Life Admin!

[Bellaboo01]

Am i missing something here regarding 'life admin'?

From what i can see, it is what people are saying they are doing to sound like they are so busy and cant work? I have worked for 30 years and managed life admin, kids etc. I'm now thinking that i need to retire and say my job role is 'life admin'!

All our bills, mortgage, kids clubs, schools, holidays etc etc get done whilst my husband and I work full time.

I could understand if it was housework as well but, what 'life admin' needs to be done every day for 7.5 hours per day?

As a linguist, I'm loving the fact that your objection is grammatical! What part of speech would you suggest using? If you just call the laundry 'the laundry' does that make it a bigger deal than if you say 'do the laundry'? What if I say 'do life admin'? Does that make it less dramatic?

Doesn’t it also depend what counts as ‘life admin’? If you think it’s just looking for cheaper car insurance once a year then yes, it’s not a lot. Then these are the things that seem to take up a lot of time for me - and I would call them ‘life admin’: buying kids’ clothes, sorting their clothes that don’t fit, storing clothes that are to be saved for DD2, arranging health appointments, arranging school meals, clubs, childcare, paying for these (the childcare account thing is time consuming!), meal planning, checking what we’ve run out of each week and making the shopping list, arranging activities, clearing out things that aren’t needed/wanted anymore and keeping drawers and cupboards tidy and organised so the house remains functional, arranging house repairs/maintenance… the list goes on! And none of that is the actual cooking, cleaning, shopping, gardening - the day to day physical work of running a home. I have a full time job and two young kids, and a DH who does his share, but it can still sometimes feel never ending!

Oh and buying bloody birthday presents for endless kids’ parties…

I don’t mind it if people want to invent a term for explaining all those tedious paperwork chores you have to do, getting insurance, paying bills etc. it’s when people include doing an online shop or making a shopping list or ringing the hairdresser for an appointment that I think it gets a bit daft. Doing the shopping and going to the hairdresser explains those much better imho.

I mean the word ‘administrative’ literally means ‘related to the running of…..’ so it kinda makes sense to call tasks that relate to the running of a home/family life are called life admin. What would you call it? (Not that it remotely matters)

It can get busy if you have apts for elderly parents. I find nobody rings you back now so there can be alot of chasing up apts. Ive no kids parties thank god lol.

Depends on the life, surely? Some people are much, much more pushed than others.

Single parent here with no support from ex. Life admin can be anything from ordering stuff online, sorting deliveries, arranging seemingly endless things with letting agents (contractors to come around, waiting in for them, home inspections, sorting housing issues), tax credits or now universal credit paperwork (now monthly for my business - not complaining but it's been a lot of work to move over), constant school admin, club admin for my DD, helping her sort homework as she's a new year 7, sorting bullying issues with school, transport stuff (new bus passes, bus timetables for school), ordering stuff for my parents, birthday, mothers day and fathers day and xmas gifts for entire family, arranging repair of something that broke, form filling, doctors appointments, dental appointments (useless dentist doesn't email or call back to rearrange which is 20 mins on phone waiting), researching new washing machine or whatever, sorting energy contract, rearranging new internet provider once a year (as the prices go up), same for insurance (which took me hours this year) chasing up missing things... that's all on top of my day job, childcare and business. I know a lot of it is routine but if you're a single parent it can be so bloody draining. And technology doesn't really seem to help much!

I think there are two things going on:

1. some people are just better at this stuff than others

I have a friend like this - something needs doing, she just does it, it seems really easy to her.

I had ADHD and it's really hard for me.

2. some people just have a lot more than others.

Sure if all you need to deal with are utilities, that will be easy. We have a lot more:

I have two medical conditions, regular prescriptions, appointments and blood tests to manage

Ditto one of my sons

Two children in primary school - need to coordinate pick ups, drop offs, school event attendance, wraparound care, school holiday clubs

We both volunteer and have admin relating to those commitments

We have a Victorian house and things always need doing - there's a lot of booking in tradesmen which takes ages as they never actually show up

A nice problem to have but we also have investments to manage

It's easily a couple of hours a week

I think this is extremely relevant as it just highlights how 'life admin' depends on your life circumstances. Having complex needs yourself, lots of dependents with complex needs or just living a more complicated life than other people can make the amount of life admin you are responsible for absolutely balloon. I always think those that lack the capacity to understand this are either very naive about what other people's lives are like or are being deliberately inflammatory.

