To think I can’t manage a job on top of children?

[icannotdoeverything]

I don’t have a choice but hear me out

I work three days a week.

Two children, nearly 4 and 16 months.

DH works five days a week. No option to reduce this: we just can’t afford it. He has quite a lengthy commute so leaves at 7, gets back after 7.

So the mornings are on me to get both children sorted and out as well as myself. It’s always a mad dash and I’m always charging into work last minute which I worry looks bad.

Then the end of the day things are worse as both children are crotchety and tired and argue and fuss and we’re all a bit irritable …

Plus the house, keeping it clean (cleaner doesn’t help, adds to stress: tried that already!)

Managing kids and house is a FT job. I just feel like having a job on top is killing me. Oh and the 16 month old is constantly waking at night, I know I need to sleep train but given it often gets worse before it gets better I haven’t got the stomach yet!

HOW to manage!? I just don’t know but I’m EXHAUSTED!

Bravo you.

Of course it's doable. Not really what the op is asking though, is it, reading between the lines.

She's saying it's really difficult.

You may have found it a pice of cake, though I doubt it.

Alot don't. So looking back on how you did it is not helpful but smug. Smug and unhelpful.

Well its a case of living it, and getting through. I do miss some of those days now they are older, but my life is easier.

@ZippyDenimBear

Alot don't. So looking back on how you did it is not helpful but smug. Smug and unhelpful.

I can’t speak for this poster but I don’t think it’s meant to be smug. The point some of us are making is that yes its hard but its a bit of a slippery slope for people to say this is a reason to revert to a 1950s model of one breadwinner and one homemaker.

The narrative around “it’s all too hard” worries me a bit. It’s bloody hard but it’s possible and it’s almost always worthwhile in the long run.

I'd literally not even heard of it before today on this thread!

It’s common in America - usually local students. Late high school, university students xx

@GingerMaineCoon I'd heard of it before (on here) but don't know anyone in real life who's actually had one!

I thought it meant valium, as in the Stones song?

I see it as a call for more life-work balance, more flexible, family-friendly hours and equal paternity leave.

Mother's helper is an American term. I worked as a mother's helper in America, which we would call au pair.

What days do you work? If you don't currently work on a Friday, can you start doing so? Then you have one day when you 'just' need to get to work and he can do nursery etc.

My experience alas is that it doesn't really get easier as DC gets older. Mine are 10, 8, 4 - all in primary school. I work FT with a long commute 2 days a week, DH WFH total 4 days a week. No family help.Both of us above average but not high earners. Jobs v flexible. I also pursue a hobby to international standard. I remained enthusiastic about work post DC1 and DC2. After DC3 I just feel broken, permanently stressed by the hideous state of the house, resentful of DH that he gets to spend more time with DC than I do. But I was a high achiever at school so the idea of doing less never seemed/seems an option, despite being permanently at breaking point.

@Chipsintheair

I see it as a call for more life-work balance, more flexible, family-friendly hours and equal paternity leave.

I can totally get behind that. But I often see people saying that it’s “impossible” to have two parents working. It’s demonstrably not impossible or millions of people wouldn’t do it.

Calling for work/life balance is great. Lamenting the poor provision of maternity and paternity leave is also good. But words matter and people saying it’s “impossible” is a slippery slope that leads from “it’s hard and I’m knackered” to “I can’t do it so it’s just easier to let my husband do it.” It’s a bit like when your teen says to you their homework is impossible. It’s not, it’s just difficult. But when things are difficult we need to build people up and support them rather than just giving them permission to quit.

For many reasons having a household built around a breadwinner and a homemaker is usually a bad idea in the long term primarily for the homemaker. It can work short term but it’s a very risky long term strategy.

I don’t want to police how people talk and think about their work lives but I think it’s important to make the case that it’s absolutely not impossible.

The vast majority of people I know who happily have both parents work full time are either earning a very high wage so they can pay for a lot of help or they have a lot of family support. My husband and I are both nurses and I don't know many families on our kind of salaries that have both parents working full time unless grandparents pick up the slack for school runs etc.

Lone parent here with no family support and definitely not a high wage and I always worked full time since DS was at primary. Everyone I know has always worked full time, even my great grandmother worked, in working class families it's the norm as you just can't live on one wage!

Did you miss the part of my comment that said 'and stay mentally ok'?

You're not acknowledging that everyone is different.

Or do you genuinely think that everyone can do anything if they just try hard enough?

My top tips

• have a quiet day on one of your two non-working days
• make sure you work on your DH's wfh day and make him responsible for nursery drop off and pick up. If you can, start a bit earlier / finish a bit later on this day to build up goodwill at work for the days you are running late
• prepare as much as possible the night before
• consider doing 4 x shorter days when dc1 starts school next year
• do housework little and often - easier to put a wash in the machine every evening and move to tumble drier in the morning than have a mountain to deal with at the weekend.

It’s really hard work and I think that first year back after your second is definitely hard, you don’t want to leave them to cry incase they wake the other, you’re shattered and they end up in bed with you and then you worry about getting up before they do incase they wake too.

It gets a little easier once they stop napping, they aren’t as crabby when you get home. I work 3 days a week also and where people may think I have 2 days off, I’m more busy than on the days I’m working, expect the morning routine isn’t as brutal.

I would say order your big shop for delivery and definitely get their things out the night before, I have a little basket I pop everything in, my stuff too, coats, bags, shoes are all there because it’s just too hard trying to do this in the mornings. Clean what you can, when you can, a deep clean just isn’t always possible. Load your washer the night before and set a timer on it in the morning so it’s done for when you arrive home and just eat whatever is quickest and easiest.

when I returned to work, the weather was easy to predict so I for some time I used a drawer and sorted outfits for the little one for Monday to Friday, nappy included so I could grab it quick.

I agree with this. Everyone is different but there seems to be a general consensus on here that having two parents working automatically means you need to have family support and if you don't you're going to be knackered for 15 years or mentally unwell and it's impossible.

Yes it's hard and yes of course people struggle but the answer to it isn't for women to remove themselves from the workplace. There's countless threads on here from SAHMs who are stressed out their boxes with no help from their husbands. There thousands of families who have both working parents with little family support who manage it to make it work without being mentally unwell. I'm not that dismissing those who do, but it's disingenuous to say that it can't be done without two involved parents.

@izimbra

do you genuinely think that everyone can do anything if they just try hard enough?

No of course not. And as you say everyone is different.

But excluding people with disabilities or illness or who have caring responsibilities everyone can work in some form if they can find the right job.

No one suggests that there are men (excluding those who are ill or otherwise limited) who cannot work because they have children.

This is going to sound harsh but everything is a choice, there's always somewhere cheaper to live, other jobs available etc. You and your OH just need to decide on what your priorities are, if getting to enjoy your children and getting off the grindstone is what you want, you'll have to go and get it. People do it all the time and yes, it's scary but you have to go for what you want in life.

Could you find a cleaner who is flexible? The first cleaner I had used to tidy, clean and peel vegetables all ready for me to switch on. She would also hang out washing or pick it in if she thought it might rain and iron dh's shirts. I loved her so much.

It's exhausting OP but I advise you don't make yourself financially vulnerable by working less. I went back to work full time when my twins were 8 months old. They're now 13, I'm single now (all the hallelujah's genuinely) and have survived. You just need to do all the chores at weekends. As one other lovely poster said, just be prepared to be tired a lot.

Wow, but that's so depressing. Not much of a life. 😞

Op you didn't say how much he earns