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Original poster

Does anyone else find working when you've got kids REALLY hard?

186 replies

dollybird · 06/02/2006 21:32

I have been back at work three days a week for two years now since my 2nd child was born, and I am finding it harder and harder to cope with juggling everything. This is partly as the job has changed from one I loved to one I put up with, but mostly because I find it such a nightmare getting the kids ready for nursery in the morning and when I pick them up in the evening they are so hyper and I am tired etc - I just hate it.Every week I wish I could give up work (can't afford to), but by Sunday I am usually glad of a break. Does it ever get any easier?

OP posts:
motherinferior · 08/02/2006 15:23

And what about going out at the weekend, for lunch, with friends? He can have the kids.

majorstress · 08/02/2006 15:24

It's funny, I sort of think that he DOES look after the kids, compared to some of the horrible DHs of my friends, but the hours actually amount to less than one a day on average during the week. At the weekend, which I also dread, he only takes sole charge if I am at work. Next week is half-term - yuck. more juggling.

majorstress · 08/02/2006 15:26

It's funny how I am gradually getting brainwashed into beign the guilty party all the time, I ams supposed to be a housewife, which I have no experience or interest in at all, and it is supposed to be a treat to be allowed to do my increasingly impossible paid work.

uwila · 08/02/2006 15:29

Majorstress, umm... I'm really sorry if this is upsetting you, but that isn't his fair share. His fair share is something more like this:

He does nursery/school drop off every day. You pick them up every day. He sees his buddie Friday night. You see yours Saturday night. He looks after kids all day Saturday. You all spend the day together on Sunday (not working, but taking the kids to the zoo or something).

That's his share.

I hope we aren't making you nad when you came here for desperately needed support. But it sounds like he has convinced you that his lopsided views are fair. They are not. If you don't find happiness for yourself, your marriage probably will break down. I'm trying to help you save your marriage.

uwila · 08/02/2006 15:32

Are you going to come out with me or not???

motherinferior · 08/02/2006 15:36

And most of us really struggle with getting some sort of fit that works for us, I think. But yours is disproportionate. I think you need to take a couple of hours off this weekend - off, out somewhere, on your own.

Enid · 08/02/2006 15:38

Hmmmmm...not so sure your dh is as controlling as everyone seems to think. If you have been depressed for many years he may have run out of strategies to help you cope. If childcare is as difficult as you say maybe he thought it would help to go part time.

He is only controlling if you let yourself be controlled - eg you say he hates the neighbours kids in the house but that doesnt mean you have to not invite them. I mean, my dh doesn't like some of the things I do but I do them anyway.

motherinferior · 08/02/2006 16:05

I take your point about depression and strategies, Enid, but I think from what majorstress has said that her husband is, at the very least, making it difficult to do things he doesn't like. Frankly if my partner objected strongly to having other kids round I'd probably feel a bit awkward about it, and feel frantically that I needed to clear up behind them.

uwila · 08/02/2006 16:30

Oh Majorstress. I see you've gone away. I hope we haven't upset you by laying into your DH. I just want to help. You have struggled so hard with this childcare/work/family balance. And you are clearly not happy.

II'm not sure just how controlling your SH is. But, I do know that over the last year or so I have had many long posts and e-mails with you regarding your struggles. And I do recall even when you were flat on your back in excrutiating pain.... he was at work.

Please stand up for yourself. You have a right to be happy.

uwila · 08/02/2006 16:32

SH? Sorry. That was meant to say DH.

motherinferior · 08/02/2006 16:36

Majorstress, I'm sorry if I've offended you. I know how hard it is to shift the balance, I really do; but I do think the balance isn't right for you the way things are.

majorstress · 08/02/2006 16:53

I'm just doing the school run and stuff like taht, I'm not offended.

majorstress · 08/02/2006 16:55

though I'm wondering if SH might be a better term than DH at least at times.

majorstress · 08/02/2006 17:00

I feel a bit better now, the last post was meant to be a joke. I don;t know what to do about the work-life balance really for myself or anyone, beyond saying that it is hard and just doesn;t work sometimes. This too will pass....off to collect the little blighters from their art class and to stick something in the oven, which I made for the freezer a few weeks ago. First resolution-stop bothering with that, it's not necessary and DH-SH doesn't care what we spend on food. More ready-meals in this house.

majorstress · 08/02/2006 17:06

I just need some bravery to really check out some of the babysitters I keep writing down the phone numbers for, and start using them. The idea still makes me feel sick, I am getting phobic about interviewing people and trying to guess what they are really like, since I have got it wrong a couple of times, or at least settled for someone who seemed ok but wasn't. And telling DH if he doesn;t like it, than he can work less and babysit himself because I am going out regardless. dd2 asked this morning if ironing lady could come back again today please? Unfortuanely ironing lady is already full time AP and can't come early enough some days, also is a bit unreliable about changing the day when her other mommy is late home, which no one can help in Shy Shy London, the biggest Sh*hole on earth.

