people but especially women will just put up with to keep the peace.

I think what happened with the having it all thing is that fathers accidentally forgot to pick up the slack.. (in my experience of every couple I can think of...)
And women let them get away with it.
If I was planning a family now I would sit him indoors down and make it crystal clear how things were going to be (and that would include me working full time or near as damnit). I do also think middle class families do way too many activities though!

Mine is the total opposite, work from home part time, no children, rural area with little traffic so no delays locally as a rule. It all sounds fine, but I still berate myself that my life is not full and busy enough like every one else's that I dont have colleagues to have a laugh with. I often wake up and wonder how to fill the day, house is easy to clean, simplified garden. I support friends and go to a few classes, but often just feel it's not enough and I dont know what to do.

Thanks Adverse.
I do try but yeah, no playstation until chores done tends to work. I'm just a stress avoider!
I do cook and we cook together so that's quite good.

Same here, same old same old, I thought life might get a little easier now I'm older, poorly husband, poorly mil ,should have been retired by now but government says 6 more years for me, will it ever get any better.

My life is utterly treadmill and pretty hard atm. But I cant see how to improve it.

I already batch cook, shop online etc. The house is almost always tidy as we put away not down and the DC tidy their toys. We do minimal cleaning but its ok.

The problem is lack of time.

DH work FT, long hours (CEO). I work 4 days a week (out the house 8am to 7pm and no way to drop hours unless I stop work completely). On my day off the DC dont have school so we use it to do 1 activity each. (And all the other millions of things I need to catch up on)

The hardest bits are:
1 hour homework for my 8 year old every day, which we do when I get home at 7pm

The endless medical appointments: Dr, orthodontist, eye physio, speech therapist, osteopath, optician. Ive done all of these for 1 or other of the DC in the past 2 weeks, some of them twice.

Sleep deprivation. Mine are awful sleepers and always have been. They are getting better but I still go to bed at 9.30pm so everything is a rush.

BeyondMyWits How the buggery bollocks do you get your teens to "muck in" without a lot of Kevin-style huffing and stropping
Asking for a friend
of course...

We have always had fairly biddable kids. We expect them to muck in and they do - magic may come into play somehow... or the fact that if they do nothing they get no money, no social lifts, no takeaways...

BeyondMyWits How the buggery bollocks do you get your teens to "muck in" without a lot of Kevin-style huffing and stropping
Asking for a friend

If they're being resistant I refuse to start cooking dinner until the job is done.

We had the concept of a "mad 15/30 mins" where everyone runs round since they were little so they are used to it.

Plus I can out Kevin my kids.

When I returned to work from maternity leave my life started to go this way. I only have one dd and work 3 days a week but at the same time as me returning to work my husbands working hours increased dramatically. DH leaves the house at 7am and doesn't get back until 7pm when dd is in bed, he then will have dinner and work from home until around 9pm. This means that I have the bedtime routine, general tidying and dinner to sort out.

I think what has helped me is to really think about what I value in life and what I value for my daughter. For example I have worked hard to get to where I am in my career and I am at the stage where I should be looking for a new job with better prospects but after some soul searching I realised that what really matters to me at the moment is my work-life balance with life taking the priority. This may change in the future but I am ok with how it is at the moment.

Can I also just say a big thank you to everyone who has given some really good advice so far. I am really enjoying getting other people's perspectives and ideas.

Yes, pretty much.... Apparently one day we will miss these days!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome that women are independently earning money, but I can’t help thinking we haven’t completely let go of the old ways and attitudes to women’s work in the home

Too true, CheeseToastMarmite! I reckon I do about 90% of the housework in our house. I work 3 days a week, whereas DH is retired. To give him some credit, he does do almost all of the shopping and some of the cooking though!

"Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome that women are independently earning money, but I can’t help thinking we haven’t completely let go of the old ways and attitudes to women’s work in the home"

Well to all that woman doing this, STOP, it won't stop until we stop. If you're raising children in houses where you're doing the lion's share they will most likely grow up to do the same with their spouses. Don't stay with the men who won't step up. We owe it to our children to stop it, plenty of other women have done much more difficult things so we can have what we have today, this is something we can each be doing to change things for the next generation.

...steps down from pedestal.

Same here. My DD has just started reception plus toddler in nursery and DH works away a lot so drop offs etc all down to me. Finding family logistics stressful!

I don't really mind being busy, as long as we make time for fun days out etc.

I always remember reading Fay Weldon saying our generation of women are screwed as we got enticed into the working world and basically do everything at home

I think she wrote this in the 70s or 80s so it’s even worse now

YANBU

My life feels a bit like this and I've got 2DC aged 5 and 1

DH often works away from home/abroad so he is generally not around in the mornings to help things along

I work FT and life does often feel like being on one long treadmill

I get cross and then shout at my eldest, it's so frustrating trying to encourage them to get ready in the morning whilst simultaneously getting myself ready and dealing with the 1 yr old crawling/cruising around pulling everything down

So I arrive at work feeling like the worst mum in the world, wanting to go back to the school to give my 5 yr old a massive hug

In the evenings it's all about getting them into the bath and chilling out before bedtime- if DH is around he generally doesn't get home till 8pm which is not really helpful as they've had food and bath, youngest generally asleep by then and I find it disruptive for the 5 yr old's bedtime as they refuse to go to bed

We eat around 9.30/10pm (awful for putting on weight) and not long after dinner I'm ready for bed and to get ready to do it all again the next day

You are not alone!

I always remember reading Fay Weldon saying our generation of women are screwed as we got enticed into the working world and basically do everything at home

I think there is a huge amount of truth in this

Have to say that in the UK we are so lucky with maternity leave provision

I took 8 months which was bliss and I did enjoy my time with them both, I look back now and do wish I had taken the full year- life did feel so much easier when I wasn't working (and still earning some mat pay)

Well to all that woman doing this, STOP, it won't stop until we stop. If you're raising children in houses where you're doing the lion's share they will most likely grow up to do the same with their spouses. Don't stay with the men who won't step up. We owe it to our children to stop it, plenty of other women have done much more difficult things so we can have what we have today, this is something we can each be doing to change things for the next generation.

Yes. But also it won't stop until men START. As long as men can work full time and have kids and not give it a second thought, we ARE screwed.
The thing is, when it comes to the welfare of children women wont stop sorting them food and clean clothes etc. We will always blink first.
My advice would also be DO NOT have children with crap men who don't realise the kids and house are their jobs too.
Or at least try not to!
(I actually think long mat leave is a poisoned chalice. After a year, you are stuffed when you go back to work. The housework has become your job, you know the baby better, you do everything...forever!)

No my day is not like this as I work from home. Its killed my career as I'm stuck.at my current level, but it makes life a lot easier with kids.