That two parents working doesn’t work

[Itsmyshadow]

We have 3 DCs aged 8, 4 and 1. DH works full time. I have recently returned from mat leave doing 4 days per week. On my day off I have DC4 and DC1 at home and a large part of that is taken up with swimming lessons.

I feel like I’m failing at everything to be honest. House is a state, am not on top of my work, kids in nursery and after school club for long hours, and don’t even get me started on the amount of after school sporting activities DC1 does which don’t really fit with going to work.

DH is a great dad, does his fair share with the kids, does 50% of the school / nursery runs, and most of DC1’s after school sporting stuff (whilst I have the younger two). He could pull his weight a bit more with the housework but gets off his bottom when I huff and puff / nag, and does all of the DIY and garden. Like most women I carry the mental load, doing all the school, nursery, medical admin etc.

I feel like I need to do a real half arsed job of my work on my wfh days to keep on top of the washing / house / kid admin / kid homework (saw a thread on here the other day about that), but workload / conscience won’t let me do that, and that doesn’t solve for the fact that DC1 has football at 5:30 on a Tuesday or hockey at 6pm on a Wednesday and if I finish at 5pm and I’m in the office, those timings don’t work.

We have a cleaner and a robot vacuum, but I still can’t keep on top of all the crap all around the house (paintings from nursery, party bag loot, paper admin that needs addressing, magazines etc), and feel like the kids get given toys / grow out of clothes much faster than I can get sort through the old ones. Result is a massive mess of a playroom that I keep getting half through sorting before the kids mess it up again and there’s nowhere for everything to go.

Don’t talk to me about TOMM or similar. I’m not lacking motivation or direction. I spend hours per week washing and putting away clothes, batch cooking, sorting through piles of stuff, firefighting cleaning tasks (usually when something mouldy is discovered or someone has spilt something somewhere), but no sooner is something done it’s a complete mess again.

So those of you who work a lot of hours and have young kids. How are you managing? Do you spend hours every evening cooking and cleaning (how do you find the energy if so?), and how to you manage the demands of kids after school activities / social lives?

Great post @PimmsandCucumbers. Exactly!

True equality if valuing both caring and earning as important as each other. And not putting down one by saying ‘it would drive me insane with boredom’

Yes lovely, but why is it always women who are supposed to take the 'caring' roles and who are judged as unfit parents if they decide to go for the earning option? People are different, there are many earning careers as well that would be ill suited for me and that I would find boring - I'm allowed not to choose them. But apparently not allowed to choose to be an unpaid full time carer?

Absolutely agree @CatsSnore! I am mum to 3 and work FT. SO much easier because there isn’t any thought process about “how will we get dc1 to cubs whilst dc3 is at football” - it’s a lot more binary and there aren’t options or logistics, I can either do it or I can’t. No jiggling diaries between two people. Each dc still does at least 3 activities a week so I don’t think they are missing out that badly.

Maybe there is an additional mental load that comes with having to divide up chores, even if this is shared equally you still have to be on the ball and know that someone else is doing x and you are doing y so you don’t have to worry about x.

But @Itsmyshadow my advice would be to:

a) cut down on the amount of household textiles you have. Fewer towels, sheets, duvet sets etc. and also clothes. You may stick the washing machine on just as often but it won’t pile up (because there isn’t enough to create a pile before you need something so have to wash it) and it means that those piles of clean washing that linger before being put away and get mixed up with dirty stuff don’t exist.

b) have less stuff in general. Be ruthless, aim for cupboards to have neat boxes in for storage and that if a box gets full then it needs editing.

I would say that I am aspiring to both things rather than achieving them fully but am nearly there and it has already massively reduced the amount of time I spend pushing back the tide of utter crap that my 3 boys and I are capable of creating.

It is fucking hard. I feel for you.

It would be whoever the lower earner, which makes sense if the childcare is unaffordable

I answered a question.

I did find maternity leave to be boring and mindless and felt much better when I went back to work. Am I supposed to lie about that? Or are women only allowed to say that they loved every minute and want to be a SAHM forever?

I had those age gaps but only went back 2.5 days a week. It was our most intense time when they were the same age as yours, but it does get easier. I upped my hours when they all went to school.

