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.

Same- in the 70s and 80s both my parents worked and so did both the parents of all my friends at school, so I am unsure why you would think parents back then were able to SAH as they pleased.

I don’t handle stress very well and find it hard to juggle so I only worked part time when I had DS . It is because mortgages/ rent take so much of peoples income I think . That is the problem.
personally I would rather take a back seat for a few years than work full time and be able to afford the luxuries like holidays abroad etc anyway but at the moment the way things are families struggle just to pay the cost of basics.

Of course we have. But we're both out going to work in the morning, back at tea time and doing dinner bath bed. We are perfectly polite with each other but our kids haven't had hours playing at each others houses etc as they are in other childcare.

The other thing you see, especially this time of year, is people only wanting to “focus on their little family”. Sod single childless aunt Mary who is alone on Christmas. We’ll see her another day. We just want a nice small Christmas! Then 6 months later, why won’t aunt Mary look after our kids??? She’s not doing anything else!!

I think this works as much the other way as well, that childless aunt Mary expects everyone to run round after her, and never offers anything back in return. Which is the other side of the "village" argument - that grandparents/older relatives who are healthy and able to do so, don't help out.
My parents have babysat precisely once which was an emergency (DH got rushed to hospital) and my DC are now adults.

Also, nowadays maternity leaves are longer (quite rightly). I only got 6 weeks on full pay, then took another 6 weeks. There was no adjustment at work, or right to reduce hours.
Fortunately, some things have changed for the better.

Right. So maybe make an effort at the weekend, during holidays?

My parents didn’t have a village, we don’t have a village. My mum worked. I worked. I actually think it’s a lot better than it used to be because you have online shopping, schools have better wrap around care and Dads are more involved.

My mum (late 60s) and I (late 30s) had an argument about this last night as she thinks I’m prioritising working over raising my child. I think I’m prioritising a roof over her head, money for activities, and a nice life for DC, plus I enjoy my career, I’m good at it and I want to progress.

She didn’t work until we were in late primary school and then only term time. It’s just not something I’d be able to do unless I moved areas (far away from them) for cheaper housing and changed jobs to a much lower paying one which I’m not willing to do.

Good points.

I'm 75, my late DM always worked,as a clear when I was little, I went with her. There's was a lovely lady living above the chemist, reminds me of Miss Haversham looking back, she was so kind to me.. she had multiple cleaning jobs. Then worked for American Express, and had a pub job as well when they both a house
Only child,2 up 2 down. My late DFS mum born in 1900 also worked and her mum. I worked ft nursing with 4 did, but I either Twilight or nights,so didn't pay for childcare. Became a GM at 42, and looked after eldest DD and eldest DD children as well on my nights off.

Women in general I think wanted it all job careers family and have realized that means doing it all generally as most men don’t pick up the unseen stuff that still needs doing

My mum didn’t work till us kids were in our teens but as kids we were often in and out of friends and neighbours houses and no
one ever said anything it was usual to have a few kids going from house to house to hang out ( unofficial child care ) I’m talking early 80s

i am still in touch with my late parents neighbor who was like my aunty growing up and I always pop in and see her and say hello once a month and get her Christmas and birthday presents I spent many a day in her house with her kids as a child
it was the norm where I grew up

There was also a lot more state help back then
when I was a single parent so it was a lot easier for me as my parents / family neighbours were all close by and so I got massive amounts of free child care and help as we all lived close
you didn’t have to go back to work till your kids were 18 /20 if in college and you were able to do college course / get tax credits to help you work

All of this is gone now you have to work once kids are 3 if your on benefits so young kids have to go to nursery or have wrap around care at a young age so more cost

It’s not as hard in practice as it is on paper although you will be busy. The big difference between now and 50/70 years ago is the time it takes to complete tasks and the availability of convenience. We aren’t tethered to 9-5 shopping patterns, we have delay timers on the washing machine and tumble dryers in our homes, there are nurseries offering 7.30-6pm childcare 51 weeks a year…..

Youll find your rhythm and it will only be the days where someone is poorly or the nursery shuts for snow or whatever that really cause a major problem.
we were both back full time when DD was 9 months old, she’s 11yo now and we found nursery was easier to manage than the first few years of primary school, and age 9 up has been getting steadily easier as she gets more independent and needs less childcare.

The first few years of primary school were a bitch though, uniforms needed to be ready and look decent, wraparound care was hard to source, loads of holidays to cover and lots of holiday clubs won’t take reception age children, the good clubs are expensive, the cheaper clubs were boring and took a lot of cajoling to get DD to participate. Trying to cover 13 weeks holiday with less than 10 weeks annual leave meant never being on holiday at the same time as DH or having to have more clubs.

