To think people who have never been insanely busy don’t really get it

[Lostthebubblewand]

I literally don’t have time to even urinate a lot of the time. Full time, constant fire fighting, single parent, homeowner, elderly parents, I know a lot of people have more on. But there’s so much some people don’t understand.
I can’t reply to messages asap.
I do miss school emails.
I end up paying more for insurance etc as I don’t remember to shop around before my renewal.
Id love to put more into bday messages or to make my children birthday cakes or handmade cards.
I get some comments like ‘you haven’t done that yet?’ ‘???’ to messages but so many of my friends and family have jobs which are done at 5pm. Or WFH and can do some life admin when they’re home.
I just rush from crisis to appointment to school or after school and then home and straight into the anxiety of bedtime routine. Why is it always later than I thought, it can’t be 8pm?
I don’t have evenings. My whole life is just a blur until I pass out listening to my daughter read at 9pm.
Then I wake up at 4am to angry messages from family because I didn’t react to their photo of a beach?! Or the kids dad saying why did I forget X when I can’t even find half hour to book a smear test.
Its all so draining but I don’t think people get it unless they’ve lived it, how could they?
Sorry for the pity party

YANBU

Those people who haven’t worked ft combined with children at primary school, and even secondary school at certain times, such as exam season, absolutely don’t get it.

For a start that means you are locked in to school runs, overseeing hwk, sports kit, maybe packed lunches, money for this, costumes for that, extra-curricular activities, and coping with childhood illnessneses.

If you have more than one child and especially more than one school, it’s almost a full time job on its own during term time.

Then there are inset days, haircuts,holiday clubs, buying shoes, dentist, parties, sports fixtures, overseeing kids’ baths and reading etc,

Then there is the basics of running a home such as laundry, cleaning, basic home maintenance, food shopping and cooking something vaguely healthy.

Add to that holidays and family and social commitments,

All on top of a ft job.

I found it challenging with a dh who was hands on and I had to go from ft to pt as I couldn’t cope!

On top of all of that we as women are expected to look good and keep ourselves healthy and fit! Hah!

I don’t know how you do it as a single parent tbh op. Posting as you have done indicates that you have reached capacity and you need to be more hard headed about your priorities and to try and ring fence some time for yourself.

So what if family members scream because you haven’t “liked” their holiday photos? Let them scream! Or a simple reply such as “children’s schedule means I can’t keep up with sm atm. I am sure you understand”. Or just make it clear that you will only from now on be looking at family sm for 30 mins on a Sunday so apologies if you miss something?

I think you need to try if humanly possible to reclaim some time and control for yourself and be ruthless about what is necessary and what is not. Also give yourself a few treats like on Wednesday nights you go to bed at the same time as the dc. (Self care sometimes needs to be about prioritising your own health and wellbeing.)

How about booking a baby-sitter for a weekend morning, once a fortnight of weekly is too expensive, and give yourself some space? You might have to go out of the house to get it but it might be worth it?

Meal-planning will definitely help with the witching hour horrors.

Do you have a line manager at work with whom you can discuss the admin difficulties? Is there any way you could cut down the visits themselves to 45 mins each and use 15 mins doing admin in the car? It sounds as though management are taking advantage massively tbh. How do your colleagues cope?

The poster who said to sit down every night and go through things clearly doesn’t get it. I have great plans for sorting all our lives out every evening but by the time we’ve dealt with dinner I have nothing left to give. The tank is empty. There’s no sorting anything out because I barely even remember my own name at that point. Anything left for the evening just doesn’t get done 🤷‍♀️.

@Lostthebubblewand the only choice you really have is to get military and ruthless about your life. Cut out anything extraneous that you can. Plan, plan, plan. Have a routine for everything and make sure your kids know that their compliance with said routine is non-negotiable. Buy in whatever short cuts you can and delegate where possible - whatever your kids are physically capable of helping with they should be doing. Trust me, it’s good for them. Batch cooking, apps that run your life, do all of those things too.

Yep, it sounds like a lot of work just doing all that but I offer you a cautionary tale. I ended up in hospital for a week earlier this year and have permanent side effects from what was, essentially, burn out. I overdid it, kept thinking I could put off looking after myself until next week, every week and didn’t realise how run down I’d made myself until I became really quite ill. You don’t want to get to that stage.

I have had to make changes and start listening to my body but it’s really not easy when you’re not used to that. The funny thing is that when the worst happened, when I wasn’t there to get everything done and sort everyone’s life out, they all survived… It wasn’t convenient but somehow everyone stepped up and put themselves out and managed when they had to so clearly I wasn’t completely indispensable and neither are you. People can manage some things without your input but they won’t unless you force them so start setting some boundaries before you entirely mess up your health like I did.