MrsWobble · 08/02/2006 18:54

Majorstress - you don't know me and I don't know you. I think from previous posts that you live in North London so if on one of your 2 1/2 hour slots you want to come down to the Farringdon/Fleet Street area for a grown up coffee in a grown up coffee shop ie without children pulling at your arm every 30 secs and spilling their hot chocolate (at least that's what mine do) then I would be very pleased to meet you. I work full time and have plenty of nanny crises to amuse(?) you with (although none as bad as yours I think). I am 40 and have three daughters aged 11,9,and 6 - a bit older than yours but not so old that I can't remember what it was like. If this is your idea of hell then feel free to ignore it and me but if you fancy the idea then let me know and I'm sure we can find a time we can both make.

cheltenhamgal · 08/02/2006 19:10

I know I am a bit late joining this thread but funnily enough I have been at work ! My DD is six and I have been working full-time since she was 12 weeks old, not through choice I couldn't get a mortgage if I wasn't working full-time. I leave the house at 0715 and catch three buses to work(I drop my DD off at a breakfast club after the 2nd bus)I work 8.30-5. I never go out as I can't afford to, all of my friends are always too busy to go out or I can't afford a sitter, my family all live 100 miles away so am looking after my DD on my own, at weekends it is 24/7. I get no financial contribution from
EP and he isn't interested in seeing her so can't get a break that way. The only way I get a break is one week xmas hols, one week easter hols and two weeks in the summer hols when she stays at my mums. Its that old thing of I wish I could find a job with less hours but the same pay as I don't seem to qualify for any help from anyone. I now face being made bankrupt or selling the house to pay all the debts and to top it all my DD has just realised that she is the only child in her class who doesn't ever see her dad. I have thought of getting my mum to have her permenantly but my friends talked me out of it and I am glad they did as I love her to bits but it is just such a hard slog so yes I do find working and having a child hard and if ever anyone fancies a meet up in gloucestershire please let me know

Redtartanlass · 08/02/2006 22:59

cheltenhamgal there was a glos thread meet up, but nothing this year if you fancy a chat my email address is redtartanlass at hotmail dot com

I'm in Ciren.

cheltenhamgal · 09/02/2006 06:38

thanks redtartanlass I shall add you to my contacts )

poppadum · 09/02/2006 07:16

Majorstress, I am new here, so will leave it to more experienced mums to give you advice. I will say that I too, ( and possibly most mums) have felt what you are feeling. Don't feel guilty. It WILL pass.

Can I just ask without wishing to be inflammatory: Does anyone here work simply because they enjoy it, not because they have to?
I do, though DH's salary would be enough for us. I realise I am incredibly lucky.

FairyMum · 09/02/2006 07:35

Poppadum,Yes I also work because I enjoy it and for lots of other reasons, but not because I have to financially. I realise I am lucky though. Both me and DH work flexi which makes it easier to achieve a nice balance between work and home life. I don't find it hard, but then I don't have to get my kids ready in the mornings as that is DH's job. You can't work fulltime as well as taking care of the house and the children wihtout any help from your DH. That would send me to an early grave for sure. In our house we share 50/50. We have also got a cleaner and I order groceries online. The key is to share and be really organised.

ProfessorG · 09/02/2006 11:38

Poppadum - yes, I do.

What my DH puts aside each month for rainy day money/ hols etc is what I earn! I work PT 3 days a week in a much less demanding position than before children but still same professional job for which I trained/studied a long time. Children both at school. I took a less well paid and lower status job 15 mins drive away instead of in the (large Northern) city where I used to work. It works because :

I have 2 days at home each week for chores/ me time/PTA stuff/ boys' activities after school. More time therefore for DH to have me time at w/e as well as family time (and some more me time! )

I have a cleaner who also does the ironing.

Boys go to on-site after school club. I collect them at 5pm. DH gets home about 7pm. Reads boys a story, usually.

DH dresses the boys on work mornings, then leaves and I take it from there.

I too am aware how very lucky I am.

ProfessorG · 09/02/2006 11:41

Majorstress so sorry, didn't mean to ignore you. I agree with the other posters - the key to all this is a supportive DH and yours is not doing his share

majorstress · 09/02/2006 14:37

Well this isn't my thread, I just seem to have hijacked it with my pity party. I know I am lucky, I don't have to work for financial reasons but I have become reliant on it as a bulwark against depression. I kind of enjoy it at times too, unlike being at home, which I have always hated. My girls are healthy, and their father still lives with and is involved with them more than many. DH came home complaining of chest pains, but insisted that he was sure it was a pulled muscle, but that it made him worry anyway. I told him several times (duh) to either go to the GP, or stop worrying, since NHS direct said there is nothing worng with him, the symptoms are wrong for a heart atttack. To no avail. Didn't seem a good time to suggest he doesn't pull his weight around the house, which will simply turn into an angry list of the things he does, with my response of a longer list of things that I do. And that will be our conversation this week, done and dusted, again. I'm just bored with life, and feel totally flat and emotionless most of the time. I watched a couple of things on tv about rotten conditions in Manchester factories in the 1800s, obviously wouldn't have survived that. Or maybe I would have, is too much time to think my problem?

flowerfairy · 09/02/2006 15:00

I work part time and i find both jobs demanding and often feel that i never feel I am doing justice to either.

Kep hoping DH will gain huge pay rise and say no dear you be a sahm, which has always been my dream.