DH and I both work 45hrs + a week. You are in the worst of it OP - it will get easier when the youngest is 3 and has funded pre-school and kids can do more.
We have a cleaner once a week. We have a gardener once a fortnight.
Cars are either driven through a car wash or the kids wash them for money.
Meals are planned 2 weeks in advance - once a week we have a freezer dinner (oven tea!), once a week I use a batch cooked dinner.
I don't have clutter. If it doesn't have a useful function or is really sentimental, it gets binned.
Kids have labelled storage tubs under their beds. They have to put things away or they don't get pocket money.
I do minimal ironing. I do a wash a day and put the clean laundry on beds for people to put away.
It's hard but so much easier for everyone in the family to do 15 mins of chores a day rather than one person do an hour.

"The message that caring for others is boring and mindless is another way that we devalue the role of carers in our society. "

I wonder how much the women (because it is 99% women) earn who work in nurseries? Minimum wage? And I wonder if some posters on here think childminders are somehow beneath them, like SAHMs, and that the work they do is sooo boring and mindless?

This is not the 1950s.

Why shouldn't women be able to have "fancy careers" unlike men?

You sound jealous tbf that you don't have one

OP, I don't have any answers, but just wanted to say solidarity. My three DC are a bit older, which does make things easier, though fitting everything in (we both work FT) is a big challenge.

I often say to my DP that I feel like I do a lot, but much of it quite badly. I sometimes wish I could just focus on doing one thing really well.

I often feel like this, I feel overwhelmed and feel like I’m never giving 100% to work, kids, the house etc. But if you’re trying your best thats okay. Sometimes washing can wait, sometimes its okay to order a takeaway so you don’t have to cook. Some days you’ll have it all together and be Superwoman. It will get easier dont beat yourself up x

I think it’s the ages you have which are the issue.

I’m a single parent and work FT and although I find it hard, it is manageable.
If I had a DH and a cleaner I’d find it easy. Something isn’t adding up and it could be that your standards are too high, you do too much or DH is not pulling his weight.

It sounds like you both earn a decent wage to afford a cleaner and holidays and if you’re struggling so much then I’d rather reduce my hours and have less money.
If you carry on the way you are then you’re going to burn out and your MH is going to be affected.

Have you spoken to DH about dropping a day or 2, either just you or both of you?

I think whilst your kids are so young it would be easier to have less money and work less and have the time to do everything else.
Once they’re older and a bit more independent then you can increase your hours again and get more money.

No one has come even close to saying that though.

I found maternity leave boring. That is me, clearly not everyone is the same.

Some people would find my job boring too. Of course they would because again, not everyone is the same.

Both myself and my husband work FT in very senior level roles and have 2 older kids and 2 younger primary school age children. Honestly, the only way I have found to manage was to chuck money at it. We have a cleaner once a week and a part time nanny who does drop off/pick ups/kids homework/dinners and clubs when we can't and if we can she does some housekeeping stuff instead eg. emptying dishwasher, hanging up laundry, dropping parcels off, shopping etc. She also sorts their rooms (changes sheets etc) supervises them tidying up the trail of destruction they leave/clothes/uniforms - keeps on top of the school admin and diary like mufti days - dress up days/presents for parties etc. We have a online shop delivery once a week. Despite all of this, we still find ourselves running around like headless chickens at the weekend and the house always looks like we have just been burgled. I do batch cook and fill up the freezer so we always have something to fall back on for dinners although we always seem to have eaten them all by the next weekend.

It also costs a fortune but its the only way we can do the level of roles we do and stay remotely sane and get to spend time with the kids at the weekend/evening without everyone falling out. We figure it will be worth it to afford the mortgage, build up a decent pensions, be able to build up some savings for the kids when they are older and go on holiday. If you saw how much we earned and how we live right now you would probably be shocked how low key it all is. Hopeful it will pay off in the long run but it is stressful even with all the help!

Personally if you're choosing a fancy career over being with your baby, maybe you shouldn't have bothered having the baby in the first place.

Have you told your husband he should not have bothered to have children?

