City lawyer with toddlers can't cope

[RosieIrene]

I work FT at a city firm and have two dd 1 and 3. Have a full time daily nanny but still can't cope. Work all day, come home and put kids to bed and work all evening to make billable target or have to go to client functions. So stressed out that on weekend just want to sit in garden with kids and do nothing. Can't sleep, can't talk to anyone. How do people manage?

Yes, when I got here this morning I was a bit perplexed at last night's slanging match which was a lot of fuss about nothing (misquotes, stuff taken out of context). So I suppose we've been trying to clear up the misunderstandings.

It's not that the tread is fascinating. It's more like I'm avoiding work.

I have just looked out these lines from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man in IV Epistles:
"Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit.--In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right."

am I the only one who is quite fascinated by both Xenias and Annas life? they are like characters in a book. I rather love the idea of Annas polished parquet parisian apartment and Xenias millions of kids while running a multi-national.

I dont know anyone like that in RL.

I think you should both do a blog

enid - pop tot he shops thread in chat

me too enid - my life is a sort of jumble of professional childcare, mother and me, mixed in with an almost-full-time-but-not-quite job. A house that is never quite clean and a child that had learnt to pick his way around the debris (good for his coordination and walking I feel). As I said to Eleusis last night at dinner - people ask me how single parents cope - "LOWER YOUR STANDARDS!".

I always imagine Xenia striding around commandingly chivvying the children into doing their homework accurately (no mistakes alloed) and Anna wafting around with her DD floating in a muslin cloud with both of them surrounded by daisies.

Sadly I expect they are both hairy-handed truckers.

Enid - do you want to visit?

I am a real person you know.

She lives under a bridge in Paris.

Enid - I agree - there aren't many people in life who are so contented with the decisions they've made! They sound fascinating.

Anna - visit

I think I want to come and live at your house

It's al ife like anyone's. People die, divorce, get ill. None of that really differs even if you have a big house, large family, interesting work. The basic issues that are important to all of us are much the same whether you are I, Anna or a bushwoman of the Kalahari.

Caroline's Pope quote is may be over positive. He seems to be saying what you think is black may well be white. But it's certainly applicable to the original post and my grass is greener point. Seeing the good in what you have whether that's food on the table or a busy job or children is a lucky trait if you have it, the cup half full, not half emptied.

A blog would be too dangerous for me. I could start today's "Last night in Nobu..." which would be an accurate start but I've always desisted.

nobu

you lucky cow

did you have the black cod

Skim this thread backwards and it's still mad...

nobu that overpriced stuck up poncey place...

The only time I've been to Nobu was fairly recently - I was meeting a girlfriend who got there first - she called me in fright and horror because there had been the most vicious bar fight. Oh, it's also the only place I've been in in the last 15 years where men were loitering outside the Ladies - I think one actually barged in. Altogether, a kind of side of London life I can do without.

But I'd be interested in your blog-view of it, xenia?

imo, soba a japenese noodle bar poland street and soho square much better and do all meals £5 before 5pm..yeehaa

Huge mixture of people. Some with those kind of orange faces and too much makeup; girls trying to get in to sit and watch others; some families having celebration dinners; quite a lot of foreigners; people waiting for ages for tables; some very tall girls the height of giraffes; business people in suits; Japanese. Very hard to generalise.

These are the things the original poster can have if she sticks it out - an equal marriage with her lawyer husband rather than one where he leaves her for his colleague because she's got fat and dull at home; the ability to earn huge amounts over 30 years which give her massive choice and freedom - freedom to be at home when she's made a lot of money if she wants that - heaven forbid or to buy her organic form, trek in the Amazon or indeed buy a patch of it and eat in "nice" depending on how you define it places. But most of all she will preserve her sense of self and do her children a favour in showing them women can forge happy careers as well if not better than men rather than present to them the picture that women worship men, clean their houses and iron their shirts, a model few really think is good in 2007.

orange faces maybe id over applied the ole benefit hoola bronzer

Spot on, emkana.

"rather than present to them the picture that women worship men, clean their houses and iron their shirts, a model few really think is good in 2007"

Jesus is that it then, arse out the door to work or worship your man ?
I'm almost tempted to lend you my DH for the weekend hun to show you there is middle ground where everyone is happy in 2007, I seriously think your views are very 80's not sure if I mean 1980's though.

Enid - well, I do really like my life so no, I wasn't offering it up for grabs . But if you want to see Paris, get a Eurostar ticket and I will be very happy to show you all the places I love so much...

RosieIrene,
Lots of hugs. No one does manage, everyone just bumbles through the okay parts and staggers through the bad bits. I think everyone feels isolated, because the likelihood of there being someone in your department with whom you are friends and who is in a similar position to you is about zero.
I think the thread has gone off on some tangents, but I would just like to say I am thinking of you. I started a similar thread in January, when I was very stressed at work (a city law firm) and suffering from bullying bosses. The support I got on MN was helpful. Since then I have done the following, which have helped:

I saw a maternity coach - basically an executive coach with a sideshow in executive women - she helped me understand what I needed to do to turn my crazy situation into a better one. Some law firms hire these independent people, some don't, but I think they are useful because they are so tailored to the women in the city. www.maternity-coaching.co.uk/

Then I applied to have one day every other week off. This is sufficient to give me a bit more time to be with my DD, but not so significant that I am seen as part time, with the negative connotations of that at my (not very supportive)firm.

Then I thought seriously about whether it was the job, the tiredness, the expressing at work while trying to read contracts at the same time, and all that, and tried to isolate the particular elements that made the combination impossible. I concluded that it was my bosses and their views, but I am sure that this is different for everyone. I have since resigned to go to another city law firm with a reputation for being family friendly and flexible.

Good luck, I think it is all so hard, and some weeks it feels like you can do both jobs well, sometimes it feels like you can do neither, and then you can also start to wonder where the "you" is. It will get better.