Burning Out.

Before I can start this post I have to make a confession to you all and I expect to get some stick for this.

I read the Daily Mail.

There, I have said it.   I don’t buy it, mind you.  I have a quick stroll through online every morning just to see what is going on with people I don’t really care about.   I should get therapy, I know, but that is a whole different post.

This morning then I read this:  The Burnt Generation   and it really struck a chord.  I mean, really struck a chord.  You get the gist from the headline if you don’t want to click on it and contaminate your browsing history.

The past three weeks for me have been madness.  Days have consisted of working, doing five days of training (including two hours of driving), running a house, doing school runs, and attending end of term school events.   The latter complicated by the fact that all three children are at different schools / colleges.

Can I just point out that I am not saying Mr B hasn’t done anything during that time.  He has.  But there is only so much you can do “outside of the office” when you work 11 hours a day in an office.

Even today, first day when all three children are off, I didnt get a lie in.   Still up at the usual time.  Cleaning the kitchen after teenagers were left to fend for themselves last night / putting washing on / walking the dog all before I start working for six hours.   Then I have to collect E from a sleepover, take all three of them clothes shopping for the holiday.   Think about dinner, walk the dog again, do some more work and find a suitcase to start packing.

Tomorrow will be no different, as well as working I have to spend two hours taking the dog to kennels, emptying the fridge, throwing out flowers, finishing packing, doing more washing, clearing out my car so we can all get in it on Saturday, making sure all bins are empty.   Etc.   Etc Etc.    Leaving a house for three weeks (and before you start thinking about breaking in we have a house sitter who you would not like to make angry.  She could teach Michael Douglas in Falling Down mode a thing or two).

So whilst I don’t have the corporate demands some of those women do I do have the demands that every working mother I know has.   And it is all very well saying “we all need to make time for ourselves” but just how do we do that?

H0w do you stop that hamster wheel?  Somehow I don’t think a one hour massage will fix it.

The article suggests women are “People Pleasers” and that this is the root of the problem.   I disagree with that name tag.   It is that we are the main providers.   I am not “pleasing” children.  I am feeding them.   I am doing their washing.   I am picking them up.   I am dropping them off.   I am shopping for food.  I am cooking dinner for Mr B.  I am organising their lives.   Is that pleasing them?   No, it is doing what has to be done.  Isn’t it?  And if I don’t do it, who does?

I empathise with every statement made in that article.  With every one of those women.   I would love to be able to check myself into the Priory with exhaustion.   But I don’t have time.