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

[Elasticwoman]

I was going to say it's never a good idea to have a child for any other reason than wanting that child.

Sorry to go all biblical but can't helping quoting:

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; render unto God that which is God's" (for God read family). Does dh feel he needs to render anything at all to his wife & son, other than money? Probably does, as has just made domestic effort with washing machine.

Does your dh want to be the most indispensable worker in the graveyard?

Does any one, on their deathbed, wish they had spent more time in the office?

[MrsMarvel]

I really don't understand why you both, given this is your only chance at parenthood, don't stop arguing and jump at the chance of doing everything you can to enjoy this fleeting time you have with your son, especially as you can afford it and don't both need to work!

Of course it's a matter of choice, but is life about life or is it about work? You've suffered from depression - would AD's help? You haven't tried staying at home I think because you can't relax into it. Your son is having tantrums and a difficult relationship with his father possibly because there's too much stress and no wonder when you're both working so much and he just wants you both to be with him!

Men can't dip into being Daddy when they spend most of the time away from home, but then neither can women dip into being Mummy and find it easy.

My mother worked while I was young and I and she missed out on a lot - she was always just firefighting with me, there was never any quality time. I survived, but it wasn't pleasant.

By the way, I'm not saying you should work less, but that having either parent around for more time than the nanny's around would probably work better for your son.

[Judy1234]

I don't agree. Many many children of two parents who work full time who are under 5 are going to see their nanny for 10 hours a day and their parents for about 3 during the week and then parents all day at weekends. They are not worse off because they aren't with someone who is geneticlaly linked to them during those 10 hours. It's a popular myth when people say that designed to keep women down. Ask my 22, 20 and 18 year olds and they'd all say they were content we both worked full time. Also look at how children are - they aren't less successful, mentally adjusted or less happy because their parents worked. So I wouldn't put any guilt into it.

Also I don't think they need both parents in equal amounts each day. Some parents might prefer that because they feel it's inequitable if one does everytbing even at weekends whilst one sits reading the paper but I don't think a toddler minds in the least.

I don't think anything needs ot be said about the father being different with the child than the mother. One of the reasons children do well with two parents and indeed a nanny around is there aer 2 or 3 adults with different view points and that's great. Look at me here with just the twins and no father involved, that's not so good. I get things wrong and I would be the sole influence if it weren't for the nanny and older siblings. It's good he's not the same as you. You need quiet acceptance of how he is and possibly even some humility to accept he may be better than you, right even although I'm not sayhing that is necessarily so if he's treatnig a 2 year old as a 4 year old but it helps the child to see two different ways of doing things and even if the father isn't as good as he might be (and who is good at anything with a first child anyway?) it's more important he's made to feel he's good than have you or a third party criticise him.

I think for most adults of whatever sex who have been in busy successful jobs it's very hard to get to grips with the compromise of parenting, that you do things and then do them again and that you don't put in A and get B out and move on to the next task. Instead you constantly compromise and don't achieve in the same kind of way as at work - one reason I think for many adults like me even now still practising on child number 5 working is the only way to ensure continued good mental health.

[motherinferior]

MrsM, you enjoy being a SAHM more than you did working in your former paid job. Please accept, though, that that isn't the case for all women - (including my own mother. I wish, very much, that she'd found the enjoyable, rewarding career that she did in her 50s - and in which she is really rather eminent, at the age of 72 - rather than making, frankly, the f8ckup of parenting that she did).

I don't 'dip into being Mummy' on the three days I'm not doing paid work. Nor, I assure you, do my colleagues who work five days. And I can assure you the kids are really rather fabulous.

LAID, CAT means 'contact another talker', easily enough done if you've slung MN the requisite fiver.

[Judy1234]

(Slightly off point but interesting personal account in Style magazine today women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2044495.ece

So whatever you do don't give up work because it's much much worse.....

