How do you enjoy life with so many responsibilities?

[Carfeulyay]

I’m feeling a bit hopeless, had a horrible week at work, my partners been in surgery and diagnosed with liver disease, my three kids are kids and need their needs met and I’ve been feeling for a few months - where is there room for joy?

Im constantly tired (thanks to 5am starts with my 2yo) constantly needed for cooking, cleaning, shopping and general mental load, trying to juggle a team of staff and do my own job which is challenging so I log on most nights when kids in bed.

is this just life? Grin and bear it for the next 10 years?!

how do you have a joyful life with kids, jobs and life admin?!

I feel your pain OP. Life with kids/a home/a job/responsibilities just seems like a huge juggling act. I'm never off duty, not even on holiday. I go away with my sister and some of her friends once a year, it's my one week off. But even then I'm managing a different mental load as there are always issues within the group and there's one woman who I have to be particularly mindful of with every word I say, and I never say anything nasty, as she reads into everything and thinks everything is an innuendo/dig/nod to her.
She's like it with everyone. It's draining but she is my sisters best friend.

By being organised, I know it’s a bit wanky, and many on here will scoff or take this as a personal attack, but the only people I know who ‘struggle’ with ‘all’ the responsibility are ones that don’t manage it well, or ones that don’t cope well with stress in general.

I've said a million times on here that working and parenting are incompatible and one parent should do the work, one the parenting and house stuff, and it would make for a much simpler life where both parties were doing one main job at their best capacity instead of desperately scrabbling for equality in housework, work, and childcare, and both end up miserable including the children because trying to do everything is impossible.

I don't. Work is destroying me but I have no choice. Kids are early teens and seem to need me money more now than ever. Their dad helps as little as possible. Annual leave is all planned around the kids holidays.

I am already very organised (meal planning, cleaning, direct debits, good storage etc etc) but its never ending.

I have found myself day dreaming about being in hospital with something non-deadly just for rest.

Just got to wait till they leave home I guess?

I find working part time and both children being in school is the biggest factor in allowing me to have limited stress and lots of joy in my life.

It sounds like you’re going going through a rough time OP and I’m sorry to hear about your partner’s diagnosis. Take all the help and support that is offered to you. 💐

What about people who don’t have the luxury of having another parent to depend upon to do the work so they can do the “parenting”?

You must realise that it’s an unbelievably privileged position to have one parent generating the money and another doing all the domestic and child-related stuff? The vast majority of people simply can’t afford this.

I disagree with you on another point too. I think having a job you enjoy goes a long way to mitigate the sense of not being able to enjoy things. I know some people enjoy staying at home with their kids but I find work gives me a massive boost because it gives me a sense of purpose and even if I could give that up I wouldn’t.

Your post is completely out of touch and very one-sided.

Well for a start I don't have anywhere near as much on my plate as you - it sounds like you have a very responsible job, young kids and a partner who also needs some looking after. I don't think simply 'being organised' is going to solve all that. Can you ask for help from friends and family if you haven't already?

All my sympathies to you @Carfeulyay .

I feel nearly the same here; difficult job, young children, and if I work non -stop I keep on top of everything but it feels absolutely relentless. And I don't have the added worry of a sick partner.

The only think I can think to do is look for the nice moments, as clichéd as it sounds. My kids having a cute moment, if a quiet moment coincides with a cup of tea, if the sun is shining outside. And try to remember that it won't last forever.

And if that all fails I scream internally and open a bottle of wine.

Very politically unfashionable but possibly true. My quality of life and relationship improved vastly when I halved my working hours ( I have 2 small children ). I appreciate I'm lucky and not everyone can do this.

This is an interesting thread

My sympathies to you OP. Can you buy in any support?

I completely disagree with @bingbummy I would find doing all the home stuff absolutely soul destroying as would my partner. We both love our home and DD AND our jobs. If he did all the home stuff it would be done badly and he would be miserable. If I did it all I would be unhappy and we would be broke.

I do think you need breaks though and the only way is to have a partner that will give you them. Or money to buy in support.

Having a pre schooler is an absolute slog too.

