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?

Dh does most of the clothes washing and I organise food. I use the slow cooker, I buy occasional ready made lasagna and sometimes we have pesto pasta or Heinz tomato soup over pasta with peas shoved in.

sometimes it’s overwhelming and dh takes extra on so it’s not 50:50 and other times I step up and take extra on when dh is struggling.

my dc are a bit older now - 15 and 11yo twins. Life should be getting easier right? But I’ve thrown in a post grad diploma at a Russell group Uni (wtf was I thinking?!). I’ve just done Year 1 and have 18 months to go. Our balance was okay but hard but now dd1 needs extra support that we didn’t see coming so dh and I are currently both feeling things right now. We keep thinking it’ll get easier but I don’t think it will. We just need to find moments of fun and holidays to break up the tough times.

We had to talk to dc1 and tell them they needed to pick one sport when the intensity levels increased as wasn't fair on rest of family running about every evening

I couldn’t do what you do. I would be same as you - stressed and overwhelmed. I have 4dc: 3 primary age and a toddler, and I don’t work and don’t see myself being able to for many years. I am lucky to have this option. My DH could never do any school runs or anything as he leaves at 7 and comes back about 9ish.

Two DC, three years apart. I worked compressed hours, 10 days in 9, while DH worked from home one day every two weeks. DH pretty good about mental load, I would be more likely to think about activities for the kids but DH good about dealing with and actioning things once the decisions were made. Nursery fed the kids proper meals which seemed to be different from the other ones we looked at (no idea if this was/is unusual) but meant kids didn’t need fed when they got home during the week.

We have both worked FT throughout. One look at how my mental health was by the end of maternity leave would have left us in no doubt that my being a SAHM would have been a disaster. We considered DH staying home…but he wasn’t keen either. Funny thing, lots of people had views about me being FT…not one person ever wondered that he was.

The secret, for us, has been that we have a childminder who feeds DSs and will take them to activities. Now they’re both school age she does wrap around and often she’ll drop and we’ll collect. And she still feeds them. We also have a cleaner so we get good chunks of family time.

neither of us are bothered about cleaning other than clean clothes

We manage due to the fact that we both muck in. It doesn't and can't work if just one part of the partnership is doing it all. For example, due to work hours I do all school drop offs and pick ups, my OH does all after school activity drop offs and pick ups. We have a meal plan and rota for who cooks each night. Whoever is cooking does all the clearing away so the other gets a full evening away from the kitchen and that includes sweeping and mopping floor once everythings done. He does all washing and drying, my job is to sort the clean clothes etc. Kids take it in turns to vacuum when they get in from school. My friend cleans for us once a fortnight and we are all tidy people so it never gets too bad.
It is a well oiled machine these days, it's hard when kids are smaller. If my DH didn't do as much as me I wouldn't cope. I dont know how women can cope who do it all with no support.

Just wanted to echo what others have said by you are not alone with this issue.

Both DH and I work full time in high pressures jobs and the nature of IG means we cannot WFH.

We have one DC and I would like to have another but I have delayed having another.

Its a hard slog honestly you have my sympathies and seem to be doing an incredible job keeping it all together !

You are describing the scenario why lots of people choose not to have a 3rd child. 1 or 2 children with working parents is hard enough.

Depressing thread. Is this kind of life really in anyone's interest? Kids need a roof over their head and food on the table, so parents need to work enough to secure that - but beyond that, how many parents are living just to earn and be "successful" in their careers - and forgetting what is the most important thing: family life and relationships. Much more important than a big house, the latest iPhone, foreign holidays or a shiny new car.

Both of us worked fulltime with two small children. I was a solicitor but in government without the hugely long hours needed for private practice. I started out with a nanny when they were very little and had a cleaner and gardener. They then both went to a local creche before going on to school. They were picked up after school by a service that cleared lunch boxes, provided a space to do homework and organised activities till 5.30 or so. My husband worked from home being in business for himself and sick children could stay at home while he worked. It makes a huge difference if their school/creche is close with good parking. We don't do the huge school run palaver the UK do either. We drop our children off at school - see them insider the gate - and they would walk to their classrooms when the bell rang.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with continuing a career and/or wanting your children to have more than just the very basics of a roof over their head and food on the table.

