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?

DC8’s thing is sport. She is a very talented footballer and one of the afterschool things is with a premier league academy (starts at 5pm an hour away 🤦‍♀️). We both have to be home for that as it finishes too late for the younger two, then she plays football for another club (training mid week and weekend) and from next year hockey moves to mid week as well as weekend too 😩. Have already told DH she might not be able to do that midweek as well. I feel guilty about that as she’ll want to and DH thinks she’ll fall off the pace if she doesn’t. But it’s just not doable is it?

Honestly, OP, there is a reason why family size tends to be so small in highly competitive and aspirational parenting cultures (Singapore or New York or whatever) - shepherding children through all these OTT extra-curric and classes is extremely expensive and time consuming and is just not very compatible with having several children (unless you are in the VERY high income brackets and can just outsource everything in nannies and other paid help).

If you have three or more kids, I think you need to be realistic about the fact that your kids will almost certainly have to do a lot less extra curric than an only child, and spend more time helping out at home/keeping younger siblings occupied for a bit while parents get on with things. And you know what, that's fine. That's learning resilience and life skills that will stay with them for the rest of their life. Whereas most of the "classes" that little kids go to get abandoned and forgotten when they are teenagers anyway. Focus on trying to put them into holiday children that offers some activities (as a two-for-one) during school holidays instead, and also on trying to do physically active things as a family at weekends.

Let go of all non essential after school activities which is pretty much all of them at 4 and 1, keep one each maybe if it works at the weekend. Let go again of any semblance of a ‘clean’ to pre kids standard home, just forget it and enjoy the weekends. Once kids are a bit older you can return to many things including cleaning.

My experience is that it works fine with two parents pitching in with housework, childcare and the mental load.

It falls down when one parent (generally the dad) thinks they can work and consider that their full contribution.

We found both compressing our hours and working around each other was helpful (so we were both fulltime, but worked longer days, but have extra days off).

It doesnt work in my experience OP. But there's no choice in this modern world, life just an unmanageable, stressful mess

I don't understand all the people telling people to drop swimming for the younger two and football for the 8 year old, when it's clearly something the OP wants to prioritize. The advise on how to arrange it differently is worth considering.

Yes definitely. And if you have a really active child then these things feel essential. My 8yo does swimming, football, basketball and piano, and when it’s off season for footy he does athletics. And when he’s at home he non stop kicks a football shoots hoops jumps on trampoline uses the climbing frame plays the backyard tennis. I shudder to think of what he would be like if we didn’t set things up so he could move just about nonstop.

I also worked 4 days/week until my kids were secondary school age and found it doable despite a less favourable split of household duties than yours, but I stopped at 2 kids - I knew my limits and couldn't have managed a third.

I can see that the extracurricular activities are important to your family so the thing that has to give is the housework/cooking. Do it less, do it more efficiently, or outsource it! Throw money at it if you can. Surely if you're taking a day off a week you want to be spending it doing nice things with your kids, not wiping down skirting boards.

It's rough OP, no answers here

But @PurpleWisteria1 do you consider your DH is less of a parent than you because he isn't physically there every waking moment the kids are? If the answer is yes then something is wrong there isn't it? I applaud your martyrism and decision but have to tell you my kids are top of their class, happy well adjusted children and we both work full time, albeit we work condensed hours so each have an extra day off a week. They actually want to go to their wrap around care and see their friends, if they can't go for some reason they miss it and complain! It does make me wonder whether we have so many entitled especially male children because mummy was always there to pick up the pieces and gave up her life for them. It doesn't exactly show a child equality if the mother gives up her entire former life, drops her education as soon as she has a child..it tells the child I am the most important person in the world and everyone should drop everything for me....or does it? Also if female child, isn't it basically saying to them no point trying at school sweetheart because as soon as you have a baby you won't be working anyway so why bother beign educated... I mean that thinking really does still operate in some cultures...

I’d disagree @Purplefoxes I think teaching sons that caring is to be valued is hugely important. I hate the ‘just mum at home sets a bad example’ - a bad example of what, nurture? I have two sons who really value me and as recently a SAHM they can see first hand that those qualities of kindness, every day care and attention are just as important as bringing home the bacon. My oldest son got a job recently in an old people’s home, he’s so great at it and he says it’s partly because he got first hand the idea that care is really important.

The voting polls are always interesting on threads like this, because most people agree it’s really hard and carry on doing their best, while the thread fills up with bossyboots telling the OP how to do it, which usually involves bossing the husband and kids around …

YANBU!

I'm a lone parent working full time with no domestic help (up until last week when I was made redundant) I don't find it difficult to be honest. I would finish work early on a Friday and then come home and take care of all the cleaning.

…or offering their own experience in the hope it helps OP? I don’t think anyone has said it’s not hard, but I’ve seen lots of people suggesting things that could be done to make it easier.

Personally I think OP needs to decide who and what is going to compromise. Options could be: the cleanliness/tidiness of the house/(some of) her DCs activities/her career/their bank balance or a combination. None of that may sound particularly appealing but it sounds like something has to give.

It generally teaches sons that caring is a woman's role and daughters to become SAHM's themselves. There are obviously exceptions but that's what a large study says are the likely outcomes.

Why do people who want others to SAHMs always seen so convinced that the main expenses in family life are likely to be "things" - electronics devices, cars etc.?

