Page 9 | To think I can’t manage a job on top of children?

icannotdoeverything · 2024-10-02T17:02:10+00:00

I don’t have a choice [hmm] 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!

Needtofixmyageingskin · 02/10/2024 22:49

It is really tough but unfortunately with cost of living etc it's common for both parents to have to work. Both my husband and I work full time and I've been back at work since my second was 11 months old. I'm a lawyer and he's a deputy head at a school and our jobs are so intense. It's just so full on doing school run with our older son and getting younger one to and from nursery, keeping house in order and dinner on table every night. I can wfh a couple of days a week though which does help. All that is a long way of saying I hear your pain OP. It's not easy. I always think things will start to improve when they're both a bit older. The tiredness seems to be never ending!

FunnysInLaJardin · 02/10/2024 22:51

it is exhausting BUT you will be glad you did it in a few years when your DC are older and your career is still on track

FunnysInLaJardin · 02/10/2024 22:53

and lower your standards and get a cleaner and sleep train. Honestly

ZippyDenimBear · 02/10/2024 22:53

I haven't rttt. Mainly because I know it'll be full of comments from smugs who will tell you it's basically a piece of cake and ask patronising questions implying it's your fault for not doing x or y.

Or older parents looking through rose tinted glasses.

It's really crazy hard. Yadnbu. No advice here except to say it does gradually get eaiser, and anyone who says otherwise is talking crap.

Beezknees · 02/10/2024 22:53

Well, you can, I'm a lone parent and have always done it, never had any outsourced help either apart from the after school club.

Gets easier the older they get. You just have to lower your expectations a bit.

Chipsintheair · 02/10/2024 22:53

Thepeopleversuswork · 02/10/2024 22:43

Says who?

I don’t want to derail and I have sympathy for the OP but why should it be the default for one person to be economically productive and the other not? It’s not how it’s been through most of history and it’s also risky for the person who is not economically productive.

I don’t want to turn this into another SAHM vs WOHM rant but it really irritates me that people push this narrative that it’s somehow unnatural or undesirable for both parents to work. Yes life is expensive and yes many of us are tired and stressed but it’s facile to pretend going back to a single head of household model is the solution. There are plenty of very good reasons not to have one person exclusively focused on domestic work and never having their own money.

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The sensible way of doing things is to live in extended families and communities so that many people share the childcare together, enabling the parents to sleep, work and even socialise as well as look after their children.

Beezknees · 02/10/2024 22:56

Chipsintheair · 02/10/2024 22:53

The sensible way of doing things is to live in extended families and communities so that many people share the childcare together, enabling the parents to sleep, work and even socialise as well as look after their children.

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No thank you!

Babbahabba · 02/10/2024 23:27

You just get used to it I suppose 🤷🏻‍♀️Had my eldest at 25 and am now mid 40s so have spent the vast majority of my working life as a working parent. I worked then and I work now- majority of it spent working full time. You just get on with it and find a routine.

Babbahabba · 02/10/2024 23:32

Just calculated by the time youngest DD leaves primary school (big age gap) I'll have spent 21 years as a working parent with a child aged 11 and under 🤣

GingerMaineCoon · 02/10/2024 23:43

Zanatdy · 02/10/2024 22:37

Isn’t that just normal life for many parents of young kids? It was for me, no family within 250 miles, their father working overseas and myself dealing with a serious health condition and holding down a career. For many its just normality, so yes its perfectly possible to have a job too, i did, a career and one i progressed in too in that time

I think the point is getting missed on this thread. We're you happy? Did you enjoy it? If so, what advice can you give to the OP so she can enjoy each day too? And not "you'll look back and bla bla bla" - how can she enjoy these current days, after all days are where we live.

Yes the OP can do it, that's not the issue is it? It's helping her find a balace so she enjoy the experience of having young children. Otherwise what's the point?

letthemalldoone · 03/10/2024 00:00

Escaperoom · 02/10/2024 21:02

I'm a grandmother of now school age kids. I can't help thinking that it is so sad that parents these days are so stressed and overworked. I found it hard having little ones and I didn't go back to work until the youngest went to school aged 5. So many people have commented along the lines of 'you just have to get through it' like it is normal for it to be an ordeal instead of the pleasure it ought to be. I don't know what the answer is however as these days most families need two incomes to survive.

I am old enough to be a grandmother - my children are in their 20s but are career oriented.

I had no choice but to work FT in the late 90s/2000s. It's nothing new.

PyongyangKipperbang · 03/10/2024 00:20

letthemalldoone · 03/10/2024 00:00

I am old enough to be a grandmother - my children are in their 20s but are career oriented.

I had no choice but to work FT in the late 90s/2000s. It's nothing new.

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I think that there is something new.

I was doing it from the early 90's as a single parent and it almost broke me. Disabled 6 year old, 6 month old baby and an ex husband who fucked off without a backwards glance. So I put my big girl pants on and got on with it. But the crucial thing was, if my house was a mess or we had a chippy dinner twice in one week (rare, couldnt afford it!) then no biggie. We didnt have SM telling us what failures we were.

We were doing what everyone else did, managing. Hanging on by the skin of our teeth some days, but battling through.

