help me get through the next 12 hours

[legalalienindulwich]

This is the first post I've done and can't believe I' posting it - although I constantly feel at the end of my tether, now I really think I may be there.

By way of background (which is doubtless boring and somewhat narcissistic (SP?), but bear with me as I suspect that half the battle will be me writing this down and getting it off my chest:

I've suffered from clinical depression since my mid teens. I grew up in a small town where social connections were very important, my parents came from overseas and didn't fit in, I was a fairly bright but not very confident child, and did what I had to to adapt to the circumstances. Which meant, as a result of my perfectionist tendencies, succumbing to anorexia/bulimia. I dropped out of university after my first year in order to sort this out, had a break down of sorts (sent to counselling, which was completely hopeless as I managed to convince the counsellor that it was all my parents' fault - which it really wasn;t) - and after a year off was strong enough to take myself back to university and earn myself a really good law degree. Except that, instead of relying on my ability to control food, I just drank a lot and exercised obsessively. All of which qualified me nicely to be a highly successful work hard/play hard lawyer for the following decade, in the course of which I had a successful career and ended up in London with an equally successful partner. The depression, naturally, never wore off - it comes in bouts, but I've always worked on the basis that knowing your enemy gets you a long way - and if you keep busy your mind gets diverted into other things. I told my husband and he listened but I don't think you can really understand unless you've been there.

Anyway, we decided to start a family. Obviously we both had careers, and we agreed that his would come first but subject to some important parameters - he'd stay home until the nanny arrived in the morning - so that I could start really early if necessary - and that he'd come home one night a week (so that I could have some semblance of a social life). Neither of which has happened, and I;ve ended up in a job that I wouldn't have chosen, through necessity. I'm in a bigger house - something I've always made clear is not important to me - and am 12.000 miles from either of our families. None of our friends have children/ We've just moved house and I know no-one nearby. DH has been working on a project in a different city for the last nine months, home only from after bedtime Friday until before sun up on Monday. In that period I've had to move house completely solo, as well as working full time and taking responsibility for all chores, household admin etc (Poor me )

So far I'm surviving and putting the best show that I can on for DS (aged 2.5), but although I've coped with a hell of a lot of stuff for almost 20 years, I'm worried that I'm near breaking point. So if you can, just say something supportive. Don't bother to suggest that I ring some kind of helpline / speak to my GP because frankly, I've been there, done that several times now, and it ain't going to make a difference. I WILL cope, just that right now, I need someone to say something that indicates to me that I'm not a complete loser.

OK - rant over, feel slightly better already, but any comments welcomed, at the risk of reducing me to tears

[Judy1234]

Yes, for some chores they're fun now because I don't usually do them. It's the Marie Antoinette school of housecraft and has much to recommend it but you can only practise it if you marry a rich man or you earn a lot of money yourself, sadly.

Even so we can exagerrate the differences too much. All parents whether male or female spend a lot of time loving and looking after their children. And even working mothers and fathers with long hours will be up in the night and also being with their children at weekends.

Yes, I might find it hard to understand why housewives enjoy their role but I also find it hard to understand why some people choose not to have children. In a sense the bigger divide is between being a parent and not. It's the biggest change in your life, having a baby. I am 22 years into parenthood, getting on for 23 years now. If the last 23 years had been without children what a hugely different life it would have been.

It's also interesting contrasting my siblings and me. My older children were almost grown up by the time they had their children in their late 30s. So they had this period of 15 - 20 years as an adult child free and I had none of that period at all. A different kind of early adulthood.

[MrsMarvel]

Rebelmum - Little box !!!!- don't patronise me. Perhaps reading the thread would help, rather than the theory of mass movements.

There's funny and there's not so funny.

Haven't you got a job to do?

[rebelmum1]

MrsMarvel I'm afraid your wasting your breath, I have been reading the theory of mass movements recently and it says that successful leadership qualities consist of unbounded confidence and a blatent disregard for others opinions. So leave the important people to run the world and get back into your little box. Haven't you got chores to do

[eleusis]

Did I sound flippant???? Oh no!

[legalalien]

MDC - if you go, I'll go (although I find the prospect of these things quite unnerving). And I am slightly concerned that I might find that I already know all the other attendees professionally. Oh well.

[MintyDixCharrington]

legalalien you sound SPLENDID. if you go to a city meetup (and you should, they sound excellent fun with lovely people like blu and dinosaur and marina and motherinferior and issymum etc etc) I'd like to come too.
I hope you DID leave the PC on - perhaps you were being v clever subconsciously, giving him the information to process without having to have Deep Chats about it (or perhaps you just left the computer on ). Anyway glad this has given you food for thought and DH is doing a bit more.

