To feel like 'reaching out' to people doesn't actually work

[JanuaryBones]

I'm in a right pickle, a mess of mum guilt, stress, frustration and tiredness. Trying to hold down a full time job with a school age child and one in nursery in a pandemic. Every month I feel I've got my childcare sorted another shitstorm comes along with isolation, school closures and now working from home being taken away (with two weeks notice.) There's not as many holiday clubs and the ones I've found are either far away, ludicrously expensive or 9-3. For all my employer talks about flexibility, it means nothing.
I've managed to book two weeks off in the school holidays and dp managed to get one (small business). The other three weeks it's just me running them around to relatives, holiday clubs and then back again. It's now quarter to eight and I've not ate anything bar two digestives, the kids are still awake, my colleagues are barely speaking to me due to my leaving early and starting late and I have no one to talk to about it.
My friends either have jobs and no kids, very part time jobs, very flexible jobs or nursery aged children. I don't feel anyone truly gets it. If I reach out to say I'm really struggling I get an 'oh dear' or no response at all. I just dread waking up tomorrow and doing it all again. I feel retchingly guilty that my dc does nothing in the summer except sit in an elderly relative living room or get driven to holiday clubs.

@MrsBumm

I wish the work and school world were better aligned. It makes me furious how much great time and energy, from people at the absolute sweet spot in their careers, is frittered away on the shitty mental load of school holidays. With the tiniest effort could think immediately of about 4 different simple solutions which, implemented nationally, would improve the wellbeing of children and parents and boost the economy as people could be so much more productive. It's all such bollocks the way it's done now.

Exactly.

I went back to work when my DD was one and it all worked fine while she was at nursery as that is open 7-7 52wks a year and they were pretty flexible with my shift changes every few months.
Once she started school the juggling became too much and I ended up giving up work. I have no idea when I'll go back and thankfully DH's job covers our bills, so being a SAHM is affordable.

Our generation was fed the lie that we could have it all. I never believed I would ever give up work. I was a career woman and doing well.

There’s a DP??
I’d assumed OP was a single parent with no help from a partner/ex-partner.
In which case you need to split the care. Why wouldn’t you?

Mine are bigger now but you never lose mum guilt. I’ve always either not worked or worked part time through the holidays as my job has been term
time. This year I changed to an all year contract with my work place as my youngest is now in secondary school. So I’ve worked all summer but that has meant my children have done very little except sit at home alone together or see friends/family. No nice days out like we used to do. It has made a huge difference to my finances but feel bad they’ve had a boring holiday.

I think perhaps this is an unusual summer for childcare- lots of childminders gave up in the school year after parents who were WFH found they could drop off and pick up themselves so cancelled places, and so those left standing are over booked for the holiday period. Hopefully things will settle down with more going back to work in the office next year.

I would plan and save through the year for a summer nanny. Take your leave at the shorter holidays and pay someone for a month of arriving at 8am and leaving at 5:30pm. Or pay a childminder to do the school run 1/2 days a week even if its more expensive than breakfast clubs so you have priority for the school holiday places they have available, your dc is already used to them and book places for next summer from around October this year.

Its up to you and your DP to come up with solutions so next summer looks different. Can he learn to drive by then? There must be some holiday club/ childminder you can find to cover the holidays. It falls down to poor planning really. Although i do sympathise how stressful it must be right in this moment. I agree with PP that you need to save for the holidays and overall just plan it better.

@Mistyplanet with respect, how could anyone plan for this year? It's been a traumatic, anxious year of having last minute curveballs thrown at you, through text, email, news bulletin! Just then my ds just coughed, I don't think that sound will ever not give me palpitations in the future!
We have childcare for every day of the holiday. It's not about that. It's the late start/ early finishes of the holiday club, their locations and the lack of flexibility being shown by my workplace. Yesterday I asked to leave at 4.30, which was met with eye rolls and a stern message to let management know.
I suppose I'm struggling with the small details, and explaining tHis to others. I have a meeting tomorrow so won't be able to drop my daughter off for her first day at a new holiday club. A family member is taking her but if she freaks out and runs for the door, what will he do? He won't be able to call me as I'll be in a meeting in a unit with no personal phones allowed, so he'll probably take her home and then I'll have to leave to pick her up and the £30 for the holiday club will be gone! My boss only has limited patience for days like this and I can't seem to make anyone understand that it's the unpredictable parts of the holiday which make it so difficult for my brain to cope with.

If it makes you feel any better, sitting in elderly relatives’ living rooms and hanging about at home (no holiday clubs, no holidays away as my parents couldn’t be arsed) was the whole of my childhood.
It was OK- I learnt to hold conversations and entertain myself on my own. Not thrilling, but not awful either.