"What it does ? unless you have a full-time nanny, cleaner and personal shopper ? is propel you backwards into the gender stereotypes of the 1950s. Jamie and I went from absolute equality to living on different planets. He went to work: he schmoozed important people, he ate out, he bought new suits. I stayed at home: I cleaned, I washed, I cooked, I shopped, I washed again and I thought about our Oxford degrees a lot. I was profoundly shocked to discover that this was the deal; that there was no other way of continuing the human race. I mean, I wanted to be a full-time mother, but I hadn?t reckoned on falling out of love with my husband as a result.

Little chores that used to be acts of love (pairing his socks, preparing him a nice supper) became venom-loaded. As for the physical act of love, it just didn?t happen. Aside from the exhaustion, neither of us felt loving enough. All the kissing was for chunky-thighed, gap-toothed Oscar. "

[legalalien]

"It's good that he's not the same as you."

Completely agree and something that I'm very keen on, given that I'm quite highly strung and keen on over-analysis. God forbid that becomes the only view point.

Has just occurred to me that perhaps I'm not sharing enough of the thought process. I think about things a lot (too much) and as a result the outcome I share verbally tends to be what I consider to be the "balanced outcome" i.e. initial reaction, plus tempering, plus comment from you lot etc. etc. - and takes into account the things that I consider to be definite "pluses" from DH's point of view. As a result, he doesn't see the (slightly irrational "my first reaction", or get to hear the "praise" elements that I take into account). On the other hand, he always vents on a very "immediate" basis (so I get the actually-he-doesn't really mean it but is really angry right now stuff).

I think it might be helpful to make my thought process more transparent.

And for the record - it isn't really tantrums. It's just that he and I have set up a "way" of doing things and Daddy doesn't play the game (which come to think of it probably makes him feel pretty crap - I do try to explain the "rules" but suspect it's not the same).

Anyway, have sent the two of them off into the garden to do stuff with mud (hence posting at unusual time). There are a few grizzles, but there's a learning process to be had and me intervening is only going to slow that down.

Anyone need some pink socks or vests?

ps MM, from my perspective mi and X are right. My own mother was a SAHM for my first seven years and hated it. I knew she hated it. It was much better once she started part time work.

[Judy1234]

I think the last thing most men want is any sharing of thought processes and too much communication. Probably they just prefer praise and you being nice to him and making it all simpler. Try assuming everytihng he does with the children and around the house for a week is right and better than you do it and say so and see how that goes as an experiment if that's tolerable.....

[MintyDixCharrington]

xenia you're a bit schizophrenic today! one minute you are "equality, feminism, none of this 1950s claptrap" and the next minute you say "ooooh there's no issue some naughty knickers and good rogering won't solve" and "thing with men is you have to speak to them like children"

think you need to lay off the gin and have a hot bath to calm down

[legalalien]

I'll need several gins to conduct that experiment.

DS is lying in bed crying "I want to have a nap" at 20 sec intervals. Do you think insomnia is heriditary?

[Elasticwoman]

Lie down with him and give him a cuddle.

Now which of your menfolk do I mean???

[MintyDixCharrington]

read him a small excerpt from the Transparency Obligations Directive or something, that should send him off in no time

[Judy1234]

I would never say treat men like children. That's my whole point - none of the lecturing, I do it right, you're hopeless sigh kind of thing so many women do. I just said I'm sure he doesn't want long discussions about thought processes and that sex is often a good solution. Women get pleasure from sex as much as men. so I don't think I was abandoning feminism. Feminists have good sex. Mind you lots of parents of 2 year olds who both work very hard probably don't have much sex I would imagine.

[MrsMarvel]

I've got no objections to full time working parents if it works but I'm responding to the original post which was sent out because LA is genuinely unhappy about her situation.

Xenia, that's really interesting what you say about not wishing to step out of the work role because real life with kids is too much about compromise and lack of achievement and tasks being inconsistent That's what I'm trying to explain to you LA here.

If you're unhappy both working full time, perhaps it's because you, as I said before, can't relax into the whole parenting thing, which is not about control, success, precision.

Look I hate cleaning and cooking as much as the next modern woman but I'm the one who can be there when there's a problem and that makes the home generally run smoother and the children feel more secure.

