Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2015

parsniphead

This is an interesting conversation. I've lived both sides and it's frustrating. When single working 70-80 hours per week. Home was just a bed really and a total state.

Since getting married and having a child life has changed vastly. I'm lucky to work three days, term time but those days are total chaos first and last thing. I guess as women we wanted to come out of the home and 'have it all'. I have no issue with this but I just don't want 'it all' at the same time. To be a SAHM would be wonderful but financially this is impossible. I have total respect for women who work full time not term time. They must be the most organised people around.

[Deleted User]

I still peel spuds once a week on a sunday morning for the week and put in my trusty tuppaware long green lidded box at the back of the fridge in water, I can't get out of the ingrained habit and I retired in 1995 and now live on my own :):):) but still peel the blooming things :):)

GreyQueen

parsniphead wrote: »

This is an interesting conversation. I've lived both sides and it's frustrating. When single working 70-80 hours per week. Home was just a bed really and a total state.

Since getting married and having a child life has changed vastly. I'm lucky to work three days, term time but those days are total chaos first and last thing. I guess as women we wanted to come out of the home and 'have it all'. I have no issue with this but I just don't want 'it all' at the same time. To be a SAHM would be wonderful but financially this is impossible. I have total respect for women who work full time not term time. They must be the most organised people around.

I don't know any colleagues who returned to FT after having children. I know plenty who thought they would, until hit upside the head by the reality of caring for children and running a home. A more normal work pattern is 2-3 days a week, plus using annual leave to cover school hols, plus a lot of family support. Working mothers in my circle usually extend and change their working hours as their children age; for example, once they can get themselves to and fro from school it's much easier.

I'm of the generation whose mothers were some of the first to return to work rather than be SAHMs. In my working-class family, it wasn't done to pursue a career or to have personal fulfillment. It was done because people were so tired of being so poor and, even in the early 1970s, a regular working bloke couldn't earn enough to keep a growing family shod, clothed and fed and have a comfortable home.

Lots of things which are now regarded as essentials; carpetted, centrally-heated homes, washing machines, freezers, colour tellies, cars, holidays, were un-heard of luxuries. I guess you could try living on one wage, but you would be noticably poorer than your peers, which might cause considerable emotional discomfort, adults and children alike.

++++++++++++

Yesterday in Liddly, I purchased what is humourously-described as a medium chicken. It must have lost its headscarf and earrings somewhere because, if the 'medium' bit meant size-wize, a small chicken is now the size of a house sparrow.:rotfl:

Howsomever, I am not phased. I stuffed it with a couple of lemons, part of my bagful of stuff from the magic greengrocer for £1 and had it hot. Allowed the meat to cool somewhat, before carefully dismantling the bird to pick all the meat from the carcase. Ended up with a medium pyrex tureen of meat, then I cooked the carcase down, and removed the bones and non-edible bits once that had cooled, and refridgerated it.

The stock will be the basis of a hearty soup to be made later today and the chicken will see me nicely fed for several days.

I do like a bit of rubber chicken.;)

[Deleted User]

DD1 teaches, is a department head, is activities co-ordinator for the whole school, runs D of E, is the trips advisor, is involved in the enrichment programme for the junior school, is part of the gifted and talented programme, is tutoring a number of pupils on a one to one basis at the request of thier parents,is taken for cover as first choice and loses all her allocated 'free' periods, is the first member of staff the kids go to with problems because they trust her, is the first person parents think to contact if thier child has a problem, is the first person other members of staff go to if they have a problem etc. etc. etc. She leaves home before 7.30 every day and is rarely home before 7.30 most evenings because of after school duties, meetings, commitments. She is always asked to to 'meet and greet' and front of house for school functions, is the member of staff most often asked to go on trips herself,and then has to do all the other things like planning, marking, reports, assessments, when she does get home!!! She uses most of her 'free time' weekends, evenings and holidays to do all the things there isn't time to do in the 24 hour day. Teaching is not as the perception is ' Oh only working 9 to 3.30 and having all those holidays off, you lucky thing!' it's a constant treadmill that leaves you very little time to even go to the loo!!! On those oh so rare occasions that she does get home to us for a weekend, she brings her laptop and works, the only change to routine being that I can make her stop for an hour to walk the dog with me, and I can make sure she is fed. It's a gruelling profession, teaching!

Hard_Up_Hester

I worked full time from when my youngest was 3 months old, I used to spend every Sunday cooking & baking for the week ahead, I still often cook extra meals when I'm doing the Sunday roast.
Mrs LW, I work in a school & we have a lot of frazzled teachers there, especially those with young children.

[Deleted User]

HESTER DD finds that the married staff (she's still single) particularly those wih children actually say in the staffroom 'why should I do........ I have a family, surely those who don't have children should be expected to do the extras, the trips, etc. It's not fair to expect me to do it, they don't have the commitments I do' This is particularly the case with the D of E expeditions where she very often has to beg, plead and go herself in the end when no one else will put themselves out for an activity that is a big selling point on the school brochure. So she not only does her job and also lots of other peoples but also gets lumbered with all the things no one else wants to do by default and is even as I type having to cover a school year trip by filling a gap to take the kids to the venue today and stay until late tomorrow because no one else would!!!

parsniphead

Ah my post seems to have come across not as meant.

I know that teachers have an incredibly hard job which is done during the holidays too. That's one reason I wouldn't want to be a 'regular' teacher. When I was saying three days, term term I was referring solely to MYrole as a college tutor, which perhaps I didn't make very clear. I don't work in a 'normal' college environment either so it's very, very different. I'm very lucky to have the job I do and be able to spend the holidays doing things with my son with only few days of work related work! Which is done free of charge as I'm only paid for 37 weeks of the year rather than full year.

Apologies for any offence caused. Slopes back to lurkdom.

GreyQueen

Oi! Don't slope off anywhere, missus, you're needed here!

[Deleted User]

Don't you dare PARSNIPHEAD!!! we're all for a good debate petal and it's a necessary thing in life to actually be the catalyst that initiates debates on these forums. I only feel so passionately about the teaching profession because I see the hours and effort that goes into it. Thank you for giving me a voice!!! Lyn xxx.

parsniphead

I do have a bit of an easy time teaching (hours wise, not paperwork or the odd left hook wise) and it's in a very odd, quirky environment. I would never be organised enough to do a 'proper' teachers job.