So this plus a few holiday clubs isn’t a terrible thing you’re doing. It’s fine, really.

Sympathies with the difficult work situation- it’s the worst bit about parenting I think as it’s such a tricky jigsaw to manage. Other stuff you can control more easily but childcare is subject to the whims of so many random shocks.

I think some real forward planning is the key here.

Two parents working full time 9-5 jobs, and not even working from home bar one day, doesn't work with school aged kids.

Basically kids have more holidays than adults, so you are never going to be able cover them with your own annual leave.

What you do work wise has to fit around your kids. This is your real issue.

People may not be sympathetic or be non commital because it's really a problem of your own creation.

The harsh reality is you and/or your husband need careers or employers that are more in tune with having kids.

Careers like Teachers, Teaching Assistants or Employers that let you work flexibly or from home are essential when you have primary aged school kids.

@OneAlabamaReturn and what if you're not able to do a profession (?) I'm a support worker, my partner is an illiterate flooring specialist. What do we do to make ends meet and still manage over the holidays? I enjoy what I do, I don't want to work in a desk job. I might go back to shift work as that seemed easier to manage, but then the kids were younger so that was easier again.

I tell all my friends who are pregnant, make sure you have a flexible job. Not for the first three years they're easy, for this part! The school years.

Do you have the option to go part time? Maybe working full time is just to much at the moment. The reason for your resentment is rooted in your own choices, and you feel you are missing out on time with your children then some decisions need to be made.

I don't blame you for feeling that way. We want the best for our dc and the summer should be fun for them, your friends do not sound very supportive, but maybe they don't know what to say to comfort you. Only you can make the changes needed op.

Your dh maybe needs to go part time otherwise, so at least one of you is around and you don't feel constantly compromised?

I enjoy what I do

You can't have it both ways, a desk job might not be your first choice but it might fit in better with your life, and you and dc have some quality of life. I am not sure why the onus is on you to keep fixing things, what is your dp doing with his share of the childcare (half by the way) when the children bolt from holiday club or whatever? You should be splitting the problems in half and taking time off in turn if you need to.

You are spreading yourself too thinly, and your dp needs to step up with his side of the responsibility op. They are his children as well.

I have been in your position and it sucks. You are doing your best and what you have to do so stop feeling guilty, your DC are okay at holiday clubs and relatives it's not cruelty even if it's not ideal!
They are very young so people find them exhausting and are less likely to reach out to help - as they get older they may be more willing.
Nothing much is harder than full time jobs and really young DC, you have to hang on in there and work on feeling fine about doing what you have to do to provide for your family.

At present I'm really struggling with the whole mental load, dp doesn't really get it

He never will get it until you require him to. At the moment you are running around doing the double shift so that he feels little impact.

You say he doesn't drive and doesn't get paid if he takes a day off but what about his share around the house? Does he do 50% of the household cleaning/washing/cooking/appointment arranging (all of which can be done from home evenings and weekends) or is he one of those "great dads" who contentedly watches his partner do the double shift?

Can he learn to drive for the future? You are right that childcare is often more difficult in the early school years but also the taxi service cuts in big time as they get older.

When I look back, the period where it was most important for one of us to be around for the DC (rather than carers/help) was actually the teenage years. The issue being that at this age you often need to be there when they want to talk rather than be able to prompt them to tell you about what bothers them with a few seemingly casual questions.

Until men step up in the role of father and sharing all family responsibilities, this will continue to be a problem.

It's a very sexist society that we live in and it will continue to be so until it is no longer financially viable for business to treat women as lesser. And that will only happen when men are similarly inconvenienced and thereby have their working lives disrupted (in the way most working mothers do)

In the meantime, the set up does no one any favours.

@Nc123

I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, OP.

I think your DH does need to do a bit more - appreciate it’s difficult with a business to run but nothing is ideal at the moment. Equally, holiday clubs and helpful relatives are a perfectly reasonable way to spend the summer. You’re doing your best.

Tbh, I’m pretty hacked off reading the number of comments suggesting you drop your hours or leave work on this thread. While it may seem a simple solution, there are lots of mums who would dearly love to work less but are the high earners in their families. If I worked less we couldn’t afford to pay the bills. (I earn double what my husband does). I think there’s a presumption that the family can in a pinch manage without mum’s wage, but that really isn’t true for everyone.

Or those forgetting single parents exist.

@50ShadesOfCatholic I agree with you. It's really strange that it happens in my organisation as 70% of the staff are women, head of ops is a woman, clinical lead is a woman, nearly all female managers. Yet with childcare issues they are (generally) crap. Maybe it's because we're not 'qualified' or because we're lower paid, I don't know. Maybe it's because they have to be seen as tough, like their male counterparts, I'm not sure! They're even crap with stuff like the menopause and pregnancy, female issues which you would assume they had some knowledge of.