I also agree X about men and explanations. They are from another planet and the sooner we understand that the easier we can all get along. There's no point in assuming men are wrong if they do things a different way or are not interested in the things you're interested in. As long as the common ground of good sex can always be reached...

[Judy1234]

I agree with you about men. There's nothing wrong with them at all. I like men. But they don't tend to like to go into discussing feelings. He just wants to be told he's good with his son and he probably doesn't want to hear his wife isn't happy so if there's a solution like she might get a baby sitter once a month so she can go out on her own then that's a solution although I'd rather they were finding time to go out together once a week (may be they do) plus a night a week "off" for her.

I also think there's nothing wrong with admitting some mothers and fathers just aren't cut out for being at home with children and we should all play to our strengths. Even so as a parent you do a lot of childcare in evenings etc and I suspect being at work, getting home at 6 and then having the 2 year old on your own most nights a week is not the joint equal parenting they'd discussed.

It might be more an issue of depression here, though, mental health issues. Lots of people are fine with all kinds of stressful situations but if their biochemistry etc is not working as it should then they don't. It's almost not the circumstances at all that determine these things although difficult circumstances can bring on the problem, but the depression which is the issue.

[MrsMarvel]

I think we're coming to a compromise here Xenia.

Yes, there's no point in accusing men for their ways except when it's deliberate, bullying or abusive of course.

I've been grappling with point two for a while. Yes there are some parents that aren't cut out for looking after children and to be blunt I don't understand why they have them in the first place. I thought I was one of them until I was 34. It wasn't til I had them and the courage to let go of my controlled environment that I stopped and started learning from the experience of being with my children, it's about giving, it's about pleasing others first. I think LA is missing out actually.

Working full time is great and feasible and good but I do think that if you can be with them while they're under 5, you should.

Depression is such a chicken and egg problem, but I think to get by without ADs is always the better option. I think here that LA needs to rethink the expectations she had when they originally made plans to split childcare. Everybody knows that having children changes your life, and that nothing goes according to plan. If you're unhappy, change them.

Your career doesn't come to an end just because you take a few years out, surely, there are refresher courses. You can put your career on pause but not your children.

[Judy1234]

I don't wan tto turn this into a working and non working parents debate. On your analysis every working father in the land misses out. I don't think 12 hours a day with a toddler is better or nicer for mother or child than 3 hours of their waking hours and I never felt I missed out at all or why did I have children because I often prefer doing work to being with them.

What she's missing out is her career. She's shot it to pieces as so many women do and when the men die or leave guess who has suffered the loss - rarely the man. When your children are fleeing the nest etc and you barely get a grunt out of your teenagers you're left bereft and even with all your career hopes dashed too. ANyway that's one way to look at it. Oh dear... I've made it working or not. But I suppose it's on this issue - her husband is prepared to work 16 hour days as many women with small children are out of the house as indeed do many mothers with babies wotk 16 hour days caring for them and she wants him home more.

I think those who miss out are those who don't have children because I've enjoyed mine so much despite working full time (perhaps because I work full time), rather than those who are men or women who have chidlren and also work.

[Judy1234]

And Mrs M don't you think working parents give and put themselves second repeatedly? Also if you know you're not cut out for 24/7 childcare how could it be in the child's interests that you're with it. I've worked this morning at home and the nanny has been here. The twins went to the woods, they went out on bikes, they did all kinds of things. I am much better with them when I have other people who do things with them as well as the time I spend with them. I never think why did I have chidlren if I'm going to prefer work to being with them even when I have a choice. It's like saying why marry a man if you don't live and work with in 24 hours a day.

[legalalien]

Mrs M - do you allow for the possibility of a "reverse" experience to yours - you thought you weren't cut out to be a full time carer-for-children and found out that you were; some of us might have thought that we'd enjoy it more?

