In this week’s feature, Peninsula Mom, a contractor with 3 kids, reflects on overwork, illness, and primary parenting, and shares the loveliest garbage truck anecdote.
This is all so relatable; right down to needing help but it feeling overwhelming and befriending the garbage dude during the pandemic. Thanks for sharing!
Loved this profile! It feels so similar to my situation.
"We really need extra help but the idea of finding that help, managing that help, having someone else in my space… it feels overwhelming. Then again, so does what we’re doing now, so…" Yes, yes, yes! People will tell me I need to outsource more when I mention periods of overwhelm, but it's not always as easy as it seems. In the past I have outsourced cleaning and childcare, but they both take work and logistics and I'm always the one making the arrangements which feels like just another to-do. Even if I DO outsource it to my husband (he handled finding someone to do lawn care last year), since he's away so much I need to have my hand at least partially in everything since if/when adjustments need to be made, I'm the person at home "on the ground."
As the parent making almost all of the logistical decisions (appointments, school communications, birthday party arrangements) and doing the majority of home management since my husband travels for work ~40% of the time...I just kept nodding while reading Peninsula Mom's story.
That's really interesting Elisabeth. I do sometimes find the advice to outsource more a bit overly simplistic, we have a weekly cleaner and use wraparound care, but otherwise, that's all our civil service/academic budget will allow. And there's certain budget/family values constraints - we try to shop local, rarely do takeout, preference for secondhand, which isn't super consistent with subscribe and save, etc. And if I'd be laughed out of the village if I asked someone to come and prepare meals for us :)
Our lives are more complex in some ways - my 30% travel schedule - but simpler in others (1 kid, minimal activities, etc).
The birthday invites are rolling in and everyone seems to say yes to them, but sometimes it's for a kid my son isn't overly keen on, or inconvenient, and we've chosen to priortise our routines (music lessons) and family/outdoor time.
The weekly cleaner is game changing though - they are in for an hour, and basically we don't do any real cleaning in between? We clean the counters, clean up messes, run the robovac, but other than that, it doesn't get that dirty that it can't wait til Wednesday. I would sacrifice many things before I'd sacrifice the cleaner.
We opted to take a step back from bi-weekly cleanings because my husband took a 6-month sabbatical and then our cleaner was out on medical leave. I found it...a lot of work. She came for 2 hours and was awesome, but it just often felt like inconvenient timing in my day (needed to stay downstairs out of the way, needed to prep a list, she uses our supplies). She is off medical leave and going to do 2 hours once a month (which I know sounds like such a low amount of time), but I want her to make beds with clean sheets + deep clean the main bathroom. Now that we have a robovac, I find it SO easy to keep floors clean. Once every week or so I mop right after the robovac runs (so the floors are already cleared anyway - chairs are up on the table etc). In total, it takes about 20 minutes to do the main floor in our house, which is about how much time I spent prepping for the cleaner to do it (and she vacuumed it all by hand).
So I think some of the oversimplification of outsourcing comes from the fact that the finer details matter. For me, needing to prep for floors to be cleaned (which takes time and I DIDN'T want to use up a big chunk of her cleaning time to pick up furniture). Now my big pain points are making beds and the bathrooms and to know that someone will do the deep cleaning once a month moving forward is filling me with great joy!!
Thank you, Coree, for sharing my week! It especially warmed my heart that my middle's abiding love for garbage trucks made it into the header--it is such a fixture in our ever-evolving weekly routine and has been for three years running. Also, I'm so glad to hear this rang true for others--that makes me feel less alone as I try to navigate life with three small kids.
Love it! When we were in our old flat, we had a relationship with the bin lorries. My son would run, jump on our bed, and look out the window. Here, we're further back from the street.
I made colleagues laugh one day "Ooh, that's a shiny blue bin lorry! I've not seen one like that before!"
Letting go of the guilt over planning a day camp for a long weekend instead of pushing through it really spoke to me. We have a long school weekend coming up and I was planning a "fun" day with dread before it hit me that what my kids really want to do is have a sleepover at their grandparents. Done. No advice, just commiseration and kudos to you for taking the plunge and doing the soccer camp!
I am so glad we did it! I truly wasn't sure how it would go--my middle can get overwhelmed by new things--but everyone had a great time and it was a real confidence boost for all of us. (It helped a lot that I bribed them with Subway, which they had never had, afterwards...) I hear you on the dread of planning a "fun day" and realizing that you can scale way down. Way to go! We were trying to plan a spring break trip when it hit me I didn't want to actually do all of that and we booked a weekend away in a hotel 45 min away with a pool instead. Elementary schooler will go to full-day aftercare, daycare is open, and I am taking time off of work while kids aren't home and I can't wait to knock out some house projects and just breathe a little.
Yes, definitely! My university closes for 2 weeks at Easter. I'm at a conference and then am meeting the family + my in-laws for 4 days, but the second week is just me and T. We have a day at the science festival, but he went to a daycamp in October and has been asking to go back ever since. I booked him 2 days, and then felt slightly guilty, but I can manage the slightly annoying logistics of it, and write in the library/a cafe, etc, and hopefully finish out the term feeling a bit more caught up.