Most people who work are trying to afford expensive housing, save enough to help their children go through uni and get on the housing ladder at some point (rather than letting them be Generation Rent with a debt millstone round their necks), and save enough to avoid poverty in old age.

Productivity is stagnant, society is aging, we are all living longer than ever and it's not clear whether there will be much in the way of a state pension for us, the costs of housing and similar things keep going up.

It's not as simple as "Stop buying new shiny things, you materialistic drone."

And continues to propagate the unfair system, props up the patriarchy and inequality for women. It's my opinion and appreciate not for everyone. I am all for people having choice though if you really want to stay at home power to you. However it bugs me to see how many women on here come on to say they've been cheated on by their partner and feel powerless and they have zero financial capability having been a SAHM for years and lost confidence in the workplace. They then feel forced to stay in a miserable and unhappy marriage 'for the kids' when actually this damages them to see an unhappy and unequal relationship role modelled. So I think it only works as long as your efforts are truly appreciated and seen as equal to the other parent earning the money. Plus it puts a lot of pressure on that other parent who has to do the earning. Don't get me wrong, I've done both and being a SAHM parent is harder in my opinion but obviously depends on what you do!

So football takes up 4/7 once a week plus weekend so dh/someone needs to be home for other 2

Can anyone in the team share with you. So you take dd and friend and back home for 5ish

And other parent collect your dd and their child and drop off to you for 7

If she is good at it then great but means will have to drop hockey

Swimming lesson intensive is better and sounds like your 4yr needs to build confidence in water - if she has been doing lesson since little and still can't swim , maybe look at a diff teacher

Yes a nanny may take most of you salary (and Hope your means you and dh) not just you

But worth it to be less stressed

Girls or boys with SAH mums don't necessarily only see their mums doing 'care' tasks though. I think some people think being a SAHM makes women into Cinderella! These kids see their mums doing lots of things - helping out at their school maybe; charity work or voluntary. I used to help out at DD's ballet class as a friend ran it. Even though I'm a SAHM, I'm often doing admin type work relating to properties we rent. It changes all the time. Kids don't really think like that and they don't only value money and who earns what. If your husband respects you and your kids see you happy, they won't grow up thinking 'caring' is 'lesser.' They will see many, more nuanced, routes to happiness and ways to live.

Not really.
My DD is also top of her class at a grammar school. I encourage her to be whatever she wants- children or no children. But yes, I do personally believe that if you make the choice to have children then one parent should be at home to look after them (when they are young at the very least) not send off to a nursery. I know that a really difficult for many women who would love to stay at home due to needing the money for the basics and I think that’s a really sad state of affairs. However, a young child just wants their mum (or dad, but usually mum). They don’t give a crap about the fact that ‘mummy needs to have a career darling’ at age 2.
I honestly don’t know why someone would choose to have children if they don’t intend to see them develop and grow day by day- to see the milestones in fine tuned detail. It’s the greatest privilege and no way would I want another person outside our family bringing my kids up for hours every day each week? If I had had to do that I would be devastated that I had missed so much.
Yes my DH is a great parent but historically a much less involved one than me as he’s at work full time so simply not around in their lives as much- this isn’t so stark now as they are older, up later and out of the house more anyway, but when they were pre schoolers in bed by 7pm - he doesn’t get home until 8pm so they wouldn’t see him sometimes for days. Yes of course he was less of an involved parent- how could he not be when he didn’t see them due to work? I wouldn’t say he was ‘less’ of a parent at all- he does most of the providing for us! It’s just different roles.
Education is extremely important and this is the same for my kids boy or girl. My boys are taught to give utmost respect to women. My husband is full involved in all ‘house’ jobs at weekends - we all pitch in. No one is getting served or waited on. I worked in a profession requiring a degree before I had kids. May well go back to the same one once they are older or may work in a completely different field part time. Not sure. I already set up my own business that works around school hours to earn extra and still be around for them every school pick up and drop off.
So it’s not just as black and white as have baby - no point in education. I do just believe that it’s really important for a young child to have one main caregiver parent. It’s only a few short years after all and 0-5 is so incredibly important with far reaching life long consequences.

Why would it have destroyed you though? In what way?
Its not really horrible- the title of the post is two parents working doesn’t work. My thoughts are no it doesn’t, and there’s reasons for that.

@PurpleWisteria1 I feel so sorry for your children with such a shitty excuse for a father, who went days without seeing them. I mean , who has kids just to not see any of their development and growth day by day? What a pathetic excuse for a man!

Because some people need more than staying at home with their children. It's good for my mental health to work, it stimulates my brain in a way that I simply wouldn't get as a SAHM, it feels good to earn and provide for my family etc.

I'd be miserable as a SAHM.

Yeah good one.
He would have been far more reluctant to have them if I hadn’t been willing / wanting to be the main caregiver during the days. It only takes one parent for stability.

I have no suggestions but I'm just here to say YANBU. We don't have even have holiday clubs here anymore - cancelled for covid and never reinstated.

Im jealous of all the opportunities children have elsewhere in the country in August woth various clubs and activities! The stress of working & childcare is unreal.

I'm currently looking for a new job and barely anyone offers WFH or flexitime. It's gone backwards since Covid!

Every school holiday we just feel like we're failing at it all - we don't have grandparents who help either. I love working though :(

Another vote for going back full time for the extra pay and then getting a nanny.