You love to make quite random conclusions which are massive leaps from what anyone is saying. Just because some women find being at home all day boring doesn’t mean they are making a comment on any other person who does care work, paid or otherwise. And no one has said anything like it being beneath them, simply that they didn’t want to or even couldn’t due to finances. You’re projecting by assuming that means they think it’s beneath them.
There are all sorts of things I would find boring and mindless, (banking, data entry, a job that means you don’t leave a desk etc) doesn’t mean I think it’s beneath me simply because I wouldn’t find it enjoyable.

SouthLondonMum22 - fair enough. I totally agree.

Useless dad here.
First thing to say is to acknowledge you have a seemingly impossible task, in respect of which any modest improvements will at best make your life slightly less seemingly impossible. These are my wonderings:
Rather than allocate resented chores to your 8 year old and 5 year old to complete independently of you, would it be possible to have one playing with the little one, and the other working side by side with you tidying the playroom, sorting socks, prepping food etc? I suggested helping her mum to an 8 year old pupil who complained her mum had no time for her, didn’t really expect it to work, but she said it brought her a lot closer to Mum and they even had time to do some fun stuff.
when I became a teacher I realised that children at home keep very quiet about the fact that they have been doing ‘tidy up time’ every day in school since the age of 3. They are capable of more than they would have you believe.

Laundry - the tiniest suggestion but all my socks are identical and black, so I don’t have to match anything. And everything is non iron. It’s the sorting that’s the killer - shoving a wash on doesn’t take half as long as the sorting - again could the kids help with that?

I would suggest having a family meeting and just being honest that you are really struggling and ask for help. It strikes me that it may be easier to ask your DH for help with children’s homework rather than school admin, as unless he takes over the whole thing nobody will be able to co-ordinate. If the problem is that he gets back late, could you speak to DC1s teacher and ask for some leeway on hand in day so Dad can help with homework, at weekend if necessary. A main homework for DC2 will be reading every day - can DC2 read to DC1 sometimes (and sometimes let DC1 read DC2’s book to her)? It is frankly not on for schools to ask parents to microteach their children - supporting reading, encouraging them to tackle their homework, yes, but be honest if what they produce independently looks poor, it is not your job to manicure it until it looks like a much older kid’s work.

Embarassment by comparison to other people’s perfect houses you have to let slide. The easiest house to tidy is one with a carpet and a sofa. That is not a house with 3 kids. Any mum who works full time and has 3 young kids and a perfect house will understand your pain more than you think. If your kids are happy, you are doing something right. Food goes mouldy, throw it away. Yes it’s a pain in the neck, yes it’s loads more work but let’s face it there’s no danger of your 1 year old eating that spotty white aubergine. Be kind to yourself because while juggling your duties to children and work you and DH need to remember yourselves and each other too!

YANBU. I've been saying this for ages. It doesn't work at all.

The expectations of how we raise children are set by families with one SAHP. You won't be able to keep up, and they want you to fail.

Expectations of a healthy relationship are set by people without DCs. And standards of housekeeping were set at a time when the middle class all had servants. It can't be done.

We still do it though! We both want to work. But, it is a disaster.

I work full time and have two under 5s. My life is chaos to be honest. My house is a tip, I haven't been to the dentist for about 4 years, we live off beans on toast some weeks. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I'm also a stone overweight.

Some things that help me are:
Ocado deliveries
Amazon subscriptions to e.g. loo roll, cat food
A cleaner who tidies as well as cleans and comes for 3.5 hours a week
Regularly filling a bag with toys/plastic bits/magazines/whatever and just chucking it in the wheelie bin

I tell myself it will get easier because I see the evidence in all my neighbours with teenagers. They all seem to have their shit together whereas everyone else I know with young children is floundering.

Cut down to 3 days a week and spend a day each week sorting life admin/cleaning etc. Or spend a full day each weekend doing it. Or allocate tasks to others (husband or paid help)

I work a standard 42.5hr week (this is standard in my trade) but it frequently do more, like an extra 7 to 10 hours a week especially towards month end. I only have one child who is 2, he only goes to pre school 3.5hrs a week on a Thursday morning.

How does it work?