Some practical tips from me:

• over buy cheap clothes for nursery and set yourself up at the weekend so you have every days worth of clothes ready to just put them into when they wake up
• develop a clear morning routine that works and stick to it. We would get up, downstairs, eat breakfast, washed, dressed, then DD would have 30 minutes to play/watch tv while I sorted out bags and tidied the kitchen, then shoes, coat and leave. Having a known routine meant she knew what to expect and didn’t get discombobulated.
• If you have to do packed lunches, develop a structure and prep for it. As I was unpacking the shopping I’d pot up fruit and veg into individual portions, break up the yoghurt pots, cube up some cheese into pots and fill the snack box with bags of crisps/mini cookie packs. Then in the morning I just grabbed a veg pot, a fr
• uit pot, a yoghurt, a cheese pot, a bag of crisps or cookies and put them in her lunch box. Dd never liked sandwiches so would usually have a plain croissant or buttered bagel as her carb. Took less than 5 minutes to make and no stress of having to decide or negotiate the contents.
• Fill the washing machine to come on overnight so it’s done by the time you get up, then transfer to the line in the morning. During the winter I set the washing machine to be done for when I finish work so I can put the tumble dryer on while we’re having dinner.
• You can still cook homemade food whole ingredients just pick quick easy recipes. When unpacking the shopping I bag up meat with marinades or rubs and freeze or refrigerate based on dates. I buy pre-prepped veg like trimmed greenbeans or tenderstem brocolli. Then when I finish work put the oven on to pre-heat, pour meat out onto 1 tray, put veg on another with a drizzle of olive oil and seasoning, put in oven for 30 minutes and serve. Or use the slow cooker to make chilli/casserole. Bag up all the ingredients together in a large ziplock bag while you’re unpacking the shopping and leave it in the fridge/freezer, then in the morning just empty it into the slow cooker, set to low and it will be done when you get home. Serve with a loaf of fresh buttered bread or microwave rice.
• Develop the habit of not stopping a job till it’s finished and using your spare minutes. So if you are folding clothes from the dryer, don’t put them in a stack to deal with later just take them straight upstairs and put them away. If you’re waiting for the kettle to boil, use that 2 minutes to sweep the kitchen floor.

And the absolute most important tip of all, is that there are 2 adults in your house, your DH should be doing half of the above and all the other housework/running around getting people where they need to be. If you are both working then you need to be equal partners in the house too.

Yes this is what most of my family did but now a 12 year career break is unheard of and I'd imagine it being really hard to get back into working after that

This is surprising to me tbh.

As others say – my mum worked FT, at least from when my younger brother was about 6yo. And this was in the 1970s. I am not a lot younger than your mum @Angels1111 and I have always worked FT (three DC).

Anyway - to answer your question – yes it is hard, yes a lot of your life is subsumed to the DC. Mine are all adults now and while they still need me in various ways and for various reasons specific to them (disability/ND) I have been able in recent-ish years to take on a job that involves me in a standar 9-5.30 day working a commute away. When they were teens even I was still very much on call for after school music lessons/athletics practice etc, so I still had to tailor my work to some extent round that.

I think your illness must make it much more difficult for you.

Yes, I agree with this. Let's not make out childless aunt Mary to be a saint who is surrounded by an evil, uncaring family. Its rarely as black and white as this.

In my family, "aunt Mary" was a judgey old cow who used to criticise us from morning until night and nothing was ever good enough for her. She would make nasty comments about people's weight, spread gossip, be generally a bit of a dick and then wonder why no-one particularly wanted to spend time with her.

When I see posts like this I often wonder what the adult child would report about the grandparents. For example, do those list of "do nots" include not smacking etc. I know my MIL would smack my two if she had the chance. Thankfully most of the country has moved on.

Fully agree - same for my grandma. She also worked part time but hadn’t been able to go to university - she did lots of learning from home / classes later in life. My mum worked part time and later when we were at secondary she was full time. Lots of mums I knew worked in my mothers generation, as well as plenty who didn’t have paid work out of the home.

OP another thing is lots of people tend to live further from their families now too. My parents had moved away from family for work so we didn’t have many relatives around for all this “dropping in”. Lots of mutual helping with friends down the road though - we were v lucky and my mum made close friends.

We don’t live near any family at all because of moving away for uni and subsequently for work.

I can see the problems you flag BUT I would not want to “go back” - I want the opportunity to study, work, earn money, develop myself. My DH is part time to support the family logistics. It was not “better” when women had no choice.