I also think MN never accounts for the fact that doing something well takes infinitely more time and energy than doing something badly. So for example you can auto renew your car insurance extremely easily often without doing much at all whereas finding the cheapest quote that meets your requirements and switching to a new provider takes a lot more time. Both technically tick the box of 'renewing car insurance' but actually the overall outcome is often very different. If you think about other more time consuming activities like supporting DC's extracurriculars and you can see how sending a kid to Brownie's once a week isn't the same as supporting a child in a sport that requires frequent training, lots of equipment and lots of parental involvement.

I hate the phrase sounds so pretentious.
Most is done via direct debits and people that do online shipping always seem to do it during the work day in the office.
Other stuff just gets done as and when you see it via emails/ texts.
Remembering prescription s etc etc.

supporting a child in a sport that requires frequent training, lots of equipment and lots of parental involvement

that isn't life admin, that's supporting a child's hobby

If you spend hours a week chasing prescriptions for a child and go to the pharmacy when they've decided to close due to being shortstaffed again, THAT is life admin.

Oh my god why do people care SERIOUSLY, this is one of the most tedious threads I've seen.

As PPs have said, it depends on your circumstances. Normal yearly life admin obviously is doable around normal working life. I have two ND DC with physical disabilities and every week there are lengthy forms to fill in, appointments to organise, emails to reply to. And that is on top of attending appointments, zoom meetings and being constantly on call to pick up DC. Everyone assumes you are free to drop everything at any given moment. It is overwhelming when you work.

Life admin or mental load are, to my mind, very closely linked. I can't say I've ever seen someone say they can't work because of life admin though. But there is absolutely no doubt that the life admin/mental load/ general tasks burden is easier to manage if one member of the partnership is not working.

I also think that the life admin/mental load can be fairly onerous when both partners are wroking, children are young and x100 if there are additional needs or elderly parents or other factors to consider.

A friend's DH recently complained to DH that he can never have a lie in because he does everything in the morning and his wife would have a melt down if she had to do it. I was incredulous. They have two children with additional needs. He gets up and sorts lunches and breakfast, absolutely, but I know she's upstairs tearing her hair out trying ot get them to brush their teeth, get dressed, brushed their hair etc. The same man loves to say things like, "Oh, I just go where I'm told, DW tells me what to do" and appears to be completely oblivious to the sheer effort his DW puts in to making all this stuff happen in the background, particularly in light of the challenges their DC have. For example, she recently had to change an activity their DD does because their DD wasn't coping. He's completely oblivious and has no idea of the effort required to make it work.

I think maybe with a bit of imagination you could appreciate that people might have lives that are different to you.

A child or other family member with disabilities or health conditions creates more admin. Sometimes a monthly medication order goes without a hitch, other times it can involve hours of going back between a GP and pharmacy.

Some parents rarely have to liaise with their kids schools, other people might need to set aside a lot of time to chase schools for information, advocate for their children etc. I am weeks behind submitting information I need to for an ECHP to the LA because I don't have the time. I work every weekend catching up on work missed due to 'life' during the week. I can't even remember when I last had a day off.

I am also under no illusion that I have it hard - I know that in so many respects, other families are juggling with a lot more.

It's all the things you need to do with a clear head. Not with babies and toddlers hanging off you. So important phone calls, generally medical or financial, that can't have a screaming child in the background, but most of these places shut at 5 so during the day sometimes at work is when I have to do it.

I have massive anxiety about phoning people so I need a quiet time to build myself up to it so nothing comes out a garbled mess. I also overthink every line of an email or believe I'm sending it to the wrong person.

Most things pop into my head when the kids are at nursery/school but that also means I must be at work therefore sometimes I have to flit from one to the other. Yes it can impact on my work sometimes but if I didn't do it, really important things would get missed.

I tried to explain this to my (ADHD) DH and then I remembered the term "life admin" and it just summed up what it is I get lost in sometimes.