Eleusis comment about the housekeeper might have sounded flippant, but if you can afford it then do it. I can't tell you how liberating it is not to have changed a bed or ironed a shirt or hoovered since.... um..... 2002

[legalalien]

E - x posted. I laughed too.

[legalalien]

AARGH.

[resolutely stays out of debate]

[eleusis]

I personally laughed when I read "God knows why some women like this stuff but apparently they do. " I thought it was funny and completely agreed with not understanding it. I don't think it was meant as a criticism.

[MrsMarvel]

When I said try it I meant try staying at home and don't work. Not forever, just try it so you can judge for yourself.

Yes, you do rubbish SAHPs.

And no, I'm not being emotive about handing over your baby, it's the reality of it, whether husband to wife or husband / wife to carer.

Children need someone to default to, and there'e no harm in trying to see if you're the best one to do the job.

Remember though that I am NOT knocking working parents, as I'll be there soon too (youngest dd is 7 now), I just hope I'll be able to afford a cleaner too.

[Judy1234]

Good plan. I was talking to my sister at the weekend about some of these issues (except she's on her own so doesn't have an other half to argue with which she sees as a huge plus) as she was overwhelmed with domestic things. She had ironing. In 22 years of being am other I have not ironed. So perhaps it's partly a difference of standards. Also she does different types of washes. We just push everything in together and don't buy clothes that might run or need hand washing.

I suppose each family just decides what is essential for them to do but it's always worth standing back and thinking is it really important XYZ is done.

My 8 year olds now bath themselves or have a shower. It's amazing how independent children get in a few years so all that work/hassle just evaporates and presumably by the time we're grandparents we will hardly remember how it was.

[legalalien]

am staying out of this argument (although I'm not quite sure what the argument is, it sounds a bit like "I feel like X and doing things Y way works really well for me, I don't understand why A wants to do things B way but that's up to them" in both directions? With each of you saying "LA needs to be aware that my alternative works for me"? Plus a little "tone" added in (or implied in) - and given the nature of the medium (email) and the complexity of the English language, that's bound to be subject to misinterpretation in any case, IMO).

Have solved the bathing drudgery problem - I just bath him 2-3 times during the week when I feel like it (and he feels like it), and otherwise just wipe off the excess mud. Seems perfectly healthy so far.

[Judy1234]

Sounds like good progress. Aim that you both just do the fun bits then if it can be afforded. Depends on your house size and number of children whether you'd need a cleaner every morning anyway but it was one of the most helpful things we got. Never having to deal with or think about washing or changing bed or towels ever (except I do put one load of uniforms on each weekend) is bliss, absolutely bliss and then you don't argue over it either - you just pay that person £X an hour to do it. Simple.

When with the twins we got the nanny to do their bath and I just did it at the weekends I actually found it more fun - it was a twice weekly pleasure rather than nightly chore on top of getting 3 other children through homework after a hard day's work. So every couple just work out what works for them.



(But you use emotive phrases like hand your children to other people to bring them up as if we say here's a baby, let me see it at age 5. It's nothing like that. It's like your husband going to work in the morning and handing his child to be brought up by someone else (the woman he married).

Also I don't rubbish the choice to stay at home but I do find it hard to understand people who choose that. Don't understand what you mean by why don't we try it and see? Any parent does a lot of stuff with their babies. It's lovely to do. We all do it even if we're leading British companies and the cabinet we still are there often at bed times and weekends, hours of love and cuddles and breastfeeding and the messing around you describe. It's just that it is a part of our lives, a hugely important part, probably the most important part but it's not the whole of our lives.)

[MrsMarvel]

Look Xenia, I'm getting really fed up with you belittling the work that women and men that choose to stay at home do.

It is a choice and it doesn't mean you have to love housework, I have never met anyone (bar Anthea Turner) that has said that. It means you love to be with your children more than you love to be in your career at that time in your life, whether man or woman. And the alternative, is that you do both - which most of us do - whether working 16 hour days or 16 hour weeks, we love our children, and some of us love our jobs too.

Your choice was to hand your children to other people to bring up. That's fine as long as it doesn't harm your children in a direct or indirect way. As you've said before, you would be unhappy doing that and so it's probably for the best that you are not taking care of them.

I just find it crazy that you guys just don't try it and see. What have you got to lose? Money? You seem to have enough of that.

