AIBU to ask how do you manage it all if you work full time and have kids?

[dillydally24]

I have two DC (both under three), work full time in a 50-60 hour a week senior role and have no time for anything. I have a lot of help - a full time nanny and a cleaner who comes twice a week - but our house is often a bit of a tip and I never do anything for myself. My DH helps out, but his work is more demanding than mine, so he doesn't make a huge impact. We also have a dog and a house renovation in the go. If you work full time and have young kids, how on earth do you manage it?! Any tips are gladly received. It is this just the way it is for the next few years while the kids are young...?

@Bushgirl why do we have kids? Because having kids is wonderful. Just as having a fulfilling career is wonderful. Men have always been allowed to acknowledge this - women not so much. Out of interest, do you often ask working men why they bothered having kids? I know lots of friends' husbands who work 60+ hour weeks. Nobody ever, ever asks them why they bothered having kids.

Incidentally, this 'traditional' idea of the SAHM who devotes all her time to home-making and playing with her kids is actually pretty modern. Go back maybe 75 years, and poorer mothers would have been working, often far longer hours than they do now. Rich women had nannies. The concept of a non-working mother with enough disposable income for a relatively comfortable life, who spends her time doting on her children (playing, reading, doing crafts, making cookies, going to baby classes) is actually a pretty recent phenomenon.

(FWIW I read the OP's comment about forcing herself to eat with her kids, not as 'I hate eating with my kids' but as 'I make sure I make the time to eat with my kids'. And again, it's such a gendered criticism. Dads are generally perfectly able to say things like 'god I hate teatime with the kids, I'd much rather eat in peace', without anyone suggesting that they're unpaternal or unfit fathers or should never have bothered having kids if they feel like that.)

Grrr.

"Judgey posts like yours make me cringe. Lots of parents work long hours in demanding careers . If they are male, they are told how amazing they are and if they are female, they are judged by unpleasant people like you who can’t seem to understand that not everyone wants to live their life exactly like you."

Yes I fully agree. I know I get judged by others by focusing so much on my career and doctoral thesis when I have two kids, but nobody would bat an eyelid if I was male. Nobody seems critical about my husband's career or the hours he works, or wonders why he had kids if he wants to work full-time / long hours... just me, because I'm a woman.

I think we should be far more critical of men who absolve themselves almpst entirely from the parenting role, mostly by having a wife who is a sahm.

I’m a single parent with a tween and teen DDs. I work full time but am self employed. For me it’s prioritising, multi tasking and meticulous time/expectation management. I’ve come to accept that I will never get to the end of my to do list, but I do occasionally see the bottom of the laundry basket.

Having a SAHM wife is not absolving yourself of parenting. 🙄

@ForestFae
Did that leap hurt?

You said men are absolving themselves by having a SAHM.

@ForestFae

Read it again

It does not follow who have SAH wives are invariably 'absolving themselves of parenting duties.' They just happen to earn enough to support their family and enable their wives to stay with their children. Not every family wants to be hectic and juggling all the time and employing other people to look after their kids. It's not compulsory!

@shefellinthemarsh

I think you need to read what I said again too.

However you're contradicting yourself by disagreeing.

Why arent the men 'staying with their children'?

"Why arent the men 'staying with their children'?"

??? Because, where there is a SAHM, it's his earning potential that affords that.

@shefellinthemarsh

Yeah I think you're entirely missing the point

"Yeah I think you're entirely missing the point"

How many men with SAH wives do you know?

@shefellinthemarsh

Why?

Well I'm wondering if you've ever actually met any men who 'absolve themselves of the parenting role, mostly by having a wife who is a SAHM?' Is your statement based on real life experience, or is it something you just imagine to be the case?

Because the majority of the men I know who have SAHM wives (ie most men I know these days) are no less involved with their kids than anyone else.

Wanted to second what @WithFlamingLocksOfAuburnHair said. My husband and I are both corporate lawyers and I have a good idea of what you're talking about. It gets so much easier as your children get older, especially once they start staying up a bit later so you get evening time together too.

Focus on what you actually care about. If it's not eg having show home standards of tidiness just let that go.

I also think it's worth reminding yourself that it's hard because you are trying to do something which is genuinely challenging, rather than because you are failing or inadequate in some way.

@shefellinthemarsh

Are they as involved as their sah wives?

TopGub - it depends what mean by 'involved?' Obviously, if you don't have a job, then you have the mental space to focus more on the kids and other things. And obviously, if you're the one physically there with the kids more, then you will be the one to do more with them. This stands to reason and is unavoidable. But just because my husband is working, doesn't mean he's not involved with the kids. He does things with them I don't do, like certain sports on the weekends, or camping trips. He works from home mostly now, so it's not as if he's not visible. I just respect the fact he has demands on him that I don't have, so I take the pressure off in other ways.

@shefellinthemarsh

Your defensive reaction to my comment that you didn't even read properly says it all.

And no, I don't know any men who have sah wives, because thankfully I don't live in the sexist land

" I don't know any men who have sah wives, because thankfully I don't live in the sexist land"

Free the SAHMs from "the sexist land!"

Get them working 60 hour weeks instead.

@shefellinthemarsh

Or ya know, just a normal amount of hours so they can have a career/job too and their ohs can share childcare

I know men with SAH wives. I also know women with SAH husbands. Lots of high earning women in my social circle.

my workplace also makes it easy for people to go part-time during the child hood years and my male coworkers readily take advantage of that opportunity. They inevitably have wives who can continue to shoulder some of the financial responsibility and it takes a lot of pressure off the family to have one high earning parent working reduced hours.

How dare anyone want to bring up their children without childcare. The sheer audacity!!!

@shefellinthemarsh

Who said anything about childcare?

Although, in saying that I'd much rather pay for childcare than a sahm