Life is too much these days?

[ktitten]

Been a single parent for years now and I'm just exhausted with it all. Not the washings or the shopping or the ferrying around or the dentist appointments or the litter tray or MOT or the nit comb or the emergency childcare to cover work - it's draining but that's life.

I just feel like I can't do modern life anymore? In the last 2 days I've had to fill out a 3 page paper form for younger DD as they have uni students coming in to talk to them about careers (they're 8 btw) all the usual stuff like addresses and emergency contact details which the school already have. I've had to log into a system to put money on my oldest ones dinner money account. I've had a letter about an in-person meeting for a school trip eldest DD is going on next month. I've had to fill out yet another form for a sport she does, this one online, this one requiring yet another bloody log in with another bloody password.

I just checked my email and saw one from youngest DDs school and I know I'm being dramatic but it's tipping me over the edge. I will need to log on to YET ANOTHER FUCKING SYSTEM two weeks in advance and choose her school meal every day so they can give her a colour coded band each morning to show the dinner ladies which choice she has. You'd think there would be like a bi-weekly / monthly rotating menu so you could do it once at the start of the year and forget about it (I mean she either likes veggie sausages and fish goujons or she doesn't) but no, every bastarding week.

I could give her packed lunches but it's universally "free" i.e paid via tax and tbh it's a massive help. I had to give up my well paid professional job during covid, my side business folded, Cost of Greed Crisis and I've gone from comfortably alright to picking up shifts as a carer and £10 in my bank to last me til Thursday. Plus packed lunches is just yet another thing to do in the morning and another thing to go to the shop mid-week for.

So I ask my fellow mumsnetters... is this a terrible school meal system or just the straw that's breaking my back? I feel like I want to sell my house and buy a woodland somewhere and live in a bloody cabin. No more forms and passwords and appointments and pointless shit I need to do on a weekly basis. I am honestly drowning to the point I don't want to get up in the morning. I just want to sleep. I don't think I'm depressed but I do find myself thinking what's the point? How are people (single parents especially) coping? I've done it for 10 years now, coped well for a long time but I'm just so utterly tired.

I remember a cartoon going around a couple of years ago. Woman on phone. ‘Hello employment agency. I’d like to place an ad for someone to deal with school email’…. ‘Yes it is full time’.

It is exhausting.
I think a lot of organisations have found they can reduce their admin costs by buying online systems that push the admin on to the user. So we are doing a lot of work.

I started school in the early 70s and my mum used to moan about the very odd form home then ( or if she had to pay for a school day trip )
She probably wouldn't have bothered with a lot of this and they couldn't have afforded a PC or a mobile phone , so no idea how we would have fared back then tbh.
It sounds relentless and I don't remember all this with mine ( they are very late 20s now)
We had to fill in forms , but nothing on line.
No wonder people are so stressed out

@bamboonights @123wentaway Totally agree..
I don't even have a smartphone. I REFUSE. I'm sick of it all, being in constant demand. I try & ring companies to sort things out, & get referred to their websites.. what happens if you don't have ANY internet access? There must be so many people who can't afford it / old / not capable for whatever reason.. don't they count any more?
I'm happy with my old PC so I can CHOOSE when to do life admin. People still send me links on my dinophone..
I'm too old for all this shit. Can we go back to the days of letters from school, waiting rooms for GP's so you could see one within hours, no damn appts, etc? :-(

@the80sweregreat Snap! ;-)

@mamabear715 we can't go back, schools and GP's across the land have got used to us doing most of the admin for them.
Imagine a scenario where school had to wait a few days for a form to be filled in....I get a reminder the day after a link has been sent! They don't care if I have been busy, maybe I should just have even less sleep to fit form filling in for them?
I hate that WhatsApp and email means anyone can contact me at anytime - 24/7 365 days a year.
It is impossible to switch off, well I could but my kids would miss out so then I would feel awful about that!

Yes OP I'm with you. My DD is in primary and we have 3 different apps that the teachers can contact or communicate with us - then we have to make a milk payment for the following term using a different app. Next dd is due to start this year and with ft work I can't keep up.