OP I do understand it’s a lot and it feels relentless- but you’re going to have to look for solutions or you’re going to break.

Small tweaks to bring a routine together. How old are your children? Get them involved in chores appropriate to their age.

Meal prepping is the thing I do that really helps. We make curries, pasta sauces, prep veg, meatballs are our staples.

Tidy a little every day. Put things away straightaway and have a place for everything. I know it sounds annoying but it will make such a difference to your life.

I was a single mum to 2 under 5 with a big job, a very long commute and a house to maintain, plus a divorce to administrate for a time. No nearby family and the DD’s were too young for me to have made really good school gate friends that would be able to help in an emergency yet. It was hell. I would shake with exhaustion and stress sometimes.
so I absolutely do get it.
The only things that helped me were:

batch cooking and having a rigorous meal plan (same every week-boring but easy and linked to my online shopping list for ease).

limiting cleaning to an hour and a half on a Saturday morning -and getting up early before the DD’s to do it. I allowed myself one lie in a week on a Sunday and even then only til about 9am. Sundays were for doing nice things with the kids in the day and batch cooking in the evening.

Having a reliable childminder that didn’t go bonkers if I was 15 mins late back or had to drop off early for any reason.

using my commute time to either make phone calls (hands free), so for example ring elderly parents or friends that I hadn’t caught up with etc. I found that hard to do as that hour and a half drive was the only peace and quiet I had all day and I begrudged giving it up but it did help me maintain relationships and feel less bad about not being in touch with people.

spending ten minutes packing bags and laying out clothes for everyone the night before. Having a sort of work capsule wardrobe so I wore the same things on rotation but in different combinations-again dull, but meant I didn’t haven’t to give it too much headspace.

Going to bed early and spending half an hour checking personal emails/doing life admin bits on phone. Only after that was done would I allow myself time to doom scroll, or read, or watch telly.

none of this was fun. I basically lived on a large vat of vegetable soup that I would make on a Sunday and freeze into portions to have for dinner all week (as it was cheap, easy and nutritious-I didn’t even have the bandwidth at the time to think about making a different bloody soup for a change-just couldn’t think straight enough!)

things do get easier OP as the kids get older. You can plan reciprocal play dates for one, to carve out a bit of time for yourself.

My last bit of advice is don’t waste time on feeling guilty. You are doing the best you can with the circumstances you have. If you miss things or drop the ball sometimes then it’s understandable and you just move on, don’t waste time overthinking it.

How old are your children? How many do you have?

If you work 10-6 I’m assuming 5 days a week how far does it take you to get into work roughly, if you are up at 4am sometimes what do you do in them first 6 hours of day? Just wondering if you could utilise your mornings better (commute and children dependant)

What do your weekends look like? You mentioned elderly parents - do you care for them? Do you visit them every weekend? Can you take a step back at all?

It sounds like you are very busy but I’d say more burnt out.

Also “I have support but I find it easier to do it myself sometimes” what is the support you get?

@ChillBarrog and @Waitaminutewheresmejumper jumping in to prove the OP's point!

Yes a lot of us are busy.

You can’t stop everything as it’s life and maybe yours is in hectic stage. But you can reduce certain things to make life a bit easier.

Dont be drawn into social media/ family photo drama. Turn group to silent, say your taking a break but will look occasionally.

Declutter. If you have less stuff, clothing, shoes, kitchen etc then it’s less to move, easier to clean. And you can then get cleaner every 2 weeks for deep clean of bathrooms and kitchen and floors.

Simplify meals. Make weekday meals fixed type so it’s less thinking ie Mondays pasta, Tuesday omelette and salad, Wednesday curry and rice, Thursday grilled meat/ fish, with chips and salad, Friday pizza. Less thinking.

You 100% can get someone else to help with school run. Or use school breakfast club twice a week to allow early start.

Kids are presumably school age, so also old enough to help according to age at home

You can't change them, you can only ignore them. Put your phone on silent at night. Better yet, leave the social media platforms; it's such a time-suck.

Don't "debate" dinner, just do a meal plan and stick to it. Get a bit stricter with the kids - lights out at 8 on the dot and no reading etc after that. Make them tidy the clutter. If someone else needs to the school run, don't worry - they'll get over it. It will do them no harm to learn that you're a person too.

