Working parent rant

[bluesky741]

@paul_1965 Meal prep too. Cooking every day is ridiculous

 

[abbycadabby20]

@artg All we can do is our best. Don't try to be perfect, you'll always fail to live up to your own "perfect."

Keep your kids (and yourselves) fed, clean, and happy. Not necessarily in that order. Everything else can keep until tomorrow.

Stop and do something silly with your kids once in a while. Dance party? Dress up? Make up? Anything silly and out of the norm.

"Enjoy the good times, they go by fast." This means the bad times go by fast too! They don't last and good times are just around the corner!

You got this, momma

 

[greg1911]

@artg Yessssss to all of this. We have a 3 year old and 9 month old.

I go through cycles of some weekends feeling like I need to take care of the house and power through laundry, dishes, clean the floors. Others I just want to work outside so the house stays a disaster but I love developing my garden. I feel guilty doing either because my kids need something all the time and the baby is crawling and pulling up to everything. I hardly accomplish much.

There is no self care but I did buy myself my first new pair of jeans since probably like 2013. It’s amazing what a new pair of jeans can do. Old navy - $17 on a Memorial Day sale!

 

[toastfiend]

@greg1911 I have a similar age split. My husband frequently works weekends and has had more overnights than usual at job sites lately. My 3yo is getting so much screen time lately because the 5 month old needs to nurse in silence and darkness otherwise she will not nap at all. And when I do get the baby down there’s so much to do and so little time to play with my 3 yo. I feel so guilty but also don’t see another way.

 

[roseluck]

@artg This isn’t an option for everyone, but I use to 100% feel this way until I started working from home. I cried many days because I was so overstimulated and exhausted every day. I was miserable. I now work fully remote and it’s been a complete gam changer. I finally enjoy my evenings with my kids. I could never go back to working in office now.

 

[zoelifeme]

@artg It definitely helps to outsource what you can. I rarely go to the store now (outside of grocery shopping) bc I order all of my household stuff online on my lunch break. It also may not be feasible for everyone but I wake up earlier than my 2.5 year old to meal prep before work since my husband is responsible for the cooking part (he works 6-230 and home at 330, I work 9-5 and home by 630) some days I even throw the laundry in the washer when I first wake up and then throw it in the dryer before I leave. My mom watches my son at our house so the house isn’t unattended. Sometimes her and my son will make an activity out of folding the laundry and bringing the basket back upstairs. We also invested in a robot vacuum so that can get done while we sleep. Do we have a perfect system? Absolutely not. But we’re getting by!

 

[kevin2006]

@artg Best thing I ever did for myself was taking Mondays off. Having a three day weekend makes everything feel SO much less chaotic and I basically treat Mondays like my part-time nanny/house cleaner/professional chef gig so I truly can relax on Saturdays and Sundays. I know this isn’t feasible for everyone, but it’s worth checking out what your cutoff for “full time” is at work. Mine is only 30 hours so I can get full time benefits while getting a better work life balance.

 

[seelah]

@artg I don't even know who said this, but we are expected to work like we don't have kids and raise kids like we don't work.

It makes no sense!!

I stopped setting up expectations and giving my kids a snack as soon as we got home. I used to be afraid that would ruin their appetite, but it truly doesn't.

Download PBS Kids and let them have that iPad while you gather whatever grains of sanity you have left after a long ass day. Turn on the subtitles and count it as reading time. They'll be ok.

Divide up the chores. You make dinner, and your partner cleans up. No excuses.

Bedtime should just be bath, brush teeth and hair, a story and into bed. Keep. It. Simple.

Give them choices. Kids also do need to feel like they have a teeny bit of control. So for bathtime ask "bubbles or no bubbles". For reading "this book or that book"... stuff like that.

You're in the thick of it. I swear it changes again once they reach 8 years old. Sending good vibes