Reply to I’m sick of the drudgery of parenting

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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?[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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