I'm just wondering if it is actually possible to squeeze everything you're meant to be doing into one week?
I work full time in the NHS. When I come home, I'm pretty tired. I'm fairly newly qualified so I'm on the bottom of band 5 and barely making enough to get by. DP makes around the same, so combined we're okay, but I have many more bills to pay than DP as the kids are not his (and I wouldn't feel right asking him to pay childcare) and I have debts from before we met. We share bills but he pays his mortgage himself. I would love to work some overtime to have a bit of spare cash but I feel so tired after a normal week, I'm just not sure I could manage.
I barely find the time to make a wholesome family meal. Proper food my kids should be eating. A lot of the time it's rubbish from the freezer or beans on toast. It's usually about 2 hours from when we get home to when the youngest goes to bed so there isn't always time to prep and make proper food.
Then homework. DP is not academic and struggles to help with this so it's down to me. DS is in Y3, DD in Y5. I have to stand over DS to get him to do his homework properly. His handwriting is appalling, and despite trying to improve it during lockdown, it's gone back to its usual messy scrawl. If I want him to write legibly, I have to stand over him and remind him for every word to go slow and take his time. DD has more homework this year than she's ever had. She's increasingly worried about it all. She worries constantly about getting things wrong which means helping her with her homework is 50% listening to her give me the right answer and 50% trying to stop her crying because she thought she was wrong. I don't know how to help her. I've given her self esteem and confidence books to read but she isn't interested.
I'd love them to do activities instead of coming home and sitting in front of a screen, but I would struggle to pay for them as things are tight, and I'd struggle to find the time to take them because of my shift pattern. I know this isn't possible at the moment due to COVID anyway, but I would really like it if they would do something else.
I feel like I'm constantly cleaning and tidying on my days off. DC do a lot of chores, possibly more than most kids their age. I feel like I'm asking them to do too much, but if I didn't then the house would be constantly untidy. How much is too much? DP does his fair share when asked but doesn't "see" the mess as such. I don't think that a carpet that needs vacuuming or shelves that need dusting, for example, are as much a priority for him as it is for me, IYSWIM.
DP keeps telling me that I need to take some time for myself but I honestly don't know where I can! I'm constantly on the go and only just keeping my head above water.
Is it possible to make my children well rounded, well fed, happy, clean, and independent while also working full time, keeping the house going, and also taking a bit of time for myself? How do you manage it all? I don't want this to turn into a "why isn't DP doing more" thread. He does his share when I ask him to, and the house is never dirty.
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Is it possible to fit everything in?
7 replies
paintedpanda · 27/09/2020 14:30
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