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.

You're not wrong. I was an SAHM till my youngest was several years into primary school and it was absolutely brilliant. Yes I have a less shiny career & a smaller house but I have zero regrets. Also its interesting having moved from the south east to a very affordable part of the north - here most mothers are part time when the kids are in primary school, because they can afford to be.

I looked after my GC 2 days a week from 18 months when mum became single parent and they've only recently stopped staying over at 16 - it worked well for all of us. She knew they were loved and cared for - I potty trained, taught them not to run away (using dreadful reins as an aid), read to them and played with them. She has a demanding job and knew they was safe with me and relied on me to bring them up the same way I did her. I was delighted to do it.

Oh, that's really interesting. Maybe we need to move 🤣
Do you think the kids /community feels any different for it?

I grew up in the 80s and the majority of Mums in our fairly middle class village were SAHMs. I suppose it was just the 'done thing'. My own DM gave up work when she fell pregnant with me at 25, and only returned to very part-time work when my younger sibling started Secondary school, almost 20 years later. And then retired at 60! My parents have never been wealthy but are very careful with money.

Even at my DCs school now, the majority of families seem to have one part time worker to do the school run, and if not, grandparents are close at hand to help out. In a school of just under 200, there are only 10 kids regularly in the after school club. The local childminder always has 5 or 6 children with her too.

I would love to be a SAHM again. Those few years were the best of my life. I work p/t now but would give it up in an instant if I could. One of my friends is a SAHM to primary aged kids and looks far less stressed and about ten years younger than me!

That is exactly the set-up I had with my mum. I figured that she had raised me and my sister ok so that was good enough for me. The small stuff was massively outweighed by the fact she was doing it out of love, not because she was getting paid to do it.
CMs and nurseries may enable you to micromanage your child's care to a degree but at the end of a day, it's a job.

I think there are rose coloured glasses here, and remembering from a child’s perspective, not an adults.

Several decades ago, when I was a child it was rare for any married woman to work let alone a woman with children. Looking back through an adult lens, that left a lot of woman in a dark place once their kids had gone to school. My mum had housework done by 10/11am, went grocery shopping once a week which filled in to lunchtime, and apart from that ………. That left the majority of the day to do nothing but watch soaps on tv while chain smoking until we got home from school. Dinners were simple affairs of meat and 3 veg (boiled) so the most she had to do was peel some spuds, carrots and do the peas or beans. Kids all went and played independently outside until streetlights came on so not really much to look after with kids after school either, my mum brought the washing in and did the ironing in this time. She did her gardening on weekends as there were no soaps on tv on weekends, and of course a roast on Sunday’s🤣.

While my mum escaped unscathed from this, many women were on Valium, depressed (who wouldn’t be with that groundhog day), turned to the bottle to escape the boredom and I even recall a lovely neighbour committed suicide. If they had an abusive DH, that was tough, financially they couldn’t really leave either. Most were also trapped without a car as the DH would take it to work, not required for school as kids just walked no matter how far. It was definitely not a life I wanted and I made sure I had a career.

The generations before this (i.e. my grandparents) were ‘easier’ on women I believe as everything was harder and took more time so they didn’t have time to get bored and depressed. Their bread was not delivered to doorstep every morning like when I was young. If they wanted bread they had to make it. There was no washing machine like in my mum’s day, it was wash by hand in big concrete tubs or get one of those ‘swish/expensive’ wash barrels with rollers which still took a lot of time. A lot more manual cleaning, as no Hoovers etc. No tv. It all kept them occupied until preparing the night meal basically. While, mentally, I think this was a lot better than my mum’s generation, it still doesn’t appeal to me and I’d choose a career any day over it.

@HoppingPavlova I’d secretly love that. I wonder if I’m a closet tradwife. I’d love to think quietly all day while doing simple things!

Several decades ago, when I was a child it was rare for any married woman to work let alone a woman with children.

But when was this “several decades ago”? That’s what no one on here can agree on. It seems to vary wildly by location and class/finances not by year. It may have been common in your area/class for women not to work but possibly not for others.
My mother would have been 80 this year. So 45 years ago when she had me she worked. Admittedly she had a few years off until I was 3 I’m not denying that. But she worked up until her “maternity leave” started (not when she got married) and went back to work about 3 years later. This was late 70s to early 8s. We were quite a poor household growing up. Not skint, but couldn’t afford a car until I was older etc.

My mother and my grandmother worked outside the home. All the women in my family have done so. Finances required it.

I think there are rose coloured glasses here, and remembering from a child’s perspective, not an adults.

I agree with this part

Several decades ago, when I was a child it was rare for any married woman to work let alone a woman with children

Like @Smoosha asked, I too would like to know what period you are referring to.
The OP's Mum is a similar age to me (OP's Mum being a few years older, like my siblings are). I suspect those of us that were adults at the time probably have a clearer picture of the world then than those who were looking at the World through the eyes of a child.