If you’re that busy, how come you’re on here?
Oh those words sound so familiar...that's exactly the judgement I used to get from those who don't get it!

People who operate on adrenalin, who stack 10 tasks in 1 hour when others only manage a couple, have even more of a need to shut down and relax. This is the only way they can recover.

It would be like someone running a marathon in 4 hours and needing to rest for 4 hours to recover being asked why they need 4 hours to relax when they've just run only 10k in the same time and say they only need 3 hours to recover!

And to add, when tou point out you ran 4 times further than them, they state 'well why are running a marathon ', except that your life is a marathon and if you only ran 10k, you'd fail the people you are responsible for.

I get you. Same here. It got marginally better when I realised I was missing things and dropping balls partly because I was so busy but also because of chronic stress (due to having to juggle so many responsibilities) which was giving me brain fog. Mindfully decide to change your life. What can you drop (appreciate this might not be much but we often carry obligations to do things that aren't strictly necessary like buying Christmas presents for DH's family that he could and should do)? What can you delegate (can kids help with some jobs)? Can DH do more? Just recognising you are suffering with stress and guilt (assuming you are dealing with this) will on its own likely help you feel a bit better. Give up the guilt, don't carry it around with you. Recognise you are doing the best you can in challenging circumstances. When your mental state improves you will be able to find some efficiencies that make life easier, even if they are minimal.

10 til 6 full time plus single parent does sound tough especially as your job sounds busy and tiring. Do you have the kids in extra curricular activities? Are you sure you can’t afford a cleaner? I find that gives me so much value. I’d rather have a cleaner than a lot of other things.
Do you kids go to their Dads?

It will get better!

this.

what support and why is it easier to do it yourself?

or maybe it's because we are, or have been there, than we know that the only solution is to be organised and on top of everything.

You CANNOT miss a school email, because you physically cannot deal with a change of plans last minute, you physically cannot run to shops or order too last minute whatever was requested. If you want to be involved with the children, you need to plan your schedule around that day, and so on.

being disorganised and "busy" is a luxury. When you are REALLY busy, you just get on with it.

If your evening starts at 9pm or 10pm, you still have more than enough time to sit down 20 mn and go through emails and life admin. Even including birthday parties, kids christmas, holidays, kids clothes, kids uniforms, food shop, I don't believe it takes much longer than 15mn a night when you do it strictly.

the point is that stressing yourself out that you are "too busy" and faffing around, instead of keeping on top of things is only going to bring you stress, waste a hell of a lot more time and is not helping at all. How do you think people who work 10 hours a day, commute 2 to 3 hours on top, and manage kids and life somehow are still able to study for example, and exercise? They're just organised, they don't sleep less.

It's exactly the same as being tidy. When you are insanely busy, you have no choice but to be rigidly tidy. You don't have the luxury to lose your keys, your phone, waste 25mn to find the kids school jumper and 30mn to find their PE kit.

I am sure it would be nice to come home, dump everything, sit on the sofa with a cup of tea and chill for 30mn while scrolling at your phone before starting the evening. Doesn't happen in real life.

I agree she’s allowed to be busy, but I prefer her to sympathise with me when I need support, not give examples she thinks are comparable from her own life if I rarely show I am struggling. Her examples are not remotely comparable but I find her instant response of giving them turns things competitive rather than supportive. I don’t think it’s hard, for example, to sit and draw for an hour in silence in an entirely optional still life class. She is early sixties and perfectly healthy. I’ve learnt we just communicate differently, but my point still stands, because if she genuinely found the art classes stressful she could just give them up. I, on the other hand, can’t give up my demanding job or caring for my children (!)

I don’t think OP is saying that she’s sitting around faffing though? And how do I think ppl who work 10 hours days manage to parent, study and also exercise? At a guess I’d say some of them have more help from partners and family than OP does?
I’ve managed to keep my home rigidly tidy, exercise, works 10 hours/day etc etc. I can’t afford to drop a ball, or get sick. I’m pretty much the most organised person you could meet. the thing I’ve cut out is relaxing and social life. It’s pretty mentally exhausting. the exhaustion isn’t made better by others telling you that you need to get more organised. 🙄

sorry, I wasn't trying to say the OP was faffing, just that it would be nice to be able to faff - but working parents just can't.

I’m pretty much the most organised person you could meet. that was completely my point.

the exhaustion isn’t made better by others telling you that you need to get more organised.
well what do you suggest? Saying oh poor you, having early evenings to yourself from 9pm, you ARE insanely busy, you should have a burnout?

If she's being insensitive then you do have my sympathy.