@Handyangy or forgetting that some women actually like their jobs and don't want to give it all up. It's hard when you have caring responsibilities at home and at work. I find it difficult to imagine what would happen if I was just not in for three days a week, we are extremely short staffed as it is. 'Sorry Mr Blogs there's no one to support you in your application for housing today as she only works three days now, sorry!'

Op I do hear you.

I must admit that I work part time, however, there is a lot of shaming that goes on from my employer for needing to work flexible hours. We are extremely busy and understaffed.

We take a huge pay cut for me to work part time, my 'career' has taken a huge hit. I often feel I have no financial security of my own because my part time pay is peanuts. I have a dh who constantly complains about money, but he soon shuts up when I point out that he does absolutely zero school drop offs/picks ups, covering sickness and does far less housework, because of his important unaccommodating man job. So if he'd like me to work full time he will have to ask his own employer for flexible working.

BUT, if I didn't work part time, I'd be in the same or worse situation as yourself. We have virtually no family help, out of school childcare just doesn't fit in the working hours, our combined leave isn't enough to cover the school holidays, let alone illness, teacher training days, appointments and more recently school closures and isolations.

The truth is that 2 parents in full time work just doesn't work with school age children. Unless you are lucky enough to have either lots of money to pay a nanny, fantastically accommodating young healthy parents or amazing childcare facilities in your area. Reality is most holiday clubs are 10-3 and only run a few weeks of the year.

Where’s your DP in this?

@WimpoleHat

I agree with *@MrsSkylerWhite*. This is going to sound a bit harsh, but these people who don’t work/work part time generally do so in order to be able to have time with their own kids during the school holidays. And they/their families take a financial hit in order to do that.

This is crass, but basically it’s like this. You work to have money for your family - and this flip side is that you have less time. They don’t work and therefore have more time, but less money. Would you be willing, for example, to take unpaid leave to babysit for a friend? No - and they wouldn’t be reasonable to ask you to. Would you give them some of your wages if they were hard up? I’d assume not (again, bar a genuine emergency). So it’s not reasonable either to assume that you’re entitled to someone’s time just because they don’t work.

Great post

OP, if you have helped other people in the past, it's easier to ask them to reciprocate. Otherwise, it's unreasonable to expect other people to step in and help with childcare (other than emergencies)

Having two FT working parents is a choice. When DH and I were working out what had to 'give' to make things manageable/bearable we considered:

Who earned the most (me)
Whose job could be flexible location wise (his)
Who was most ambitious (him)
Etc, etc and came to a decision about what would work best for us.

Neither of us particularly wanted to give up our careers, but we had a child with some additional needs and something needed to change.

I know loads of families where the mum works FT and the dad does flexible PT work/is a SAHP. And vice versa. They take a financial (and often a life satisfaction/wellbeing) hit so that family life runs more smoothly.

It's not EASY to give up a career you've worked hard at to go PT or be a SAHP. It's a different choice, with different stressors.

You’re working FT and also doing 100% of the wife work in harder than usual circumstances. Frazzled is the logical consequence of this. .

I think your title is a bit misleading, it’s not the people you ‘reach out’ to who you should direct your difficulties at, they are not going to make it better.

My DC are older now. I am in a ‘career’ but did choose to go PT which massively eased the burden. I was also super organised about all holidays with spreadsheets set up early and every day scheduled. I didn’t use holiday clubs with hour that didn’t work for us. I moved up a gear at work again later.

I don’t think your employer or your friends are likely to be more understanding tbh, best to accept that it is something you and your DP need to manage and work out the best way to make it work smoothly for your family.

It does get much, much easier, you are at the trickiest stage now. Have some as well.

I think what’s notable about this thread is the contrast between other threads, where women who are staying at home with their children or working very part time, are largely rebuked at length.

It isn’t really good enough to insist women work full time and are financially independent and then shrug and say that childcare is their issue and to go part time if they can’t cope.

That’s hugely problematic.

@lavenderandwisteria

I think what’s notable about this thread is the contrast between other threads, where women who are staying at home with their children or working very part time, are largely rebuked at length.

It isn’t really good enough to insist women work full time and are financially independent and then shrug and say that childcare is their issue and to go part time if they can’t cope.

That’s hugely problematic.

I agree. Continue using to work FT was and remains non-negotiable for both me snd DH, but we juggle flexibility together while also throwing money at holiday clubs etc — though agree with the OP these have been problematic this year.