We are lucky that both of us work from home, and I am extremely lucky I work flexible hours. So I start work at 4am till 8.30/8.45 when my partner then gets ready for work, he has our son till then, I care for our son till 12 ish and I am lucky he still naps for 2/3hrs then when he wakes up my husband has a late lunch and by the time that is over I have normally done my 8.5hrs and I take care of our son till he finishes at half 5 and cook the dinner.

Our house isn't the tidiest, there is always something to do, but we split chores, always have since moved in together, he does washing up/drying up while I bath our son and put him to bed. My husband does all the floors (sweeping, mopping and hoovering) once a week and I clean the bathrooms and kitchen once a week, obviously kitchen is wiped if spills etc at the time but has everywhere cleaned once a week too. Gardening is split, he does lawn and watering, I do the beds but these it behind.

I go to bed at 9pm everynight and yes I am shattered alot, but I wouldn't change spending this time with my son, he won't be little for long. As he gets older my working hours will just become more normal shall we say.

Don't worry about your house being a mess, life is too short for cleaning and worrying what people think! Enjoy your kids while they want to spend time with you as I ce their teenagers they prob won't want to.

The old ‘if your kids are in childcare you aren’t raising them’ argument is generally only used by women who want to justify their decision not to work and to judge those who do.

Part of being a good mum is teaching your children to be independent, to be away from you for periods of time, to listen to other adults, to learn from other adults and children. Nursery can be really good for children. Nursery carers and teachers are there for short snapshots in children’s lives whereas parents are there day in day out, in the night when they wake up, when they are sick, year after year.

And where is the cut off? I worked 3 days a week when they were at preschool so was I raising them then but when they went to school and I went back full time did I stop raising them? Is it better that my child is home on the iPad while I’m cooking dinner but not for him to be playing outside with friends at after school club?

You can have attentive and present working mums and inattentive and distracted SAHMs. Whether you work or not does not determine how well your kids will turn out.

There is no right or wrong here, just what works best for each family.

I’ve recently gone back to work full time and yes… it’s tricky! I’ve started using a online task list to record all the ‘things’ on the to do list and share with DH. We both have relatively flexible jobs too with partial WFH and able to break to do school runs. Muddling along with a cleaner, too much money spent on speedy dinners and throwing random stuff in the garage… which is no solution but gives the illusion of tidiness.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that the extra-curriculars are too many. I have 3 kids (older than yours to be fair - my youngest is 9) and my policy is that if it cannot be done straight after school, as in, at school with no extra lifting or input from me, then each child gets 1 activity, ideally over a weekend, but only 1 each and that's that. I did not work full time for a long while after I had my children, but did work enough that endless extra-murals really, really made life tricky, to say nothing of expensive.

Learning to swim is a very valuable life skill, but basic water safety and ability to swim can be taught in about 8-10 lessons. A 1 year old is not physically able to learn to swim. To be reliably able to swim properly, a child must be around 2.5-3 at the youngest. Now. Obviously they enjoy it and that's great, but as a valuable use of time on your day off, I think it could be better spent doing something else until your little one is 3. Finish the term, then ditch it.

Also! Your husband is going to need to be more of an active household participant re chores. Ideal is to get things that regularly need doing and that becomes your domain or his domain re the actual planning, if not all of the doing. Laundry for example. He could be responsible for all of it. It doesn't mean you'd never switch a load or help out or whatever, obviously, but it's not your department. Food is a big one. Imo, one person needs to be IC what's bought / a vague idea of what's to be eaten. Yes, both can and should prepare and clean up after meals, but the department needs to be headed by one or the other of you! In my house, I'm Food. Husband cooks a solid twice a week, often more, will make sensible suggestions re what to cook, will note if he's used the last of something, but I provision and cook most, so it's my area, if you see what I mean?

You have far, far more than your share of the domestic and life admin load, despite doing only 1/5 less remunerated work. That's unbalanced. Either he needs to figure out a way to reliably and consistently participate much more, and that includes the mental load, or you are going to have a problem. Do not, unless you actually wish to, work fewer days. He can work fewer days for a time, particularly while your youngest is still a baby. Not you. You've had a year out. He needs to come up with ways to solve this with you.