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.

OP: it's ok to not be "perfect". You can take shortcuts, as pp have said, with meals and household tasks, and you'll find a way to manage demands.
I think going down to 3 days sounds like a good solution, and then you've got 4 clear days.
Try to make time for neighbours, if you can, it really helps to build a community.

😂😂😂

Not RTFT but i’m in my mid-50s and my mum was in paid employment, as were my friends’ mothers, as indeed were my grandmothers. Working class women have worked outside the home for millennia. It’s not new.

When women went to work in greater numbers (as we know, we have always worked), community is one of the 'domestic' things men failed to step up in. 'The village' was something women women facilitated so often course it's fallen by the wayside. In the 80s when I was growing up we lived on a naval estate so we were all there due to our dads jobs but it was 100% the women facilitating all of the domestic side of things whether they worked or not.

Same here, my mother always worked too. She even did evening work as an adult education teacher as well as school teaching in the daytime. That was back in the 70s and 80s! I remember my best friend's Mum (neighbour across the road) also worked. I think you have to go back a further generation to where Mum's didn't work, i.e. the post war years when the men returning from war were prioritised for jobs and women were encouraged to step back.

We used to go to theme parks in the 80's and half the kids in the overpacked car, would be made to climb through the bit behind the middle rest thing you used to get in the middle of the back car seat (arm rest thing but we used to use it as a booster seat), into the boot until the parents had paid at the drive through gate and stay there until they parked up.

It isn’t the parents working that has changed, it’s expectations of parenting.

In the past, smacking for compliance was commonplace and independence started years before it does now.

FWIW, I don’t think that’s ‘right’ but it did mean that the pressure wasn’t on parents, especially mothers.

Remember that for a lot of women it wasn’t a ‘career break’ though, as most women didn’t get to HAVE careers. They had jobs, sure, but actual careers were much rarer. Going from a low level job, to a few years off being a mum, to back into a low level job, is easier than trying to get back into a professional career where things have moved on. I’m thinking about the kind of work women in my (working class) family did: cleaning, retail, piece work, that sort of thing. My kind of work (lawyer) was utterly unavailable to them.

My mother worked and had a few different jobs over my education years but they were always hours that allowed her to drop and collect us from school. I feel like those hours in jobs are few and far between now and it's difficult to get the balance right. It makes me quite frustrated that this is life now.

I remember playing in the playground at school with the gates open waiting for parents to collect you with limited supervision. That is not allowed now.

I think we romanticise how easy it was

Your mum may have stayed at home but I don't think that was the norm. Mine was at home as far as I was concerned but she got up at 4am to clean, worked in chipper at nights and a shop on Saturdays.

A generation further back they were up threading hundreds of hooks onto lines for the fishing, then gutting the catch etc. It was a bloody hard life.
Others worked in the flax mill which employed just as many women as men.

I think there's a very short period for a very limited class of people where one wage was enough for a comfortable life.

Women fought for equal rights but in many cases have just doubled their workload. If you break it down it is men that have benefitted.

Childcare was definitely no easier for many of the previous generation. Most women, including myself worked. I had young children in the mid 1980’s-90’s and no family nearby to help. There was very little in the way of nursery places and no before/after school clubs. Most relied on childminders. Nobody I knew had a cleaner, so housework had to be done on days off. We made our own ‘village’ by sharing childcare with other women. So on my days off (I worked in NHS,so worked shifts , including nights) , I might be looking after someone else’s child/children as well as my own, which to be honest was often easier as they would entertain each other. Those who were teachers would help out in school holidays. Contrary to popular belief among some of the younger generation, fathers did a lot of childcare too. However, it was easier to afford a decent sized house.

Yes that's a good point actually, my mum was only "allowed" to train in jobs "suitable for women" like typing whereas we got our free pick of career

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

When was this? I am in my 50s & my mum is in her 80s. My mum always worked - admittedly she was more unusual in having a full time profession rather than a part time 'job' but not a complete outlier. Women have pretty much always worked - apart from a small privileged number. When do you think they didn't?

My mum did work but she would still agree with you. My kids are 21 and 23 and I was a SAHM for a while and then worked 16 hours...which wasn't considered strange at that time although I was in a middle-class area.

I would be very careful you don't make your chronic condition worse. I'm autistic with autistic children so have never had much energy and I've had to put a lot of energy into helping my children. Now I have cfs and currently having PEM (post exertion malaise) to some degree, every afternoon, sometimes all day. I don't mean to make you feel worse but consider how things would be if you couldn't work at all. I know it's hard to make changes unless you're forced to but I would recommend trying. This society is making women ill but no-one understands until it happens to them.

That's really interesting thank you for sharing

My mum is in her late 60s and her and most of my aunts, and in laws, didn't work until kids were in secondary

Not strictly true. My mother was a teacher. I started working in the early 80s in an accountancy practice and we had a couple of qualified chartered accountants working there who were women with families. I was a special constable at the same time and our police station had a couple of female sergeants and a female inspector. I don't deny that there were less women in professional/career roles than today, but you can't say there were none. It was just harder.

This is something I'm very aware of but am not sure what to do about it . I'm.scared of taking lots of time off sick for it but I think I need to look into how people manage chronic illness with work and figure out a plan, because it's the main squeeze at the moment and that would be the case even if I was totally single with zero commitments

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.

don't know what generation you come from but my mum and all my friend's mums worked. (I'm gen X)

We're all pretty much solidly middle to upper middle class.
However, i know from friends i have now who come from working class backgrounds that most of their mothers worked too, and from my mum's generation with working class roots all their mothers worked too.

There was a brief period where a lot more women could be the stay at home parent and live on one working parent's wage. But it was brief and it is over. Except for the wealthy/rich and people who can't get work or can't work for some reason.

The REAL revolution has been in getting men to step up.

I don't think that's the full picture. The big thing is that both partners working has increased housing costs, which has meant that both partners now NEED to work to afford to buy/rent a house (unless on benefits). So the rich people are the ones who've benefitted, i.e. those with houses or land who've sold at many times higher prices than they bought for. That's basically the older generation who were lucky enough to already own a house (or eligible for huge discount for buying their council house), and the financiers funding housing developments etc.

I'm not actually sure that men have benefitted that much. Most still go to work, as they used to do, and many continue to have little involvement with the drudgery of the house and children, like they never used to too! I don't really think that the life of the average man has changed much at all really. I don't doubt that women have it harder because of juggling childcare with a career (rather than a job), but I don't see that men have benefitted from that change at all really. In fact, I think men are more likely to be more involved with their children these days and maybe more involved with the house work too, as there's societal pressure on them to help out the "working" woman.

I think you're rare and not the norm, or certainly in my world. I work full time and know one other mother who does, and in my childhood I didnt know one full time working mum

I think you're rare and not the norm, or certainly in my world. I work full time and know one other mother who does, and in my childhood I didnt know one full time working mum

Good point. But... the village could have adapted as the years went on naturally.