Is this week/working week a *Piece of piss?

[whatslovegottodowithit77]

Started working again recently after being with my Dd for a while. I work the times she’s at Pre school, plus a Saturday morning, the other times I’m with her.
So I work one job on a Tuesday-9.30–12.30, I drive to my other job eating my lunch for 1 pm until 2.30, then drive to pick up Dd at 3. I do this on Wednesday too, work Friday morning & Saturday morning and work a different job one evening 6-7 pm (there all the same type of job, just with different people/families)
The days/times I have *Off work, I’m with Dd
Does it sound like an easy life as my Dh seems to think? It feels v rushed to me, not a particularly hard job, but lots of juggling

I’m assuming it’s something like a cleaning job, for different clients. It doesn’t sound difficult, you just need to be organised to get to each job and plan your week appropriately.

That would be easy for me.

It sounds like you work part time (around 17 hours) and he works a more typical 37 hour week.

Therefore, you should do 20 hours extra work around the home, childcare etc, and then the balance should be split equally.

That’s how we do it, and nobody feels hard done by (or rather, we both feel equally hard done by, lol)

It sounds quite low in terms.of hours but yes quite rushed. If its something like cleaning I imagine it's quite tiring as well, especially compared to a desk job like mine.

I do twice your hours but yours is literally my idea of a nightmare! I start and finish at the same time mon-Fri, no evenings or weekends. The idea of working two different jobs, working evenings and weekends… no thank you. Sounds very very stressful to me, despite the hours. I’d never know if I was coming or going, as they say.

Yes it's what I'd class as a piece of piss

I have done a fair few different work arrangements including full time and, like you, three short jobs around childcare.

Each has pros and cons but I can say that three jobs and childcare does more feel hectic than it should on paper and when i switched to one fulltime job with someone else doing more of the childcare and chores, it felt less hectic. I

Im not sure the hectic feeling comes from something being easy or hard.

Well it's only 17hrs a week. So compared to someone doing 40hrs a week it is indeed a piece of piss. I think your husband was a dick to put it in those terms, but you're not exactly working your arse off.

Your working week doesn’t sound too bad, not many hours. But you have your DC the rest of the time, plus have to do all the household stuff so you never get a break. Your actual week is longer than your DH as you work Saturday morning too.

Like others have said it’s because it’s disjointed. Couple of hours here another couple somewhere else. I used to do the same. Go out in the morning, back home, then out again in the evening.
Now I do more hours but 4 days a week for longer.

No, without childcare responsibilities it would be very easy hours, but with childcare and pre-school times to factor in, it isn't,.

Same. I've not worked part time since my dc were tiny, amd whilst it might seem like lots of rushing around (easier to do 2x 8.5 hour days than 17 hours over 4 days) it is only 17 hours.

As part time I would expect you to pick up a bigger chunk of household chores too, you should both have equal chhildcaring time outside of your 37 hour 'working' week but if dh is working ft away from home then yeah, you should be picking up more domestically.

Is there a back story op? I remember my ex having a similar argument when I was VERY part time when dc were teeny - one was weeks old, I was still bf and up 3 or 4 times a night and he refused to do ANYTHING AT ALL at home, claiming that he did his work so should relax at home, including doing zero for the dc. I got zero down time. We are now divorced.

What does he do with DD outside 830-5. I would be expecting that element to be roughly 50/50

It’s half as many hours as I work and one third of the children, but it does sound a bit hectic.

After my first baby, it took me about 3 years to actually get used to just being knackered all the time. I remember explaining to my husband, after a particularly nasty row over the bins not being collected, that everything just felt like such a strain. Small things, like a trip to the supermarket for 3 items, suddenly felt like a mammoth task. My life had changed completely. His not so much.

Part-time work around kids is thankless and so many men are such arseholes about it. You have to juggle everything around kids, expected to create all the flexibility for inset days, assembly's etc, are expected to pick up all the life admin and household tasks, then get sneered at for "only working part-time"

I've always insisted on either SAHP where I then don't mind taking the lions share of domestic and childcare, or full-time where everything is split.

Ask your DH what arrangements he's going to make for his child before and after school as you've decided to work full time and I bet he'll be saying "that's your job!" As that's how he sees it!

Do you think it would help to reframe how you think about your job(s)? Lots of jobs would include traveling between different venues and clients within the working day. If you thought of it as the same job with different clients it might feel less daunting? I’m used to traveling between contacts and now that lots of things are online on teams, I really miss the headspace those journeys gave me to move on from one thing to another.
The issue of your partner being unsupportive and disrespectful is another thing though.

Everyone is different and comparison us the thief of joy. If it’s very bitty it might feel like you never get a chance to relax.

It sounds to me that individually it is all easy. The hard part is keeping everything together because all you need is one traffic jam to screw your whole day over, and its not as though you can be late to pick your child up.

You are under a lot of stress imo as you have multiple things outside your control, unlike DP.