My Mum and Dad were born end of 20s / early 30s.
My Mum always WOTH - more patchy when we were babies as the childcare set up wasn't in existence like it is today - but what today's workforce would call 'bank' or 'supply' or 'agency' work. My Mum wasn't an outlier. I've been to funerals of quite a few of my parents friends over the last 6 or 7 years,, and heard of all sorts of jobs they did and so it wasn't just my Mum's profession either.
I started work in the 80s, and have worked all my life until I retired recently.
Obviously, there is an element of "if you are out at work, you'll see others who are out at work and if you are at home, you'll encounter other Mums at baby at toddler groups" so all of us are bound to see.

But I'm not sure when this 'several decades ago' was.

@RecordBreakers

Agree. I mean it was several decades ago that we had a female Prime Minister who was married with children!

I wonder if it's the case that while women worked, often they worked part time/shorter hours, and didn't have the demanding careers women have now?

I'm a solicitor and DH is in a similar demanding career that spills over 9-5 and the current setup does feel impossible. If there was one spouse with a big career and one spouse taking a back seat doing temp work and part time around the family, it would be more doable maybe.

My Mum is late 80s and this is what I remember.

She did work but it was low paid and very part time. I suspect she could have got away without working. Majority of Mums I knew were in same boat.

There’s no right or wrong. Some women had to work. Others didn’t. I think the complexity and demands of jobs today are much much higher.

Agreed

My mother worked, my grandmother worked.

I've done my family tree and for as far back as it goes the women worked.

The fashion of most married women being housewives really only occupied a relative short period in time and wasn't a luxury afforded to poorer families like my predecessors.

My mother only worked part time as she was dismissed from her civil service job when she became pregnant.

Grandmother and all those who came before had full time jobs.

Who looked after their children?

The older children. The next door neighbours children. Whoever was around. Or they went out to play.

very different times!!

@RecordBreakers @Smoosha The 60’s is the period I am referring to for my parents. The 20’s would be the period I am referring to for my grandparents, and keep in mind back then many women had children where there were 20 odd years between youngest and eldest given certain religions, no contraception etc.

I've had recently conversations with the EDI lead at work, and she's incredibly frustrated that people don't understand that this exact sort of thing is a critical part of her role.

She needs to a) make sure the organisation can employ the best staff by understanding the needs and demands of those staff and b) make sure the organisation can represent and serve our community (a charity) by meeting their diverse needs.

The charity employs an unusually large number of older staff and will face a cliff-edge of retirees in 5-10 years, but many of the older staff have a big resistance to anything to improve the lot of working mothers. I faced prejudiced comments when I started the job pregnant (with my manager's knowledge), and turned the role around in 5m before I went on mat leave.

There's very little point in discussing what women had before except to illustrate why changes were positive. But too often the attitude is, "we had it harder, so you should be happy with what you've got".

There's very little point in discussing what women had before except to illustrate why changes were positive. But too often the attitude is, "we had it harder, so you should be happy with what you've got".

It's not so much that for me anyway, it's the constant rhetoric that no one has ever had things as difficult as today's working parents, who seem to be utterly convinced that everyone before them had an easy time of it.
Those of us who were working mothers in the 90s know this is utter rubbish and in fact, today's working parents have much, much more than we did - yet still they complain and want even more.
So it's not about being happy with what you've got, it's more a case of acknowledging what you've got and don't envy 'greedy boomers' because their working lives really, really were not better than yours.

I agree with this. (Although this attitude is there for many things not just working mothers. Just life in general). There was even a post on another thread earlier when someone said that some young people are choosing not to have kids and one reason was that maternity pay/leave was so bad so who could blame them! It’s never been better! I’m not arguing whether or not it could be better than it is now, but it’s ridiculous to think that it is so bad now that people would use it as a reason not to have children when they didn’t in previous generations when it was much much worse!

Completely agree with @Katypp and @Smoosha

As I've said previously, this stage of life is really hard work. Looking back I can't believe how little rest we got and what we managed to get through in a day or a week - I certainly don't have the energy to do it now. I have every sympathy with the opening post. I remember feeling that I'm not doing any of my roles as well as I somehow felt I 'ought' to be.
However, on threads like these, what people feel they need to correct is this notion that parents of babies or small children in 2025 (or 26 now) somehow are the first generation to live through this, and the notion that life is so much harder for everyone today than at any time in the past.
It isn't. Every generation has it's own struggles. The aim is that we all try and leave the world a little better than it was, but ultimately, we all have to live with the World that is around us at the time we are living.

I agree with this. I sometimes wonder where I got the energy from. But the point is we all did it - there was not a golden age when working and looking after children was easier. Having primary-age children or preschoolers and holding down a job always has been and always will be difficult and exhausting. I suppose I would just appreciate an acknowledgement amidst all the moaning that three months maternity leave, 6am start, no flexible working and no free childcare really was not that fantastic, but no one wants to hear it!

Oh right we were little women doing undemanding jobs for pin money but now women are all high powered executives/scientists/doctors doing demanding work. Thanks for putting us right.

Neighbours, schools, older women in family (grandmothers etc) and largely kids occupied themselves etc.