Yep. To me the issue is the lack of organisation from schools. It would make so much more sense to send the one email at the start of term asking us to fill in everything that needs filling in, and leave us alone. But of course that involves a degree of organisation our school does not have. funnily the school across the road seems to have nailed it so it is possible.
Also, all the weekly homework sent on different apps and platforms when it could just be in one place. Just why?!

It doesn't get any better... Next week we'll be filling out our bits of the student loan applications, (2 at uni) filling out 6 sheets of guarantor documentation for one and providing financial info for Dds German student residency.

The dog needs his jabs, a repeat prescription and kennels booking for the summer.

I need a blood test booking before I can get a repeat prescription, an optician appointment booking and Dh needs to be prodded to get his ears "micro suctioned" before I scream and do something I regret (I can only repeat things so many times)

I also need to do all the "saving money" hoop jumping as our insurance, sky, broadband etc are all going up.

I've had enough...

Solidarity with you all
I do all of this for everyone. It's one of the reason I'm annoyed with DH as he doesn't do his share and if I leave him to it it's not done competently and the kids miss out.

@mamabear715 the thing that's tipped me over the edge is that I was hacked last summer. Think my email address was stolen and then my Facebook. Instagram and Messenger accounts were taken down. Wasn't a big user but WHERE is all my data? Absolutely zero help offered by FB. Reported to police as started receiving blackmail type emails. Then had to report to Action Fraud. They told me to change - 370 passwords. I started with 4 and it took a whole afternoon. If there was a spare planet available to move to right now I'd be seriously considering it!

Omg @bamboonights
That sounds horrendous.. :-(

Apps
Platforms
Log-ins
Portals
Forms
Permission slips
E-mails
Booklets
Newsletters
Paper slips handed to child
Reminders on school class window
Class WhatsApp groups

To top it all off, Next e-mail you to ask how the courier service was. Well she delivered it to the front door and you’ll have that on your records. What more do you want from me?? Argh!

It’s a second job.

To top it all off, Next e-mail you to ask how the courier service was. Well she delivered it to the front door and you’ll have that on your records. What more do you want from me?? Argh!

this is literally one of my pet hates! 😂

I feel the same. I think it’s modern life, one example is the risks and consequences of using internet are so complex- every thing I do at work which used to take one step now takes five. I understand why: hackers have been able to hack many agencies I work with causing havoc. At the same time more is expected of us, especially single parents who do 2 jobs for the price of 1 while often being looked down on.
my daughter is now grown up and after years of stress and no money it’s finally got a bit better. But still life feels extremely complex and stressful

OP - I became a single parent when DH died suddenly. As you say, I got a handle eventually of being a lone parent in the practical sense but bloody life admin is exhausting. I work full time (always did) in the all absorbing and thankless task that is child protection. It pays our bills, I am good at it and can juggle so many demanding things at work. I have nothing left after work and the weekends. Do not beat yourself up. One person can only do so much and when the whole financial, practical and emotional load falls to you - preservation mode is needed. For us, like many, there is not a huge support network of friends and family nearby. Something I felt guilty about for a while but I think this is more common than many people realise. When you are in the middle of a storm it feels you will not get out the other side, but you will.

we need to make money due to the COL, we are also in that bracket that get absolutely no help with anything , childcare etc, we are in Ireland

I'm in Ireland too. You would have got 600 euro electricity credit, double child benefit in November (840 for you.) There's another extra payment coming too, (not sure when) and free primary school books in September which is a massive saving considering you have 3 at primary.

YANBU, my brain wasn't made for this electronic transition, I forget everything these days even with a family calendar.
I tried to donate money to our youngests SEN schools food cupboard a few weeks ago but they needed me to email someone ( didn't have the email, they didn't give me the contact) and do it online.
I was stood there with £50 in notes wondering why they couldn't give me a paper

Don't get me started on the multiple infrastructure issues at every single hospital DC3 is under.

It causes no end of stress in my life.

