Aibu to refuse to take my dc to their loved activities

[vintagevallie]

Hi

My dc do hobbies that they love. A couple of them require quite a heavy commitment in terms of time and money. My dc are very good at these hobbies and are committed. They could go far and progress well if they wanted to. It does mean training a few times a week for a number of hours.

My problem is we have no help from family. We never have. Everything we do is just us 24/7 with the dc without a break, apart from school.
Both me and my partner work full time. I compress my hours and start later in the morning so that I can do school drop off. It means I work very late every evening to compensate.

I do all drop offs at school. I then do three or four pick ups from school and then all evening running around to these hobbies and clubs. My partner then picks dc up from hobby twice per week and does a weekend drop off and pick up.

What this means is I'm either out of the house working until after 7pm or I'm driving across the city to drop dc off and pick them up. This is on top of school drop and pick ups. It feels like I never just get to have an evening at home before 7/8pm. By that time I'm home to bedtime routines and then by the time that's done I'm getting something to eat and ready for the next day. There is no downtime at all during the week.

I know this is life for lots of people but I just feel so rushed around. I'm in and out of the house like a yo-yo. I never just get to come home at a normal time and have dinner etc

My partner gets 4 evenings a week where they are at home at 5pm latest and they only have to go out two evenings to do a pick up from hobby around 7pm.

It's exhausting and I don't feel like we spend any time together as a family. I don't want to rush around all week barely seeing my children.

However I feel guilty that what I have suggested is my dc give up one hobby. They don't want to do this. My partner does not want them to do this. It would be a shame as they are so good at the hobby and committed.

My partner is not able to change their hours to take on more school runs or hobby runs.
I have always worked flexibly to fit around DCs schedules and school. I'm just getting so fed up of it. It does not help that my job is very chaotic and involves lots of driving around and visiting various places so it feels like I'm constantly on the go no matter where I am.
My partners job is a standard 8-5 at one office so I suppose it feels more manageable.

I just don't know what to do. Is this life for most people with dc. Aibu to want dc to quit something they love for me to have more downtime. I think as the weather is getting worse I am starting to feel it more.

Sorry, but this is just another thread where women are supposed to arrange their life around their children, take the career hit and the husband refuses to do the same. Sorry op, but I'm fed up with reading this. Just tell him to deal with it. It's typical of men opting out.

I would suggest that DH puts in a flexible working request to leave early at least one or two of the evenings per week to support you. He has the right and the Comoany has to have a good reason for saying no. Good luck

YANBU. You’re exhausted from spending the best part of a decade juggling parenting young kids and work. I remember it well.

All I can say is this will get easier before long. Once they get to secondary/become teenagers, they usually drop hobbies, either because other kids do (so sessions for that age group aren’t available).Or they hit the usual teenage lack of energy/enthusiasm. Or they have more schoolwork. Or want to socialise with friends outside organised activities.

From about 14, they start to travel independently too, though if you live in a rural area, it’s perhaps harder for them to get about on public transport.

It’s wonderful they’re excelling at, and really enjoying and wanting to stick at, a sport. So, I’d keep supporting that for now, if you possibly can. But I think it’s wise for life balance and your own health/well-being/family relationships if you ask them to cut some of the other activities.

It’s important you and your DP have time for each other and yourselves each week, otherwise you’ll become burned out or like ships in the night and your relationship may suffer.

Not sure why people are so insistent you have to stick with this.

No, you don't. It sounds absolutely stressful. It would be totally acceptable to only keep the hobbies they love the most. It must be tiring for kids too and I'm sure they'd love some evenings for you all to spend at home as a family.

What is she teaching them?That it's ok to prioritise yourself? That sometimes we can't do it all and it's ok to change and do things differently, consider our health? That mum is a valuable human being not a robot?
They tried to get kids into hobbies. They didn't say it was life without parole.

exactly. She needs to consider herself too. As I've said to another poster, its not life without parole

Well, he needs to deal with it. Kids affecting career is just something women have to deal with. Men need to puck up a bit of this.

As you’re getting paid more these days, I’d throw money at the problem and either drop or get your dh to drop your dcs at breakfast club. Then I’d ask your dp to do a flexible working request for a couple of evenings a week so that he can do 2 drop offs.

My husband and I both work full time and are immigrants so have never had anyone to help with anything. We have two kids. We are super lucky to both work flexibly and on a hybrid schedule which is the only way to make things work.

My son has clubs 6 days a week and my daughter 3 days. I have two volunteer positions plus my husband travels for work every couple of months. It's a huge juggle for sure.

At the start of each term we sit down and work out how it can work. We have our priorities and are lucky to have a good friend who coaches my son's football so he does a lot of that for us. My daughter is quite a serious dancer so we make those classes work. We do absolutely nothing on Sundays and my daughter walks herself to her classes on a Friday so I'm just with my son that afternoon - usually hosting a playdate.

I'm burning out a bit but my son is SUPER high energy so it actually works better for us to keep him very busy. None of these hobbies are a future career or anything but they love it and they all keep them busy and active. I figure it's just another few years of it!