I wonder why the OP started this thread yesterday and then disappeared...

She’s busy doing life admin 😂

@WhatALovelyWayToBurn is right.

The point about life admin is that it’s the last acceptable face of sexism in the division of domestic labour.

Even very traditional men now accept (or at least pretend to accept) that they have to do some domestic labour. The most cave dwelling man will grudgingly change a nappy or two and take the bins out if asked.

Life admin is the hidden project management that underpins the household. It’s easy to do a bit of washing up when asked to. Running the whole 3D chess element of managing a household and all things it involves is a whole other ballgame.

You are having to work out whether you have enough of your child’s asthma medication to last you through to your holiday and, if not, when you are going to get it. You have to know when the last instalment of the payment for the school trip has been paid. You have to book the babysitter. Book the GP and the dentist. Renew the insurance. Work out what time you have to leave work to attend a school thing. Request the leave if necessary.

Critically most if this is done by women and it’s mostly done by women who also work FT. In the days when women mostly stayed at home it was stuff that fitted comfortably enough into the day so men didn’t worry about that and women had time to deal with it. If you’re already doing a ten hour day, leading meetings, commuting, picking kids up, not so much. On their own these things are simple enough. If there’s 10 of them in a day alongside a job, it becomes almost a second job.

Thr key thing is men in general still regard this as not being their problem. My ex was shocking at this and explicitly said it was a “mother’s job”. My new DP is far more progressive but he still has a tendency to walk in when I am working and say: “have you booked xxxx”.

They don’t understand the burden this puts on women who are already stretched and exhausted.

I find admin hard, hard to start and focus on. Hard to get our taxes done, hard to keep up with filing. I combine it with mental load in my head I guess and it always feels like a lot- everything that needs done. My peach tree has leaf curl and I’ve realised i didn’t spray it soon enough and now its stuck with it until next year, I need a carpet underlay for the rug I put down 6 months ago, I’m trying to sort all the baby things from my toddler, work out what clothes are never going to fit me again. I’m good at it at work and am on several committees for the children and school whixh also takes time and headspace, and for a long time did it all for the family which I have now had raging meltdowns about and dh does a lot… but not so much thinking. He ordered school stuff today, and he is great at jumping in and doing it. Once I’ve told him to and exactly what they need that is, he hasn’t had any thoughts of how own about what they might need. He’s been asking me about their piano lessons as I was trying to organise some but couldn’t get the right time and I’ve just stopped answering. I and one child need new passports, I need to update our investments, I’m a mentally overloaded mum of 3 young children with a busy full time job and a big family load. So admin is hard.

This, every night at about 10 or 11 I get to decide if I’m going to have some downtime, do some work, do something I owe a committee or do some admin /washing etc.

'They don’t understand the burden this puts on women who are already stretched and exhausted.'

Indeed. And fellow women who pretend it doesn't exist, there's at least a dozen on this thread alone, plus the op, really aren't helping.

Another way of looking at it, is to feel very very sorry for those whose life admin starts and ends at annual direct debits. What - no holidays to organise, no social life to organise, no kids activities, no kids parties, no birthday presents to buy, no savings to shuffle around for max interest, etc etc

No problem with the phrase, it's an accurate description. And the majority of women undertake it for the whole family, as it's not considered a 'chore' (but should be). Things like:

Arranging medical appointments for everyone

Doing all the paperwork for said appointments (particularly if you have disabled/ SEN child/ren)

Arranging holidays and travel arrangements, including insurance, passport renewal, changing money, putting in passenger info for booking systems

Arranging 3x quotes for cars, house maintenance

Form filling and payments for school trips, ordering uniform, applications for schools, lunches

There's actually a load of stuff that (mostly) women do on behalf of everyone in their family, and it can add up to a fair amount of time and be taken for granted. Life admin is an accurate description.

@arethereanyleftatall

And fellow women who pretend it doesn't exist, there's at least a dozen on this thread alone, plus the op, really aren't helping.

The people saying it doesn’t exist either don’t work or don’t do very much other than work and look after kids. (Or maybe they have husbands who do stuff?)

So much more to it than “direct debits”.