*paper receipt

I am drowning. I literally don't know how to manage anymore. I am a lone parent, no family help, demanding full time job. I have autism and ADHD and a chronic physical disability. One child in early primary and one about to start, both also autistic. One needed an operation. NHS said it would take years so had to arrange and pay for it privately. Had to do both of their autism diagnoses privately as well because of a 4 year NHS waiting list. Fight school for adjustments - until diagnoses confirmed they kept just saying they are "fine" and I am "too anxious". Finally some movement on that. Trying to get transition help in place for the one moving up in Sept. Hours and hours of meetings and appts for their assessments and emails etc, trying to get OT and SALT support in place. Dealing with useless social services who ignored communication from me for months on end and having to raise formal complaints about them ignoring the law. Statutory deadline for responding to the complaint passed months ago and they still haven't. Have been fighting for a blue badge for me for over a year now, despite being so ill I've been pretty much housebound and them having all the medical evidence to prove this. I've had to hire nannies I can't afford to get the children to school and nursery and back and to clubs etc.

Have also had to deal with all of the admin and stress of divorce in the last few years and endless family court delays, pay all the fees because ex-H is useless, court losing original documents etc and trying to get them replaced. Fund huge solicitor bills.

We get no financial help with any of this because I work. Have applied for PIP/ DLA to help with some of these costs but that has turned into yet another admin debacle going on and on despite all the evidence submitted. The children's health appts, my health appts, all the nonsense from school about trips and bike days and bring in an inside out cardboard box for crafts and wellies on this day and can you volunteer for this and that, pay for this trip, log in to pay for milk or whatever. It seems like it never stops for a minute. The funniest part is me always having to chase the get my ADHD medication prescription renewed because they "forget" to make the appointment... the equivalent of putting medication someone in a wheelchair needs on a really high shelf and telling them to just stand up and get it.

And somehow I'm meant to do all that, when disabled myself, and work full time to pay the mortgage etc and 1:1 childcare, and care for two autistic kids with no help from any of these "services" whatsoever, financial or practical. It is beyond a joke. All of the people whose job it is to help us just create more work for me and make everything worse.

I have been where you are and you can add 64 hour weeks into the mix to pay for them. I ended up nearly fainting last week so I scaled back my hours and rested. It is ridiculous the pressure that parents can be under, especially if the kids have health problems and you have to attend every appointment, whilst keeping work happy and earning enough to afford hot water so your kids can turn up clean and sweet smelling. I actually think the cost of living crisis is the straw that is breaking the camel’s back. Add money woes in to stress, over work and never ending commitments and something eventually has to give

How do you keep it going @Nopinnogin ? I have been doing this for 4 years now alone, since my children were babies. My health is deteriorating every year. Two bouts of Covid made my physical health much worse with huge relapses, I need to get well again or I will lose my job and we will lose everything. But I can't get better because I never have any rest, ever. It seems an impossible amount for one human to do even if I was in good physical health and not autistic and completely burned out. I don't know how much longer I can sustain it all if things do not improve. No family help. So-called services just make it all worse by creating more admin but still doing nothing financial or practical to make it better, just more forms and hassle and kafkesque gaslighting circular systems that waste hundreds of hours of my time and lead to me being so burned out I can barely function.

You are not unreasonable- I hate all of this stuff because there are several hurdles before you even get to the actual thing you need to do.

It's something to do with technology and programmers trying to get human beings to act like little machines. Horrible. Actual people still much better but of course they are costly.

It's in the interest of the big tech companies to have us generate as much data as possible, the better to monetise us. This plus the organic fragmentation of society - when I was young we were all more similar culturally, ethnically and financially - now there are a greater number of children with SEN, health issues, religious and cultural needs / preferences, plus our hypercapitalist era has led us to 'expect' choices and options for everything. Hence even more furious data gathering.

There are things you can do to protect yourself. I came off Facebook groups and ALL WhatsApp groups including local parenting and neighbourhood groups. If something's really important, someone will tell me. I don't need to track hours' worth of silly conversations.

I couldnt do it all.

I put as much of the life as in as I can to DP.

Of course that means there are mistakes etc.