To be confused by the two working parent set up

[Angels1111]

As I return to work from my Christmas break I return to the same conundrum I've been having since kids were born...
...that is confusion at how to handle my multiple roles in life.

I can't help but think that in my mother's generation they had to do the same stuff as us, but with no work. And, there was more of a community to fall back on too - she could get the neighbours to watch us if needed, relatives had more time to visit and play with us, etc. But she had time, to keep herself healthy and to keep us healthy.

Now it feels like a lot of us work in careers which are not conducive to taking long career breaks or going part time. Or, we can't afford to. So we end up juggling everything that comes with having a family with work. My partner does lots but it feels like two people splitting three jobs between them (work, children, house) is more of a stretch and a juggle and I wish every day that I could just focus on the house and kids.

I feel resentful that if I hire a nanny or a baby sitter or get family to help, they'd just play with the kids, feed them lunch, and maybe wash up after lunch wheeras I'd be doing all of that plus the food shop, house cleaning, admin, cooking dinner, washing, homework etc etc simultaneously, and if I wanted to hire someone to truly replace my roles it would take 2-3 people just to do the home stuff let alone work.

But this could just be how I'm handling life! I have a chronic condition so potentially have less energy than the general population, I do handle it a lot better when I'm not flaring.

Omg that's a brilliant idea! Please do it!

Agree. My grandmother is in her early 80s and worked, as does my mother still. Don’t think it was that unusual so it’s hardly a new phenomenon. Yes there is a lot of extra life admin stuff to do, but can’t see how that has increased in recent years.

Maybe! But it seems to be most people, not just those in chronic pain. One poster on another thread listed emptying the dishwasher as a task/responsibility. That to me is a 5 minute job (if that) that wouldn’t even register as a separate item on the mental to do list at all. What’s next, ‘drawing the curtains’, ‘changing the cat’s water’, ‘brushing teeth’? I don’t understand this tendency to complicate things and make out the most basic tasks are a mental drain. (Leaving aside any physical or mental disabilities.)

Oh wow that's really interesting.

This is the narrative I've heard but looking at this threat women worked well before feminism!

In my mother's generation they had grandparents and aunts/uncles to help.
That was the case with my own mother and all her friends and colleagues. She had a 'big' job and so did my father. So they worked long hours and occasionally travelled for work.
People had children younger than today do grandparents were also younger and in better shape with more energy. Grandparents retired earlier as well.
In addition, as children, we got ourselves to and from school from an early age and could feed ourselves at home as everything was already prepared by my parents, even if sometimes we had to heat the food on our own.
Somehow it worked.
Personally, I didn't have any help from grandparents with our own children (different countries for one set and old age for the other set of grandparents). And I didn't leave the children on their own like I would have been at, say 10 or 11 years of age. There has been a lot of planning, favours and juggling throughout the entire childhood of my own children. Hard work!

Women worked but worked fewer hours. My mum's generation did not routinely work 10/11 hours a day whereas 9+ hours is the minimum in my professsion(law), not just for the lawyers, but all the support staff, some of whom are on terrible salaries.

Commute time is much much longer. Everyone in big cities spends a total of 2 (1 hour there, 1 back) hours a day commuting. My parents had a 30 minute and it was considered very long by their peers.

Plus the lack of a community and more expectations from parents. Yeah, it's shit.

And sure I should create my village. How? I work 50 hours a week. All my neighbours are renting, no one lives in one place more than 2-3 years around us. My friends live all over the city as everyone keeps moving because of housing costs.

I think its important to remember that the majority of women have always had to work, the idea of the housewife has been glammorised a lot, working class women were doing all the housework while also doing shifts at the factory etc.

Yeh I've never understood why it's a good thing for home owners if prices go up, unless you have a very definite plan to downsize or move to a cheaper area of the country it's of no actual benefit

Thanks yes I'm getting a reality check here! I think I've been fed the "you shot yourself in the foot with feminism" message so much that I lost perspective.

But surely you must have noticed when you were a child that you had women teachers? That there were woman working in shops, cleaning, nursing, hairdressing, to list just some of the visible roles?
Women have always worked. We have taught, nursed the sick, farmed, produced things, invented things, written things, made art and machinery, and contributed to every single area of human progress.
I get tired of hearing about a this mythical time when we all stayed at home enjoying a life of Riley while men made the world. Your envy of the lifestyle of a few women you know shouldn't lead you to write off the contribution of whole generation.

How are you confused, given the extensive range of popular history narratives available through our media? I mean to say, how can a superficial social history and culture of our present and recent generations be terra incognita!?

Ha, anyway. I wondered how old you are, and offer the example of my mother, would be 99 today. She was a teacher, and was working full time all through my growing up ( I was born in 1955). Her own Ma, born in 1896, ran a hotel with Grandad when my mother was a girl.
My Ma did absolutely everything herself, to my shame (even prototypical online shopping, whereby shed compile the weekly grocery list, phone it through to a very kind grocery store and they’d deliver!)

I have no idea how she managed at all, as there was certainly no support from family members such as grandparents, nor was such a thing ever expected. (I’d give anything to turn back time and be a more upstanding daughter and do my bit)

All the same, teaching was essential to her and staying at home would have withered her far more than over-exertion did.

Feminism let women keep the money they earn, keep their jobs if they get pregnant, earn as much as men for doing the same job, have the funds to leave abusive relationships and get into higher paying industries. Men have had no issues with women working throughout history but they don't like women being able to choose their partners, keep their money or potentially earn more than them. Thats why we get these silly 'Feminism has ruined womens lives' phrases.