I know what you mean OP and I was talking about it with my 81 year old MIL this Christmas. She was a Wren before getting married and having DH and his brother, and never went back to work - although did do a fair amount of volunteering in the community up until recently. They live nearly 4 hours drive away from us, whereas when DH was born my MIL had her mum and her MIL a couple of streets away. None of the mums worked and all met up at each other’s houses or in the church hall for the kids to play. She said she looks back fondly on DH and his brother being small and it being a lovely time. I said I feel like I’ve got multiple full time jobs and I’m not doing any of them to 100% which makes me feel burnt out, constantly guilty and resentful.

I’m the main earner, but DH’s pension is far better than mine so it didn’t make financial sense for either of us to reduce hours or give up work while DD (3.5 now) was/is small - so we pay a fortune in childcare because we have no family help nearby. DH leaves for work at 6am, I take DD to nursery for 8, we are all home by 6, sometimes I still have work to do so by the time that’s all done and DD is in bed, DH and I are eating dinner at 9pm ish which is horrible. DH does more than half the cooking/cleaning etc but we are always behind, the house is always a tip, because there just aren’t enough hours in the day and I feel awful saying to DD on a weekend “sorry miniMouse I can’t play with you right now because I need to clean the bathroom” etc - meaning it’s done when she’s in bed, which comes at the expense of time as a couple. I feel pulled in different directions constantly and I hate it.

My mum also gave up work when I was born, and didn’t go back until I was in my teens (a few mornings a week cleaning, so she was still always at home as far as I was concerned)

I get your sentiment. I tend to be in awe of those parents who both work full time. We decided for DH to stay home with the kids, he works 2 nights per week and we have childcare on those days (when he's asleep), but he's around to do every pick up and drop off.

To do that though we've had to accept, it's not a drop in living standards as we're doing fine, but not as good as it could be level of living, but I do that in a heartbeat to stop the insane rush of both of us working full time.

But I'm also lucky that I WFH 4 days a week so am around to cook dinner as soon as I finish work, but again that was a choice. I chose a career with options like this.

For what's its worth, my mum worked full time. I was a latch key kid from 7 or 8 and I was always jealous of my friends whose mum was home when they got home. I don't want that for my kids.

Then I guess everyone just needs to accept that there is no village anymore. I’m not saying your situation isn’t unfortunate, but everyone seems to have a reason why THEY want the village and will contribute to it but everyone else around them is wrong and are to blame for not being the village. So if that’s the case, then there’s no solution is there. Everyone just needs to accept the village doesn’t exist anymore.

d love to know when this mythical time was! My mum is in her 70s and worked full time with 3 children. I'm in my 50s and work full time and always

More mothers work full time now than the past & more go back to work when the dc are younger.

We haven't ever had anybody babysit; I haven't put on to anybody, and my dcs are school aged now. Maybe we could have done with a GP baby sitting at least once, but nope. I don't believe in putting on to them, while I see others taking the absolute biscuit. Please do not tar all with the same brush; it is dh, and I that have had to run about after them. Dm I couldn't even turn to after giving birth for advice.

I'm a single mum, work full time and do all the domestic stuff plus lawn mowing, window cleaning etc as well. Supporting ds too. It's really not that hard, given I only have one dc.

I have a car, dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, freezer, automated heating, shower etc to help me. My dm had 6 dcs and no washing machine, no freezer. A teenage dishwasher who grumbled a lot. She had to bring in solid fuel, she walked 1 mile into town to buy food and then home on the bus. Nothing in her life was fast. My life is an absolute doddle compared to hers (although our standards of cleanliness are much higher). 🤗

There was an interesting article about this in The Atlantic magazine. The writer was a mum of two who had joined a kind of group babysitting set-up where each parent(s) took turns in looking after everyone else’s kids for an evening. The rule was that everyone had to accept the other parents way of doing things. For example, the writer didn’t have a TV and strictly monitored screen time in her house but she had to accept that her kids would watch TV and have more screen access in other houses. On the flip side, she didn’t cook much so all the kids had pasta/shop bought food when they with her whilst other parents who cooked from scratch and never gave their kids ready meals had to agree they wouldn’t comment on her (or any other parents) food choices.

I recall the writing saying that if we want a village to raise our kids, we have to accept the help from people in the village on their terms (obviously excluding dangerous or harmful villagers!) but most parents today are not willing to do this.

Exactly

My mum worked full time from when I was 12 weeks old (minimal mat leave) and I'm almost 60. She and my dad had both moved away from their families to live in London so no village around us. They worked opposite shifts until they organised childcare. I was a latchkey child from 7, walking home from school and letting myself in to wait for my mum getting back from her late shift.

I worked part time when my own kids were young but fulltime from the youngest being in school and they're all in their 20s. Neither of my parents was available for childcare as both worked until they died; my PiL were both dead; no siblings. We built our own village with friends.