But I have a day a week working from home so I can catch up on laundry and whatnot and my husband works from home 3 days a week and does all the cooking. I think the missing bit here (if your goal is to continue this which of course is not at all necessary!) is your husband's schedule. There's no need nowadays to be stuck with a set schedule like that at work, there's so many more rights for workers nowadays and he has the right to have them just like anyone else.

A third person helping with the ferrying around would make a huge difference with helping reclaim your evenings. An afternoon nanny with own car. Maybe search on local sites?

I will definitely look at what hobbies can be dropped if it is breaking you. They are very young; they will probably drop some around secondary school age anyway.

I did lots of running when they were in primary and I was working part time. They were not intense hobbies like yours more like extra curricular activities.

It sounds like a miserable life with both of you running around constantly doing chores or shipping the kids around or working. When do you ever see each other or spend any time together?

At some point your kids are going to get burned out too.

If your kids are primary school age, none of what they're doing is important to anything and they can pick up what they're interested in later when they're more independent.

If they're secondary school age just install Uber on their phones and be done with it all. You can track them to see where they are.

This is the problem with workplaces being flexible - they make accommodations and all they're ending up with is a more exhausted and ill employee who can't do their job properly through no fault of their own.

you're the main earner, so you reducng your hours makes no sense. husband really cannot afford to be uncomfortable asking for flexi working.

Can you get them in breakfast club so you finish earlier? How old are the children?

Don't make yourself ill, OP. If you fall apart, the family falls apart.
When I had cancer, I read that it can be caused by high stress about a decade before the symptoms show. Guess what I was doing a decade before my diagnosis.
And you are already ill. You absolutely should not be sucking it up for the sake of some hobbies that may mean nothing in a year or two's time. It's plain that you can't keep on like this so, either your DH does more, or the DC do less.
Unless you can outsource, but surely the family will benefit from some evenings at home doing homework, eating together etc, just being a family?

I'm going against the grain here to say if the set up isn't working for you, you need to reassess what can and can't be fitted in. It maybe that each child has to make a choice about which hobby they want to pursue.
You don't want to risk reaching burn out, which is sounds like you risk doing. Good to hear your husband is a good team player!

100% this! One of the most valuable lessons I had as a child was that I couldn’t always have everything I wanted. I have 3 siblings and we couldn’t be everywhere at once especially as parents both worked multiple jobs. I turned out a well rounded individual who made it to a good uni with a decent job despite not doing every single activity I could have/ would have picked in primary school.

Your mental health and physical health doesn’t cease to exist because you have kids. Yes every parent wants the best for their kids but by your own admission your little ones are doing multiple extra curricular activities on top of school

I remember kindly being brought home by a friend every week from one of my hobbies in secondary school because I was a valuable member of my team but my parents weren’t able to get me home following it. Is there a way you could arrange lifts with a friend / someone else going to the same event even if it means you have to drop their kids off alternate weeks it might make a huge difference to your quality of life.

What’s a Uniform Hobby?

Rainbows/Brownies/Guides
Beavers/cubs/Scouts
Cadets/Sea Cadets
Anchor Boys/Boys brigade

100%. There’s still a gender pay gap because fathers don’t want to have to do what mothers have had to do for hundreds of years: fit their paid work around parenting, even if they risk earning less, losing power or having less success. Women have fought to blaze a trail for part-time and flexible working, parental and carers’ leave. If men truly want equity, all they have to do is follow the trail.

Hire a student to ferry them about

Drop some of these hobbies/clubs! I really don’t get this expectation that parents have to commit to being their DCs’ chauffeurs whenever their DCs want. It’s ridiculous to be doing all this running around - ridiculous for you, and ridiculous for the children too.

When do they get a chance to sit and think, to develop as young humans? Never! Every minute must be filled with Activities and Clubs. That’s wrong. They need time to think, to play, to create, to relax.

"He cooks all meals for him and dc. I do my own out of choice."
why?

Also, you're the higher earner, so it's important that he puts his big boy pants on and bloody makes the flexible working request.

Can you share lifts?
WhatsApp is your friend for arranging lifts with other families involved in the same activities

@vintagevallie We have primary aged children and no family suport (as we are living abroad at the moment) so I understand the situation.

The children will survive with one hobby less. However, your mental and physical health may not, if you continue this way.

What is this doing to your relationship with your husband? If you are exhausted, and a little resentful of each other over this issue, are you having date nights and maintaining your relationship as a couple? Children thrive emotionally when they are raised in warm and loving lone or dual parent households where they see/experience affection - and so do we.

Reducing the load should be seriously considered - either by car pooling, reducing the hobbies or by DH changing hours and carrying a little more.

When we faced this, we decided to reduce hobbies and instead encourage our children to become avid readers, and to do one sport and one musical instrument per week. The guilt has subsided and I now get to have current affairs discussions to the accompaniment of Bach in the evening.

It is important that they have one club activity per day at secondary as that helps round them as people but also keeps them busy - which is the strongest antidote to a sedentary social media lifestyle and all of the associated online harms, risks of sleep disorders, cognitive and attention disorders, depression, and risks to general mental wellbeing.

It may be that you have to swap the rural location for suburban when they go to secondary.