I’m sick of the drudgery of parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two and can barely manage. Don’t know how the 3+ parents do it!

Same. My only regret in life is... deciding we had to have a second child. Life was so great and manageable with one. Then came number two and everything is constantly a s&%*&show. I can't imagine three.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two and can barely manage. Don’t know how the 3+ parents do it!

Same. My only regret in life is... deciding we had to have a second child. Life was so great and manageable with one. Then came number two and everything is constantly a s&%*&show. I can't imagine three.

I'm often drowning with one. I can't imagine more. There's just so much to do.

[Anonymous]

As soon as they can write you get those kids filling out the forms themselves. For online - if they can figure out tik tok they can learn the school portal.

They can take their laundry up and put it away or dress themselves from the basket. Kids their age work in a coal mine somewhere - they can do more than you think. Offload as much as you can.

[Anonymous]

Parenting drudgery gets to me sometimes, but at least it comes with the satisfaction of raising a person. Parenting is more rewarding than a lot of other things, which helps. The drudgery of trying to keep the house clean despite efforts of children, animals, and my husband to make it as mess as possible drives me a little nuts, but I can deal.

It's all the other drudgery that gets to me, the stuff that has nothing to do with raising a kid. Bills, taxes, commutes, home maintenance, car maintenance, social obligations I don't actually enjoy, etc. Most of it feels like a little hamster wheel, and so much of this stuff is harder than it needs to be. This week I needed lightbulbs so I went to buy some but of course they didn't have what I needed in store, so I went online and ordered them but then showed up and half of them were broken so I had to return them, and then reorder them. I've spent over an hour trying to acquire lightbulbs this week and still don't have them.

At least when I do stuff for my kid there's usually an actual payoff.

[Anonymous]

You are doing a service to your kids and to humanity. Its a thankless job but its much more important than most silly jobs people in corporate cubicles are doing.

Dumb. How do you know OP doesn’t work and have one of those silly cubicle jobs?

[Anonymous]

I don’t do all the different portals. I pay a bill with my credit card as a guest if need be. I don’t need more user names/passwords to remember.
I feel like most of this is just part of parenting. If you sign up kids for activities/sports you know that the schedule, gifts etc are part of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parenting drudgery gets to me sometimes, but at least it comes with the satisfaction of raising a person. Parenting is more rewarding than a lot of other things, which helps. The drudgery of trying to keep the house clean despite efforts of children, animals, and my husband to make it as mess as possible drives me a little nuts, but I can deal.

It's all the other drudgery that gets to me, the stuff that has nothing to do with raising a kid. Bills, taxes, commutes, home maintenance, car maintenance, social obligations I don't actually enjoy, etc. Most of it feels like a little hamster wheel, and so much of this stuff is harder than it needs to be. This week I needed lightbulbs so I went to buy some but of course they didn't have what I needed in store, so I went online and ordered them but then showed up and half of them were broken so I had to return them, and then reorder them. I've spent over an hour trying to acquire lightbulbs this week and still don't have them.

At least when I do stuff for my kid there's usually an actual payoff.

+1 to all this the struggle is real

[Anonymous]

I'm the youngest of four. My parents both worked stressful jobs. I marvel how they did it. And were kind of wild teenagers. No nannies or outside help. We all had chores which many kids do not seem to have today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t do all the different portals. I pay a bill with my credit card as a guest if need be. I don’t need more user names/passwords to remember.
I feel like most of this is just part of parenting. If you sign up kids for activities/sports you know that the schedule, gifts etc are part of that.

This is rarely an option. Do you have older kids? Everything is a portal and all different ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Wow, this message is extremely rude!

[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?

You have to make it end, you can't just wait. You've got three kids, you can't do everything. Full stop.

Your new policy on gifts is - if there's a link to donate, I'll donate, the end. Stop coordinating and planning. Do you work? When I was a kid, a lot of these kinds of tasks were met by my mother with a "that's for parents who don't work." I was disappointed for about a second and got over it because your kids don't actually care about this stuff and looking back now? Legendary. A+ mom, no notes.
How old are your kids? Are they neurotypical? You need to focus on moving executive functioning stuff to them. They need to remember school projects and quizzes and hand you field trip forms to sign. Start slowly, but with three kids, at least some of them have to be old enough to start managing this. A neurotypical third grader should be handling all of this, and you should be helping minimally and only when asked. Certainly by 4th or 5th grade, you should be out of this stuff, but it will require some active skill building to get there.
"Sorry I couldn't be there! I had fun at the aquarium back in March, but this week I need to focus on work" - without guilt. I mean sheesh, my parents chaperoned a grand total of one field trip my entire childhood, it was really nice and special, and I turned out just fine.
Sounds like your kids are in too many activities. Start making cuts. "Ridiculous schedules?" They're not going to the olympics, scale it back. Have more time where you all just hang out at home and they're bored. It's character building.
The stuff that you have to do you need to split with your spouse. If you're doing camps and activity signups, he can do medical appointments. Or vis-versa. Get some of this stuff off your lap.

No advice on "every doctors dentist orthodontist appointment resulting in multiple bills each with their own system of payment and own portal and messaging system" - this is the bane of my existence and I just end up ranting to my husband about how we should have single payer health care because this stuff is such an absurd waste of time and energy, society-wide. You have my sympathies there.

Bottom line - go against the grain here. Your kids would rather have a happy and relaxed mom than more field trip chaperoning. Really.

[Anonymous]

Brava, brava!

[Anonymous]

Simplify and reduce the drudgery of parenting so you can enjoy it instead of grinning and bearing it. What this means for me: selecting only one camp so there’s only one enrollment, no activities on weekends, only extracurriculars that at offered at aftercare in school. Swim class is the only one I chose that’s not at school, but I found a club offering classes close by so I drive there after school pick-up, it offers different levels so both kids can be in the pool at the same time, I shower them and put them in pajamas there after class so home is just dinner, books and bed. At school, I volunteer only for the things I’m willing and excited to do and is a valuable use of my time. Gifts are orchids from the supermarket because im already there. A big help was paying for lunch and snacks at school so i don’t pack lunches. If im a mom that has time to do me, im also more present for them and enjoy them much more rather than resenting these tasks that really don’t matter to them - they want a happy parent.

[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.

Pro-tip: You can buy like $100 of them for $75 at Costco.

[Anonymous]

Stopping hitting yourself. Your kid doesn’t need all that junk you do to keep up with the Joneses.