I don't disagree with your analysis that part of the reason I don't like being at home full time is that I can't "relax" into it - I am a bit of a control freak (heck, I'm a lawyer), but I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I'm not feeling guilty about being back at work and I really don't think DS is being shortchanged (he's kept his afternoon nap, so goes to bed fairly late, and I end up seeing him probably around 4-5 hours a day and we have a really good relationship)(hmm, that sounds a bit defensive and I really don't feel particularly so, so maybe ignore that last sentence).

I take the point that the plans re "split" childcare need to be rethought. This is just a practical issue. Since DH doesn't feel able to "steal" any time from his job in the week, he's going to need to spend more time on the weekend mornings. I've sounded the water out on this one over the weekend and he doesn't seem averse to the idea.

X - I've gone in-house so I like to think that my career is salvageable in an emergency. You never know where life will take you and I've always been too independent not to have a back up plan (what, lawyers are risk averse? surely not.)

[MrsMarvel]

Just when I was thinking we were coming to a compromise!

Please re-read my post.

[MrsMarvel]

LA - great to find practical solutions, even you can change things, despite what you said about your character.

Glad to hear your career's not "shot to pieces", I didn't think it would be.

Even better to hear you're getting 4-5 hours a day with dc, although find it hard to believe if you're getting back at 6pm - that's more quality time than I get with mine! (during the week).

Xenia - surprised at your preference to work over being in woods with kids and bikes. I accept your choices, but how do kids feel?

[legalalien]

6.30 to 8.30, and 6.30 to about 9. He's always been an early riser. And the earliest I've ever managed to get him to bed is around 8.15, but that's in the depths of winter when it's really dark. I'm very much a "get up and go down with the sun" person as well. .

[eleusis]

I'd hire a housekeeper if I were you and no one would ever do the dishes or the laundry again. And I'd get a regular babysitter for every Thursday night. Life is too short to get all worked up about unimportant things like dishes and laundry. 10 years from are you really going to care who did the dishes (so long as it wasn't you)?

[Judy1234]

MrsM, like most children. Any child that thinks it's parents want to spend 24 hours a day with them is being exalted as some kind of God and is being done a disservice by its parent. Of course they know I love them and spend time with them but a few hours a day is fine with me. Our parents never gave children some sort of 24 hours a day free entertainment system - i.e. parent. Adults do and enjoy adult things and the sooner children know adults have a range of things they enjoy and it isn't always spending 8 hours a day playing wheels on a bus the better. The child is not the centre of the universe. It's a loved individual we like to have around but every parent in the land will have been asked by children when the parents are going out together why are you going etc. The honest answer is surely because we enjoy time together alone even without you.

Career shot to pieces was a bit harsh in these circumstances but it does annoy me in this sexist world it always happens to be the women who love to put their careers second and be the one who is responsible for chidlren.

[Judy1234]

Some of my least coherent posts ever are on this thread.

If the husband can't help at all in the week then you add up the hours the mother does - say 1 - 2 in the morning and say 2 or 3 in the evening, 4 x 5? that's 20 hours and then at the weekend he does 20 hours so that means something like 9 - 6pm or divide it up a bit. What my exhusband and I did (but I suspect it was more because we never got on even over 19 years married) was I had the children on Saturday (whilst he worked) and he had them all day on Sunday (whilst I worked or did something else). That was 50/50 parenting. What it wasn't was joint parenting sadly. But joint often equals just the mother doing everything so I think you need at weekends some sole parenting when just the father is around whilst the mother is out or sleeping and some time as a couple taking the child out - so much easier with one child as you out number it. Once we got to 3 and more you're completely lost in some ways.... not that I'd return them for a refund.

[legalalien]

X - great to see you have a sense of humour. Your mathematical approach was exactly what I had in mind when I suggested the "more weekend mornings for DH" approach. I think the logic of it is appealing to us whichever-side-of-the-brain-it-is-which-is-logical side of the brain (I can never get this right).

Can I just add, from personal experience, that having parents that want to spend lots and lots of time with you quickly becomes an unattractive prospect when you're an only child. As does having some sort of "voting power" in a family of three, where the two parents argue a lot.

Did I say something about knowledge being power?

Getting more incoherent myself.