Working and house work - are the two compatableif you are a parent?

[LynetteScavo]

If you work, even part time.... when do you do your house work????

At night

At the weekend, or at night or dh helps (sometimes!)

I don't. Mostly I live in a hovel and once a week our lovely, patient cleaner comes and makes it all shiny and clean.

Constantly....

I used to have a weekly cleaner, but there doesn't seem much point at them moment as we're redecorating the entire house.(We moved a few months ago) I've also started working 15 hours a week. We seem to be living in a shit hole.

I'm sure I read a tip on here last year. Spray polish onto your radiators so that the house smells clean. Tricks the brain into thinking the place is clean.

Or do what we do and throw stuff into the garage so the house is no longer messy.

As a working mum I have a cleaner and when I can get one to last longer than a fortnight some help with ironing - for us as a family with two working parents we value our free time as family time and are prepared to pay financially for assistance to preserve this - depends on your circumtances of course but for us it comes high enough up in the spend priority.

I do it in bits and bobs

prob about 15 mins a day

usually when dds are watching Pinky Dinky Doo is enough time

I work full time, but it's a 6 days on, 4 days off schedule, so I tend to do no housework except essentials (dishes, hoover) when I go in early, then small amounts when I go in late (such as laundry), and then on my days off, I catch up on everything. DH does a lot of it as well, especially the days I work.

Nights weekends when dcs are asleep. Washing continuously!

I don't. The house is appalling. A cleaner is laughably unaffordable to us at the moment.

I asked my mum how she dealt with 3 children, a house and garden, a full-time job, a 90 minute commute and a husband who believed it was still the 50s, and she just said 'I didn't sit down much.' Says it all I think.

My house is a shite tip because I was away this weekend, ill yesterday and babysitting tonight

It is hard

I have blitzes

It doesn't last

They aren't, really. My house is appalling. A cleaner is laughably unaffordable to us at the moment.

I asked my mum how she dealt with 3 children, a house and garden, a full-time job, a 90 minute commute and a husband who believed it was still the 50s, and she just said 'I didn't sit down much.' Says it all I think.

A friend of mine stays up til 2 or 3 in the morning getting her house clean, as she works full time and her DH is super picky about having the house spotless. He doesn't help in the house at all, with cleaning, cooking, or their 2 kids. I keep telling her to take a break, hand him the spray cleaner and a cloth or the hoover, and tell him "you live here, you help", but she won't. It's apparently "her place to keep the house" - his words. I think that's taking it a bit too far. I don't mind things slipping a bit here and there, as long as I can catch up with them regularly.

Before the DC get up is good. But I've cut back on paid work, as I got so fed up of the continual muddle.

We pay a cleaner to come in every Friday.
The children each have chores to do. After dinner they tidy their rooms, get their school uniforms out for the next day, prepare most of their packed lunch and DS1 and DD empty the dishwasher together.We put music on really loud and the children do their chores while I tidy up, put washing on and iron my clothes for the next day. I find it really only take 20 mins if you do it every day. I rather focus for 20 mins to get it done so its out of the way. And the children help me cook dinner too. Even a toddler can be given a cloth and you can do some housework together. Quality-time