This is all so relatable; right down to needing help but it feeling overwhelming and befriending the garbage dude during the pandemic. Thanks for sharing!
Loved this profile! It feels so similar to my situation.
"We really need extra help but the idea of finding that help, managing that help, having someone else in my space… it feels overwhelming. Then again, so does what we’re doing now, so…" Yes, yes, yes! People will tell me I need to outsource more when I mention periods of overwhelm, but it's not always as easy as it seems. In the past I have outsourced cleaning and childcare, but they both take work and logistics and I'm always the one making the arrangements which feels like just another to-do. Even if I DO outsource it to my husband (he handled finding someone to do lawn care last year), since he's away so much I need to have my hand at least partially in everything since if/when adjustments need to be made, I'm the person at home "on the ground."
As the parent making almost all of the logistical decisions (appointments, school communications, birthday party arrangements) and doing the majority of home management since my husband travels for work ~40% of the time...I just kept nodding while reading Peninsula Mom's story.
That's really interesting Elisabeth. I do sometimes find the advice to outsource more a bit overly simplistic, we have a weekly cleaner and use wraparound care, but otherwise, that's all our civil service/academic budget will allow. And there's certain budget/family values constraints - we try to shop local, rarely do takeout, preference for secondhand, which isn't super consistent with subscribe and save, etc. And if I'd be laughed out of the village if I asked someone to come and prepare meals for us :)
Our lives are more complex in some ways - my 30% travel schedule - but simpler in others (1 kid, minimal activities, etc).
The birthday invites are rolling in and everyone seems to say yes to them, but sometimes it's for a kid my son isn't overly keen on, or inconvenient, and we've chosen to priortise our routines (music lessons) and family/outdoor time.
The weekly cleaner is game changing though - they are in for an hour, and basically we don't do any real cleaning in between? We clean the counters, clean up messes, run the robovac, but other than that, it doesn't get that dirty that it can't wait til Wednesday. I would sacrifice many things before I'd sacrifice the cleaner.
We opted to take a step back from bi-weekly cleanings because my husband took a 6-month sabbatical and then our cleaner was out on medical leave. I found it...a lot of work. She came for 2 hours and was awesome, but it just often felt like inconvenient timing in my day (needed to stay downstairs out of the way, needed to prep a list, she uses our supplies). She is off medical leave and going to do 2 hours once a month (which I know sounds like such a low amount of time), but I want her to make beds with clean sheets + deep clean the main bathroom. Now that we have a robovac, I find it SO easy to keep floors clean. Once every week or so I mop right after the robovac runs (so the floors are already cleared anyway - chairs are up on the table etc). In total, it takes about 20 minutes to do the main floor in our house, which is about how much time I spent prepping for the cleaner to do it (and she vacuumed it all by hand).
So I think some of the oversimplification of outsourcing comes from the fact that the finer details matter. For me, needing to prep for floors to be cleaned (which takes time and I DIDN'T want to use up a big chunk of her cleaning time to pick up furniture). Now my big pain points are making beds and the bathrooms and to know that someone will do the deep cleaning once a month moving forward is filling me with great joy!!
Thank you, Coree, for sharing my week! It especially warmed my heart that my middle's abiding love for garbage trucks made it into the header--it is such a fixture in our ever-evolving weekly routine and has been for three years running. Also, I'm so glad to hear this rang true for others--that makes me feel less alone as I try to navigate life with three small kids.
Love it! When we were in our old flat, we had a relationship with the bin lorries. My son would run, jump on our bed, and look out the window. Here, we're further back from the street.
I made colleagues laugh one day "Ooh, that's a shiny blue bin lorry! I've not seen one like that before!"
Letting go of the guilt over planning a day camp for a long weekend instead of pushing through it really spoke to me. We have a long school weekend coming up and I was planning a "fun" day with dread before it hit me that what my kids really want to do is have a sleepover at their grandparents. Done. No advice, just commiseration and kudos to you for taking the plunge and doing the soccer camp!
I am so glad we did it! I truly wasn't sure how it would go--my middle can get overwhelmed by new things--but everyone had a great time and it was a real confidence boost for all of us. (It helped a lot that I bribed them with Subway, which they had never had, afterwards...) I hear you on the dread of planning a "fun day" and realizing that you can scale way down. Way to go! We were trying to plan a spring break trip when it hit me I didn't want to actually do all of that and we booked a weekend away in a hotel 45 min away with a pool instead. Elementary schooler will go to full-day aftercare, daycare is open, and I am taking time off of work while kids aren't home and I can't wait to knock out some house projects and just breathe a little.
Yes, definitely! My university closes for 2 weeks at Easter. I'm at a conference and then am meeting the family + my in-laws for 4 days, but the second week is just me and T. We have a day at the science festival, but he went to a daycamp in October and has been asking to go back ever since. I booked him 2 days, and then felt slightly guilty, but I can manage the slightly annoying logistics of it, and write in the library/a cafe, etc, and hopefully finish out the term feeling a bit more caught up.