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?

soapbox - to answer your question - my father always worked full-time and was the breadwinner. My mother sometimes worked part-time. Both contributed hugely to my knowledge of the world. My father was more demanding and my mother more encouraging. Both have their qualities and both have their limitations.

My mother's field was (adult) psychiatry. She is a very good listener and very knowledgeable and realistic about the impact of stress on families. She greatly values her daughters (and nieces and sisters-in-law) who have all done very advanced studies (which she encouraged her daughters to do), travelled, had careers and who decided to put their money-earning skills on hold while their children are small in order to provide a calm, ordered environment suited to the development of small children as she believes - on the basis of her professional experience and the wisdom that has conferred - that those early years are a critical foundation for the development of a healthy, stable adult.

twiglett - I haven't insulted anyone. I was insulted, however.

And I am not the "flipside" of anyone. I don't advocate any single position (read my posts).

Issy, Soapbox, agree with all your work here....

RoseIrene, is any of this helping at all or just adding to the general noise of life?

PS, where can I find out about the City meets? I am in the West End but in Hedge Fund Alley so I feel like a City gal.

Margo, they tend to appear in the Meet Ups section under City Lunch sort of headings. I think there was a very convivial gathering in the first week of June (was on hols). Keep your eyes peeled and I hope RosieIrene does too

I should add that I worked at a City law firm and then moved in-house. It's still a full-time, full-on job but it has way more autonomy and flexibility than I would have found in a law firm. Also my husband, through circumstances, talent and intelligence, has carved a niche for himself where he is utterly indispensible and unsackable, so he wafts home pretty much when he feels it or childcare requires it.

Anchovy: !

Anna- did you feel your father was a part-time father though?

My point is that parents contribute all kinds of different things to the lives of their children and that there are more ways than one, of being a good parent, raising happy indpendent children

I think Issy's advice is spot on.

RosieIrene, Margo - Link to most recent City meet-up as an e.g. Looks like the Four Horsemen of Work, Child ill-health, Parental ill-health and General Brain-Friedness all took their toll though

Soapbox - yes, I suppose I did feel he was part time. And I suppose if I am honest that I have sometimes felt resentful that he didn't really (because of lack of time) think deeply enough about the recommendations he made to me and my sister about studies etc. I think he had access to information and insider knowledge that would have been very valuable to us, knowledge that my mother, because of her different professional background, didn't have.

I work very hard these days at the ground work for getting my partner to understand what's out there for the children (including my stepsons). Obviously I don't make major decisions for my stepsons, but I can do lots of preparation, alerting their father to where they are at and what they could do so that the children get as many opportunities as possible. Their mother doesn't do this.

Hi there my familiars

Something that really strikes me (as a bit unusual too), rosie, is - that you and your husband work for the same firm. Do you have to? - as surely that means that when the firm is under stress you and your husband both get hit. Complementary stress patterns (ie, at any one time, only one of you is at the sharp end & the other one can pick up the slack) are quite important for the two-working-parent outfit.

Presumably as a partner he's very committed & embedded and a move for him would entail lots of consequences - but is your area of specialism something you could do in a smaller firm, and closer to where you live?

Anchovy - thank you To be hailed in such esteemed company, along with Mrs Wobble and Issy

How is it that we never tire of talking about this?

"Those of you who had mothers that SAH and fathers that WOTH, do you honestly feel that you love your fathers less or that they paid a lesser role in your upbringing than your mother?"
fuck yes
but that was a generational thing I expect too

First it was Xenia. Then Mozhe joined it. Now Anna8888.
Littlelapin said "mozhe is Robin to Xenia's Batman " - Little lapin wil ahve to revise it and make it a threesome

Harpsi - did you see my reply to you ?

My answer to that question would be "no", though, harpsi. My dad WOTHed and my mum SAHMed and I felt equally loved and parented by them both for as far back as I can remember

Oblomov - I really am at a loss to understand why I have upset you... please explain?

Do you think we've scared Rosie off ? Or maybe the poor woman has fallen asleep on the tube and is going round and round the central line. I hope she's o.k. By the time she reads all this, she won't be able to post back until a week next thursday.

Anna - clearly our experiences were different then.

I think I am as well placed as anyone to consider the opportunities for my children, along with DH. Whilst conceding that I offload a lot of drudgery to other people - I do prioritise the children's education, in its widest sense as being an area where we are very supportive of them. I also give careers counselling to pupils at the senior school attached to my children's school too.

To put it into perspective - I spend a little shy of 12 hours a week at work, while the children are at home. It is hardly abdication!

Sorry Anna. You haven't upset me. I don't agree with a single word you said in your post of 12:20:55. But no nothing you have said has upset me directly.
I was just being mischevious by grouping you together.

Harpsi my answer would have to be the same as Marina. My father devoted as much timeas he coul to both myself and my sister, encouraging us to go out and acheive what we could. I never felt less loved by him at all.

soapbox - no, 12 hour a week when you delegate probably isn't abdication (presumably the children aren't out from 8am to 8pm...).

I have nothing against working mothers, as long as they have good support systems are not so stressed out that life for them and their families is horrible. I feel a great deal of sympathy for mothers who have to work and who don't wish to. I do have something against people who think mothers must and should work full-time all the time.

Oblomov - and I can't understand what is so controversial about that post. It applies equally to working and non-working mothers. I just think it's that much easier (and hence less stressful for all) to follow your child's development when you spend most of his/her early years together. But that's not a condemnation of those who don't.

anna's words, the other way round, iykwim:

"I have nothing against SAHMs, as long as they have good support systems are not so stressed out that life for them and their families is horrible. I feel a great deal of sympathy for mothers who have to stay at home and who don't wish to. I do have something against people who think mothers must and should stay at home full-time all the time."

Anna, how is it less stressful if you have no money with which to buy food to feed said child?

My life would be less stressful if I had one hundred servants and an ability to eat chocolate all day without putting on any weight but that's a dream world. So, for many, is not working.

Also, I love to work. So it would not be easier for me to stay at home.

And bundle, I'm high fiving you in an embarrassing, English mum sort of way.