Is it not possible for you (X) to respect people's choice to nurture, be there for and love your babies and toddlers, in an intuitive, messy, responsive non-time-specific way? What's really your problem?

[eleusis]

Sounds like really good progress. Maybe he should read mumsnet more often.

[legalalien]

I love the bit where I get to play with the child (most of the time), the rest I could cheerfully give a miss.

I think that for a lot of people the "I control the house" thing was not something that they originally sought, just something that they find helps compensate for the spot they've found themselves in (in which case, perhaps you're right - it's the initial decision making process that needs to have a lot more thought put into it, particularly so if you're not financially in a position to outsource rubbish stuff later on (we do have a weekly cleaner and I've just sorted out a gardener as the process of nagging DH to mow lawn and not having him do it seems to be taking up a disproportionate amount of my [valuable] time).

Anyway, this morning DH has had lessons in changing cot bed sheets and how the washing machine works. He has also been volunteered to get home on time so that I can get to my work drinks tonight.

Hope he "relaxes into it" OK .

[Judy1234]

If one career is placed second that person will usually be in the default position though, surely. SO the "error" is in letting the female career come second which just makes you unhappy at home, can reduce your income to a tenth of its potential and means you're at financial risk and you're fed up with it too so it sounds like a lose lose deal. I just don't know why in 2007 women choose to and want to put their career second which usually means the man gets the best bits of everything, dipping into parenthood on an occasional and fun basis. But I think you nwated it. It's a huge sacrifice and I don't think childre or husbands ever really appreciate it so I only think it's worht making if you love it, love that subsidiary default role, love the absolute dependency on you by the chidlren, love the fact your husband cannot manage without you, doesn't know how to turn on the washer, love the time you get to play with chidlren and deal with the home... God knows why some women like this stuff but apparently they do.

[eleusis]

Definately sounds like secret psychic powers to me.

[legalalien]

X - I think I agree. My constant gripe is that I'm the "default position", and what you're saying goes exactly to that point. I do let myself be the default position a bit much. You're not the first person to suggest that. It's a function of the fact that I don't like conflict - so I need to figure out whether short term conflict (which let's face it, might not happen, it's mostly my perception of what would happen) is or isn't better than long term silent warfare. Probably a bit of a no brainer.

incidentally, I really do think I left the PC on. DH left work early today and rang me to say that he and the nanny were going to cafe rouge and I was welcome to join them. Wtf? Neither this, nor anything approximating it, has happened in the last two and a half years. Coincidence? Or maybe I have secret psychic powers. I would quite like to have secret psychic powers

[MrsMarvel]

Hmmm.

[Judy1234]

I agree with you. You can't run decent relationships on an exact division of labour but too many women do end up doing too much at home and kind of enable wrong male behaviour by complaining but taking no action (better to shut up and seethe silently than be a constant nagger) rather than effecting change like being out on Saturdays so he has no choice but to deal with the child or arrange child care. "If the office calls for you whilst I'm out here is the list of local sixth formers who are happy to do a bit of baby sitting but you'll have to make sure you get back when you say as I've no idea what time I'll be back" or whatever.

What you don't want is to settle into sexist patterns. Now you might argue in life that acceptance of your lot is always a better thing than a battle you won't lose with a man who won't change but I think there is almost a moral obligation to seek to ensure some equality for the good of our daughters.

[MrsMarvel]

Xenia please calm down.
Nobody on this post said that parents should be with children 24/7.
Nobody on this post has said that women, not men, should do all the compromising.

Remember we're talking about a 2 year old only child here, and an unhappy mother.

LA - Arrangements can always be changed and I'm glad that you can see beyond the deal / arrangements you made with dh before baby. That's just the beginning of "relaxing" into it. I see so many parents getting uptight that he does less than me, it's not fair, etc, and I also see the children looking up and thinking why are they both fighting to NOT be with me?

That's what I'm trying hoping LA can avoid here.

[MrsMarvel]

OK let's call it matronising?

[Judy1234]

Not patronising at all. Perhaps people take everything too seriously. May be that is what you learn as you get older and particularly now I've children 22, 20 etc you see how little effect that vital issue when they were one you agonised over might actually have had. Children seem so much born, not made, sometimes.

I do think it helps to realise many men are not like many women although I agree generalisations are never a good thing. That doesn't mean treat men like children. ANyway what do I know as I lead a pure feminist male free post divorce life...

[eleusis]

Ohhhh.....

But today I think it is text speak of the underclass... or is it the young....