Look for it and make it a priority to get this set up. It's a warning. Look where we end up otherwise; oops, got a man who's lazy and earns peanuts so I have to work myself to death whilst doing all the housework.

Don't leave who you end up with to chance and make sure you talk about how you want your family to run before you agree to marriage and children.

The truth is often politically unfashionable.

For us meal planning for a 3 week food rota with an occasional swap out so once every 6 weeks, having a corresponding shopping list for each week and delivery made a massive difference. Easy slow cooker dump meals meant dinner was done in the morning, my slow cooker has a delay start button.

Laundry schedule rather than when it gets full. I think organisation is the key.

I have found myself day dreaming about being in hospital with something non-deadly just for rest

Glad it's not just me.

I have a minor op needed (v large dermoid cyst removal) and currently on the urgent waiting list. Sometimes you can just be a day patient for this with keyhole surgery, there's a possibility with mine though that I may need and overnight or even two. I'm outwardly quoting the party line and agreeing with DH that hopefully I'll be a day case and inwardly keeping my fingers crossed for two nights being kept in 🙈

I feel the same OP - it’s like joy is a sweetie in a newspaper game of pass the parcel. Occasionally you get a turn, but mainly it’s about watching the parcel going greyly around the circle.
I try and schedule in bouts of fun where I can and survive on the crumbs. Got blind drunk and laughed with friends last night - that will last me a week.

@bingbummy

Don't leave who you end up with to chance and make sure you talk about how you want your family to run before you agree to marriage and children.

You do realise that men who don’t generate huge salaries don’t come with a tattoo on their forehead, right?

And that some women actually enjoy their work and can manage both working and looking after children? And God forbid may value a partner for more than the sum total of their earning power?

Look where some women end up

i love my job, earn well, DH loves his job and earns well too

We are organised people and manage to enjoy life, enjoy work, enjoy making a lot of money and enjoy our kids.

We are genuinely a 50/50 household though, which is where I think a lot of people fall down, with women taking on the bulk of the load at home and still working.

advocating for people to not work and become financially reliant on someone else isn’t a strategy anyone with common sense would stick their weight behind.

UGH UGH UGH.

That would be my worst fucking nightmare. No thanks.

I enjoy my equitable household and my job and my kids.

We live so completely wrong here. I believe the human race should live in communities but we don't and we are all muddling through each trying to run a separate household and all too proud to ask for help/ someone always has it worse and people are all out for themselves ..
Sorry this doesn't help but I think this is where is goes wrong in this country

Organisation
Buying in help
Lower standards (I don't mean living in mess either)

Organisation - have a meal plan, or even just a list of say 21 meals you can cycle through. Online shop, book ahead as far as you can add things to that weeks list AS SOON AS YOU THINK OF THEM.

Making sure everyone who can do chores, does do chores. As I write this, my kids are cleaning the back room i.e. their play room. Its easier to get them doing chores as teens if they've been expected to do them since they were toddlers.

Buy in help - a gousto box can take half the weeks prep and plan for food off your shoulders, a cleaner, a dog walker, a babysitter etc. I'd say laundry but Jesus that's expensive. Dishwasher. Larger drum washing machine.

Lower standards - washing, do towels need washing after each use? Nope. Do you need to vacuum daily, also nope etc. Etc.

We both work full time, he works away for 2 nights a week, we have a teen and a primary aged kid. We've both worked full time since the youngest was 2.5, and it's just a case of finding what works...and sticking with it.

I don't think you do!!

Sorry. It's shit for many of us!

Well giving up work would have been a terrible option for me
Have seen so many women give up work and never being able to get back to work,or at least not at the same level x

There was a thread recently about how to find joy in small things. I'll see if I can find it.
Honestly, the main thing that has helped me is reducing my working hours to 3 days a week TTO but I know I'm lucky to have that option. Life with small children can be relentless.

@bingbummy and if you are single parent ??

I would say I am very happy and feel joy every day.
There is no illness in my family so I don't have any worries there. That obviously helps a lot.
I have three children but I only work part time. So I have lots of time to enjoy my children and not just rushing them around and getting them to complete their homework or into bed.