Oh absolutely, I'm not saying ALL women stayed at home, just that more did, which contributed to being able to grow a village. My friend is a Head teacher and she says that she's noticed in the last 10 yrs far fewer parents can manage to come to school events, packed home cooked lunches etc as most are now 2 people working families.
I know a fair few parents who are SAHM the same age as me, having made the decision to forego their career, so it's not that unusual in my world. The difference is that they probably won't be able to go back into their careers at all, whereas before it seemed easier to pick work back up after a career break.

Yes that's a good point. I think I have definitely been fed a load of lies by people who want to push the SAHM route and have done little research to see if people really did SAH more previously! I am being re-educated...thank you

Not everyone your age grew up in naice MC village growing environments.

I'm not sure it was easier to pick work up after a career break. If it was then gen x and boomer women would experience less of a GPG and have better representation at senior levels. If anything there is greater protection for women of your generation. I remember at a job interview in the 90s being asked about my childcare arrangements and when I answered was asked 'Ah yes, but what if your child is ill?' I didn't get the job.

Although this is not the point of this thread, I don't know where this idea that previous generations of working women found it easier to pic up their careers when they returned to the workplace is coming from?
Despite the constant rhetoric that today's mothers are the most disadvantaged ever, working parents really have never had it as good as they have now.
Long maternity leave, better maternity pay, more rights on maternity leave, flexible working, term time working, more rights for part-timers, equal pay, paternity leave ...
Some of these are clearly non-negotiable (equal pay etc) but don't underestimate how things have improved in the last 20-30 years.

Despite the constant rhetoric that today's mothers are the most disadvantaged ever

There’s a constant rhetoric that EVERYONE today is more disadvantaged than everyone else who ever existed (or even exists now). I see it in almost all aspects of life these days. There’s so many people with a weird victim complex in so many things these days. Everyone wants to be seen as the most hard done by ever. Instead of just getting on with things or trying to improve things, everyone just complains that it’s not their fault and that everyone else has it and had it much easier.

What's feminism has given us more of a choice rather than just being expected to prioritise being at home. You can make your own decisions about how you live your life most of the time, barring things that are difficult/ impossible to change like health problems or being a single parent and therefore having to work. I don't understand this "I've been sold a lie by feminism ". If you'd rather prioritise raising your family then work out how you can live cheaper, quit work or reduce your hours and do it. There's probably more options than you think, eg. What you spend on cars / holidays etc.
You need to work out what your priorities are and own them rather than blame the rest of society or feminism. Women in my family have also mostly worked apart from a few years off when the children were tiny. It's not a new phenomenon. My mum told me she was told she couldn't do her professional exams once she got engaged as she was going to get married, pregnant and leave so it wasn't worth it. I for one am extremely grateful that I was born later and not forced into the traditional female box as I would have been utterly miserable. I work full time, my DH works 4 days per week and more than pulls his weight with the children and housework. Yes it's hard work but wouldn't have it any other way.

I don't think it is any different or harder for you than it was for me or my mum. We had kids, we and our DHs worked full time, no village to babysit or help out. My mum didn't have an automatic washing machine or a dishwasher - well, sibling and I were the dishwashers! As mums, we carried the same emotional and mental load as you do - appointments, running the home, everyone's social lives and wellbeing.
I think the difference is that we acknowledge how hard it is now in a way previous generations didn't.

I think we have to take some personal responsibility for our life choices, do we not? If we have chosen to have children, how much can we really whinge and moan about how our life is then negatively impacted bringing them up? I like a good moan from time to time hit this deep seated existential navel gazing…. It’s choices we’ve made!

I’m not talking about unexpected changes or developments- illness, disability, divorce, death, SEN etc.

I think this is partially true as part of the younger generation myself, and I think there's good and bad on both sides in my experience.

Because there is now a lot of official research and knowledge about child development, the necessity on relying on the older generation for knowledge has been severed. But many in the older generation ply the "did mine no harm" line - my MIL plies this about her adult sons regularly. Both are obese. Is it her fault? Maybe, maybe not, but you can't say that it did hers no harm with certainty.

A good example is naps - my toddler-owning friends are all driven batty by grandparents insisting that two yo don't nap. Many of them actively winding up 2yo to prove that they don't need to nap.

My village is my peers. Grandparents are part of the picture, but I usually find that they want everything their way without any notion of the idea that their advice is 30y old from an era of their life where they were chronically sleep deprived.

It was also much more time consuming to keep a house & feed a family in the 1970s . most house wives disnt have access to a car or a supermarket often. Grocery shopping was done several times a week. A twin tub washing machine still involved dragging wwt washing from one drum to the other. Most houses relied on open fires for heat, so there was the cleaning, setting & keeping the fire going.

I grew up in the 70s most women i knew worked in factories at night while their kids were in bed or has cash in hand jobs.

I've researched my family going back several generations, all the women worked even if it was helping on farms.

I'm sure well off women probably had an easier time but they were very much in the minority.

I knew I would find it difficult to do a paid job/career and have children and bring them up how I wanted to. For this reason, I gave up work when I became pregnant with my first. I am sure I could have had a reasonable salary and career by now if we had done things differently, but I don't understand people who are surprised that it is challenging to try to do both without becoming strained. Obviously, I recognise I am fortunate and that for most people in the world, it is their economic situation which dictates their choices.However, we have as a couple made a clear choice between career/financial comfort and the time and focus we can spend on our children with and family life with only one parent doing paid work. It seems quite straightforward.