Less DC than you but another advocate here for WFH if you can! I can’t (teacher) but DH does (2-3 days at home, other 2-3 in the office, varies but always 2 at home minimum) and it’s made a massive difference! Just simple things like on 1-2 of his home days he will take his full lunch hour and use it to hoover/mop floors, catch-up on washing, cook dinner for that evening etc. On his other home day he takes his “lunch” hour from 3-4, does school collection and goes back to work for an hour at 4. I use my NCT time (planning/prep periods) to leave early and do school collection and swimming lessons once a week then I work again at 9pm. It’s busy and often frantic but we make it work with team work and 50/50 division of tasks. No expectation or belief that anyone’s career takes precedence, we are equals.

How interesting that you ascribe both parents working to shallow materialism. I don't in fact agree that 'family life and relationships' are the most important thing -- my work is also meaningful and important, and I would continue to do it if I suddenly became independently wealthy.

It is not particularly well-paid, and I'm certainly not in it for the 'shiny new car'. My phone is ancient, I'm not going abroad this year other than borrowing some friends' house in France, and I don't own a car, and cycle everywhere.

As well as providing for my child, I think it's valuable to model the importance of having a job you enjoy and are good at, and that contributes to society.

But op DOES have 3 kids! She can't change that, I wish people would stop telling her her life would be easier with 1/2 kids, that's so unhelpful.

I have one child, only work two days, have a cleaner and still don't feel on top sometimes.

So yea it's not going to be easy in your situation.

I agree there should always be one parent at home at least four or five of the days of the week .... sorry not sorry but it should be the mom

My husband and I knew we wanted a big family and made the decision early on that I would go part-time. I was the bigger wage-earner but also had the desire to be the one at home with the children. I have considerably more children than you, but can't manage more than two days a week now, and that's with all but two in full time schooling. I take my hat off to anyone who can manage to work full time hours with a family at home.

Hence why we only had one!

Why should it be the mum?

You are trying to do it all. That’s why it’s hard
You had 3 kids by choice. You have chosen to work so many days between you and your husband.
You are choosing to put your kids into all these clubs.
Something has to give or you will be in this frazzled state for years.
Either cut your hours (or DH hours) down.
Or hire a nanny to clean and take to clubs
Or have a messy house and do less clubs- why do a 1 year old and 4 year old need swimming lessons? My two didn’t learn until after covid at 8/ 9 and within 1 year were swimming 6 lengths in 4 strokes. So much better than slogging it out for years moving up the groups so so slowly as I did with my older child who started in reception.
It’s going to be hard - you have 3 kids!

You've just described our life... Right down to party bag loot (sitting in 4 different locations currently) the crazy messy playroom and not being able to rotate stuff quickly enough before another birthday/Christmas influx etc. I only have two as well! It's life with kids isn't it?! The showhome houses you see on Insta look lovely but pretty much the are either a) people without kids, b) people with one older kid, c) extreme rich people with nannies, cooks housekeeper etc or d) it's all fake and they just photograph one clean corner of their house a time. You will miss the crazy house and it will feel empty when the leave! Just try to see it all as temporary and fuck it have a gin and tonic or do what we do, go out every weekend and get away from it ignore it! Having said that my son went to school with the wrong PE kit as I didn't have a clean white shirt this week and I borrowed a neck tie for Scouts because ours is missing. I regularly have to rewash clothes that have sat in the washer all day waiting to be hung up and the baby hasn't had a bath for over a week and we are weaning... Sometimes I am horrified we are wallowing in our own filth 🥴🤣 😱

It's all about how financially comfortable you are, really. Prices are high in our area and we have no inherited wealth or finance from anyone. No rich family giving us handouts like some mnetters seem to have. Even taking into account childcare, we're still better off with both of us in full-time work. That might change if we were given some spare cash but that's the situation at the moment. Most of our peers are in a similar situation except for those with the benefit of family money.

I think your the age spread of your kids is really demanding.
I agree with pp that the 8 yr old can drop out of some extra curricular till it works for your family.
could you afford to pay someone to take the kids to swimming (eg someone training to be nursery teacher , mother’s help) today save you few hours , while you get on top of a job that’s bothering you ?

Mums and dads are more than mums and dads in life. I went to uni to have a successful career. Had I stayed where I was when I started 10 years ago I’d have not be happy. Maybe I’d have more time cuz I would have reduced my hours for hating my role. Life is not only being a parent in life. Achieving what you desire makes you successful in life as well