HOW DO YOU ALL DO IT?

amother

Cerise

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 12:18 am

I work full time and so does my husband. I come home exhausted. I have no energy for supper, for the kids, for anything. We have no money for babysitting or cleaning help as we both make very little.

I am falling apart and look at all these mothers who are so calm and together and work full time. Everyone around me works as nurses, speech therapists, etc and also has a long day at work. They are all pleasant and happy and able to watch their kids, keep house clean, and keep their life functioning.

What is the secret to having energy and being functional that I seemed to miss out on? I feel like I need to work part time due to my difficulty, yet so many others are able to do it that I feel guillty.

cozyblanket

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 12:29 am

No one knows how they themselves do it. When they are out of this stage of their life, they will say they could never do it again. I have no idea how I did certain things. I just had to.

There is no shame in working part time. If you can survive, it should be an option open to you. Don't feel pressured to do what your neighbors do.

I am now working part time and I can barely keep up either. Hugs!

amother

Lime

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 12:48 am

I am an OT. I work 28.5 hours a week. I am exhausted when I come home. My older kid watches IPAD for like 1.5 hrs while I crash in my bed and put my baby for a nap. Thank god they both entertain themselves and I am able to rest because I need chill time. Suppers during work week are very simple like 10 min to make I.e. Baker rice and chicken, chicken with veggies. Th night I dont cook so its just noodles. My babysitter cleans for me every day otherwise my apt is flying. As far as making shabbos my husband sometimes helps me shop and I cook after work fridays as I get home 1. I really do not know how ppl do 40 hr weeks with kids.

tigerwife

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 2:10 am

WAHM. I really don't do it all. I can cook but I barely clean, so it all waits for the cleaning help that comes a few hours a week. My possessions are often in piles of clutter I plan on clearing... When I have the energy. I try to be present completely from when my toddler comes home from day care until bedtime, which means much of my leftover work cuts into my sleep. Still, I can't say I avoid screen time 100% either. Social life is barely existent.

However, when I do get out of the house, I get dressed up, put on makeup and wear a nice wig. I'll do extra fun stuff with DH and DC and my friends. I enjoy it so much more because of the lack of it. So when you see me then and wonder how I have it all together, remember you are only seeing like 3% of my life Wink

amother

Ivory

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 6:35 am

Scheduling everything is my favorite thing to do. Everything is on the schedule and split between me and dh: washing laundry, folding, bathrooms, kitchen, cooking, bills, banking... I cook weekday suppers on Sunday that way we just microwave after work; I know a lot of people where this one is a big help. I also only shop on Sundays and if we don't have an ingredient we wait until next week. Legal holidays are for making challah to keep the freezer stocked. Basically, the biggest trick is to be super over organized. Yes, I fall apart, but because we follow the schedule, everything keeps going. I seem calm because I am on top of everything because it is all scheduled. In short, I have room to crash and fall apart when needed and that keeps me calm.

cnc

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 8:30 am

cozyblanket wrote:

I agree.

I used to work full full time-coming home with my kids (I picked them up on the way home).
I work just a couple of hours a week now and I always look back at the days (years) that I worked full time and wonder how in the world I managed.

amother

Aqua

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 8:48 am

There is always something that's gotta give. In my case it's dinners. Super simple, leftovers, sandwiches, etc. I cook a real dinner maybe once a week and sometimes weeks go by without it. Always make extra for shabbos so I have leftovers for a night or two. I'm lucky that my kids love it and much prefer grilled cheese over chicken anyway. I officially don't let them watch during the week but if I'm crashing sometimes we will watch something tog and at least I feel like we are spending time tog.

amother

Papaya

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 9:02 am

My husband is a SAHD. That's how I survive. When he was working I was making 5 times as much as him and still doing all the childcare and housework, plus dealing with unreliable babysitters. So we realized the smart thing would be for him to quit his job.

My daughters ask me why they have a mommy who works and a tatty who cooks. I tell them that different families find different things that work for them.

zaq

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 9:24 am

amother wrote:

all these mothers who are so calm and together and work full time. Everyone around me works as nurses, speech therapists, etc and also has a long day at work. They are all pleasant and happy and able to watch their kids, keep house clean, and keep their life functioning.

.

You're seeing only one small slice of their lives--the entryway and living room of the house, if you will. You have no idea what is really going on in the rest of the house.

. You don't in fact know that the mothers are 'so calm and together." They may be good actresses and really be falling apart inside. They may act pleasant in public and scream like lunatics when no one else is around. Their families may be months overdue for healthcare checkups, they may be thousands of dollars in debt, they may have all kinds of difficulties that they are not letting anyone see.

But if they are, in fact, pleasant and happy and competent and organized and so on and so forth, so what? The KBH gave people different abilities, and to some he gave more than others. Quit comparing yourself to others. Just be the best you can be at this point in your life. being a parent who works fulltime outside the home is VERY HARD. Do the best you can and be proud of your accomplishments without comparing them to anyone else's, because there will ALWAYS be people who accomplish more than you. And may I point out that there are SAHMs who look at you and feel inferior because their house looks worse than yours even though you work fulltime and they don't? And they can't imagine how you do it?

Be like Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli who said "I'm not afraid that after 120 I will be asked why I was not Moshe Rabbenu. I'm afraid I will be asked why I was not Zusha of Anipoli." IOW, strive to fulfill your own potential, not anyone else's.

iammom

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 11:02 am

OP I feel the same. I work about 35 hours a week. The only time to do things is at night when I'm EXHAUSTED! Plus my husband is in yeshiva on Sunday til 7 pm so I can't use Sunday to stock my fridge or go clothes shopping for yom tov etc (I have a few young kids underfoot who require lots of attention)

Also the problem with working full time is that it's hard to find a cleaning lady in the evening (I don't feel comfortable letting her be in my house alone).

So I'm the cleaning lady, cook, mom and money earner.

My husband helps a lot but It's something I really struggle with as well.

I try to give myself pep talks- you're amazing! You're superwoman! You're the person your whole family depends on!! You're amazing!! You're exhausted for good reasons BH...

amother

Cerulean

Fri, Sep 16 2016, 1:36 pm

If you can identify 1 challenging area of your life (laundry? Dinner? Groceries? Bedtime?) and come up with a system, that area will be under control and on automatic pilot within a month or so. Then move on to the next challenge until you have a good handle on the flow of household obligations. I am by nature a very organized person but when I am pregnant I become pretty dysfunctional. The only way I keep it together is by doing the bare minimum to maintain my systems. So if you are not organizationally inclined or by nature a high energy person, figure out how you can tackle each task and master it and then move onto the next. Your system can also be involving other people to do parts or all of that task for you. You can bet that as soon as my kids are old enough, they will each take one night a week to be in charge of preparing and packing lunch and snack for their siblings, for example. Laundry system = one load darks and one towels after shabbos, one load whites and another darks Wednesday night. Linen every second Sunday, kids get to fold while watching magic school bus or babysitter folds or no folding, bins for jumbled clean clothes in each room, etc. if any of these would work for you...
You can do it!