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?

I think most people get that some jobs require 50 hours a week, or sometimes much more. It's just that some posters have very much over egged the number of jobs this entails as well as come up with some fairly, erm, esoteric definitions of what constitutes a good life and how it can be attained.

It’s part of the Mumsnet posturing I think: I’m on £400k but feeling pretty stretched with COL, might have to downsize to only one live-in nanny, but two is really a must-have when you work 16-hour days as all captains of industry must, I’m C-suite Big Four but tbh isn’t everyone who wants basic lifestyle amenities like a side return extension and bifolds, not that I’m home to see them because my special work, not to mention literally the global economy, would collapse without me as I’m senior. Shrug, it’s just how it is in Genovia.

Wow @bussteward that's some chip on your shoulder!

Barely anyone is expected to work 50
hours as standard in the uk either. The average full time worker in the UK works 36.4 hours.

Yes, the whole 50 hour focus the thread seems to have taken is quite mystifying.

Lmfao @bussteward.

I have an absolutely lovely lifestyle and work 35h a week 🤷‍♀️ misses point of thread

You poor thing, but the world is lucky to have people like you.

Where I work the people who do loads of overtime are generally incompetent. I do approx the hours that I am contracted for (37.5) also.

DH and I used to have your arrangement but with 2 kids not 3 and our kids were a bit older when I went to 4 days from 3. My advice to you is outsource as much as possible: cleaning, gardening and DIY definitely, maybe even washing and ironing too. Then your free time can be spent on doing nice things. Don’t sweat the small stuff - who cares if your house is full of crap? It doesn’t matter if it’s a happy house. And it does get easier year by year.

With kids of this age and all the afternoon activities to do, I would look for a nanny (at least for 2-3 days a week, you could do a nanny-nursery split for the youngest so they still get some nursery time).

I know you say it would take most of your take-home pay, but I'd view it as a short-term investment in your career and your sanity. They could do some of the school runs, take some of the after-school activities off your shoulders, get the kids fed and do some tidying-up of toys and kids stuff for you after they've finished playing. And there would presumably be some savings in terms of dropping some afterschool childcare and your older ones might get more time in their own home.