We didnt have some self obsessed vacuous arsehole showcasing their beautiful home, beautiful kids and fabulous career making us feel like shit. Of course we all know deep down that its fake but when you are deep in the trenches of the worst years, its hard not feel like a failure. It adds pressure that frankly no one needs.

So as hard as it was, I am glad that we did it then. At least we didnt have people trying to tell us how they were doing it better.

SameAsItEverWas24 · 03/10/2024 00:28

This is me OP! I fantasize about being a stay at home mum because I just can't cope. Most mums in my kid's school are stay at home but none have ever had any kind of career, whereas I do. So depressing not really being able to do a good job at work and feeling grumpy and stretched at home. Truth is, I'd go mad without my job and the respite it gives me from being Mum all the time. Once kids are in school. It gets much easier. A way off granted with a 16 month.old, but hang in there.

letthemalldoone · 03/10/2024 00:31

izimbra · 02/10/2024 22:41

It's possible for YOU.

I could not have managed it and stayed mentally ok.

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You could have if you had had no choice.

Many mums don't, including me.

letthemalldoone · 03/10/2024 01:13

PyongyangKipperbang · 03/10/2024 00:20

I think that there is something new.

I was doing it from the early 90's as a single parent and it almost broke me. Disabled 6 year old, 6 month old baby and an ex husband who fucked off without a backwards glance. So I put my big girl pants on and got on with it. But the crucial thing was, if my house was a mess or we had a chippy dinner twice in one week (rare, couldnt afford it!) then no biggie. We didnt have SM telling us what failures we were.

We were doing what everyone else did, managing. Hanging on by the skin of our teeth some days, but battling through.

We didnt have some self obsessed vacuous arsehole showcasing their beautiful home, beautiful kids and fabulous career making us feel like shit. Of course we all know deep down that its fake but when you are deep in the trenches of the worst years, its hard not feel like a failure. It adds pressure that frankly no one needs.

So as hard as it was, I am glad that we did it then. At least we didnt have people trying to tell us how they were doing it better.

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Yes, @PyongyangKipperbang, while the situation we found ourselves in is far from new, you're right, we didn't have the smug self-satisfied telling us where we were going wrong!

letthemalldoone · 03/10/2024 01:14

Babbahabba · 02/10/2024 23:32

Just calculated by the time youngest DD leaves primary school (big age gap) I'll have spent 21 years as a working parent with a child aged 11 and under 🤣

I spent 21 years of my life on the school run!

ViciousCurrentBun · 03/10/2024 01:26

Do lots of one pot or one tray in the oven meals. While they cook themselves you can do other stuff. Do stuff like chop up veg and spuds and put sausages on and throw in the air fryer or oven. I always did one thing before work, start if the washing machine or dishwasher or something like that . I did stuff like buy all the same socks, same colour for each of us.

Be brutal about getting rid of stuff and decluttering , kids shouldn’t be grubby but they don’t have to be pristine.

GingerMaineCoon · 03/10/2024 02:59

@PyongyangKipperbang

Oh, you're the woman who someone else responded about something with your username (quite memorable) and you got quite snooty with her.

I should Google this at some point because your name obviously means something

Anyway, do 'mothers helpers' still exist?

Alasar · 03/10/2024 06:47

Hi OP
Hope you are ok this morning and got some rest.
This is me also. Same age kids too. It is exhausting. I'm in work 5 days a week with the last month and it's hellish. Only for we have a reliable childminder I would be screwed entirely as we have zero outside help. I miss the kids terribly too.
Just to give you a hand hold and I totally understand what you are going through as I yawn my way through typing this message.

Hugmorecats · 03/10/2024 07:00

@GingerMaineCoon I would think it’s hard to find a mother’s helper, as how many people want to work for just a couple of hours a day? You can’t make a living out of it.

YourLastNerve · 03/10/2024 07:13

I read this with the same sadness as you do.
'In the trenches' almost always gets used a few times in these threads, since when should getting to enjoy family life be like a war

I don't feel "in the trenches". I think there was an initial stage where we had to learn how to basically be more organised, but once we had got there, DH and I manage fine. DH does his share. I'm on my way the office early, he'll do school run today and i can bet he'll have put washing on a timer and got something out of the freezer for dinner. We are in a good habit now so we have time in the evenings and weekends.

Vettrianofan · 03/10/2024 07:16

letthemalldoone · 03/10/2024 01:14

I spent 21 years of my life on the school run!

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I have four DC so not far off that myself 🤣 14 years and counting...still have the youngest two in primary...

YourLastNerve · 03/10/2024 07:16

Oh and i don't go on social media so I'm oblivious to all this shite where people have immaculate homes, perfect hair and nails and glossy children in chic attire.

It helps a lot.

Thepeopleversuswork · 03/10/2024 07:20

@Chipsintheair

The sensible way of doing things is to live in extended families and communities so that many people share the childcare together, enabling the parents to sleep, work and even socialise as well as look after their children.

Maybe but very few people have that luxury these days. I didn’t have any extended family around me. I think it’s not uncommon for people to have moved away from their town of birth and to not have this support.

SnacklessWonder · 03/10/2024 07:24

It is of course perfectly possible as lots of people do it but you may need to muddle through for a while, lower your standards, clean at the weekend when DH is around to help.