I’m sick of the drudgery of parenting

[Anonymous]

And specifically I mean:

Filling out forms, making appointments, signing up for camps and sports and music lessons, getting kids to and fro and juggling their ridiculous schedules that coaches and instructors feel they can change at the last minute without consequence, helping with (and remembering) school projects and quizzes and end of year gifts for teachers and the class party, criticism from my kids for not chaperoning a field trip when I’ve done several PER KID this year already, end of season gifts for coaches and troop leaders, every doctors dentist orthodontist appointment resulting in multiple bills each with their own system of payment and own portal and messaging system etc etc etc

The thing that’s on me, even though I wouldn’t change it for the world, is that we had three kids. And we do all the same stupid crap families with one kid do.

When does the drudgery end?

[Anonymous]

1. Teach your kids to respect your time.
2. No donations to schools, teachers, coaches.
3. Outsource to the other parent.

[Anonymous]

SAME. And yeah, the separate messaging systems for each drive me insane- the dental messaging, the kaiser permanente messaging, the school system messaging. Enough already. Just email me messages directly to my email.

[Anonymous]

My only advice is to buy $20/25 gift cards in bulk. That way you'll always have one. And you can pass them out like candy during birthdays, teacher appreciation week, coaches.

[Anonymous]

It's not like life without parenting is all that glamorous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And specifically I mean:

Filling out forms, making appointments, signing up for camps and sports and music lessons, getting kids to and fro and juggling their ridiculous schedules that coaches and instructors feel they can change at the last minute without consequence, helping with (and remembering) school projects and quizzes and end of year gifts for teachers and the class party, criticism from my kids for not chaperoning a field trip when I’ve done several PER KID this year already, end of season gifts for coaches and troop leaders, every doctors dentist orthodontist appointment resulting in multiple bills each with their own system of payment and own portal and messaging system etc etc etc

The thing that’s on me, even though I wouldn’t change it for the world, is that we had three kids. And we do all the same stupid crap families with one kid do.

When does the drudgery end?

When the last one goes to college. Though it does ease in HS and when they start driving themselves unless you have one of those weird kids who refuses to learn to drive. When did you think it would end?

[Anonymous]

Is the drudgery less when there's only one child? Or is it basically the same. Trying to family plan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My only advice is to buy $20/25 gift cards in bulk. That way you'll always have one. And you can pass them out like candy during birthdays, teacher appreciation week, coaches.

This is what you should do. The coaches and troop leaders put in a lot of THEIR time for YOUR child’s benefit. Teachers are underpaid and under appreciated. And likely all have families and drudgery of their own. I buy 10 packs of gift cards in $10 and $20 increments and stick one in a card. Or just hand it to them directly. Takes two minutes and shows you’re not taking their efforts for granted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the drudgery less when there's only one child? Or is it basically the same. Trying to family plan

Much, much less.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, Sept, Dec and late May/early June are the roughest months for parenting. And, ours are all in college now, and believe it or not, I miss those hectic times. When all the kids are home, the house is mess with socks, hoodies and sneakers and whatever else they bring home, I wake up to dishes in the sink from their late night/early morning snacks, it just makes me smile

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the drudgery less when there's only one child? Or is it basically the same. Trying to family plan

NP. The work is exponential. I love my kids immensely but yeah 3 kids is drudgery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, Sept, Dec and late May/early June are the roughest months for parenting. And, ours are all in college now, and believe it or not, I miss those hectic times. When all the kids are home, the house is mess with socks, hoodies and sneakers and whatever else they bring home, I wake up to dishes in the sink from their late night/early morning snacks, it just makes me smile

I can understand that. My oldest is about to leave for college - I’ll be so happy when he visits!

[Anonymous]

Omg I know! And I was on a zoom meeting for field trip chaperones (we already needed to be fingerprinted and take a 30 minute online course to be allowed to chaperone) and someone suggested setting up a Slack to communicate on the trip. Noooooo I don’t want to learn how to use yet another thing in order to simply chaperone a field trip!

Our mothers never had to do this much administrative work as parents. It’s out of control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the drudgery less when there's only one child? Or is it basically the same. Trying to family plan

Much, much less.

I agree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And specifically I mean:

Filling out forms, making appointments, signing up for camps and sports and music lessons, getting kids to and fro and juggling their ridiculous schedules that coaches and instructors feel they can change at the last minute without consequence, helping with (and remembering) school projects and quizzes and end of year gifts for teachers and the class party, criticism from my kids for not chaperoning a field trip when I’ve done several PER KID this year already, end of season gifts for coaches and troop leaders, every doctors dentist orthodontist appointment resulting in multiple bills each with their own system of payment and own portal and messaging system etc etc etc

The thing that’s on me, even though I wouldn’t change it for the world, is that we had three kids. And we do all the same stupid crap families with one kid do.

When does the drudgery end?

Three kids are horribly hard. So no sympathy for you unless the second pregnancy was twins or the first pregnancy was triplets.

People with two kids are able to juggle better and enjoy their children and find happiness in parenting. You are probably not even a rich SAHM. Get a nanny to parent your kids.