I don't know if other people have noticed this, but there are SO many LLM-generated posts on this sub. It's starting to become unusable for me. Is anyone else feeling this way?

For example, just this morning there have been multiple posts that seem to be from bots. They claim to be some kind of "update" but the person has a private profile and no links to the previous ones. Their bio is a one-liner tech bro stereotype, like move fast and break things. They're sharing some kind of success story and asking for people to provide "scripts" for a part that person is still struggling with. I assume they're karma farming attempts.

Of course, there are also the astroturfing posts promoting some app or another.

I'm finding this in other female-focused subreddits as well and it makes me angry that our spaces are being ruined to make someone else some money. I'm not sure what I'm trying to get out of this post, solidarity or a solution, but I'll take whatever! For now, I'm going to be reporting things as AI slop.

Daycare is going to drive me insane.

In the last three weeks we have missed five days and been called four times. I am going to lose my sleep mind because while my work is trying to be accommodating it is hard to constantly need to be out.

The first call us because they had to wake my baby up because he was breathing weird. Went down to get him because they were so concerned. Doctor said there was nothing wrong with him.

The second time was because he was coughing and threw up. Fine that is legit. Picked him up and then we struggled to go 24 hours without throwing up because he had a runny nose and would just keep coughing until he threw up and then would smile and play the rest of the day.

The third time was yesterday because his eye was pinks I knew he didn’t have pink eye because he was still on medicine from having the throwing up incident. Told them it was because he had been coughing and he had broken a blood vessel and it was healing. They said no it was pink eye. I went to get him. Asked what the return policy was they said he would need a note to return told them I would be back on two hours. Sure enough back in two hours, no pink eye.

The they called me today because he has pink spots on his arms. I am going to go crazy. He didn’t have them when he left, slept through the meals at daycare so just had his bottle. The only thing he did different was play outside. Is it prickly heat? Who know? They said they would call me if it got worse…

I am going to lose my mind. We have been pretty constantly sick since January. But these last four weeks are killing me. So frustrated. I desperately do not want to be fired nor keep paying doctor since we have seen them six times in the last three weeks. Even though this is where we are in life right now. Does this season of illness was ever end? Will we ever not be sick?

Not really sure if this is the right subreddit for this one, but also I feel like you guys just get it so here it goes.

I'm in that ragey/depressive/emotional/mental-breakdown phase of PMS-ing so I know I'm not coming from a "logical" place at the moment, but I still feel like this even when in my "normal" state of mind, it's just not so heightened.

I feel like my time is not my own. I work full time and outside of that we've got all the things for my 8 and 10 year olds. Not a ton of extra-curriculars or anything but it's just always something - a school festivity, a performance, swim lessons, piano, etc. Most of that lands during the week but some of it on the weekends. I feel like every weekend for the past six or so, I have tried to block off our calendar to get home projects done and spring cleaning and it just didn't really happen. I maybe got one good weekend in of hard work but our house is still a disaster and the yard needs so much work. My plan was to have this all done by the time summer came around so we could go into maintenance mode and I wouldn't feel the intense desire to deep clean every single day. Here we are now and school is out starting tomorrow and nothing feels done. I know it can never be actually "DONE" but I just mean, it feels like there is so much deep cleaning and stuff that should be done in order for us to feel good about it.

Now, on to the good part (with lots of sarcasm). Our calendar is already filling up like crazy for the summer. My MIL wants to have the kids (which is more a favor to her and a burden on us because we have to do all the planning and driving to and from and of course their nervous systems are a mess by the time they come back to us, but that's for a different post), a bunch of play dates, and then some things I really do want to do like spend time with friends, etc. But it's just so much. I try blocking time off just for family time or just keeping weekends open so we can decide what we want to do or just relax and spend time together - this is the time that always seems to get overidden by other people's plans/requests. I know how to say no to things most of the time if we really don't need or want to do it, but lots of this stuff does align with what we want so it's like we just cram it in there and then I actually don't have time to myself ever or just weekends to spend lazily hanging out with my family and then I get super resentful and annoyed and "ragey" lol.

I'm also very very introverted so social time is draining. I like it but need time to decompress after, which I don't get with two kids, obviously. I'm secretly taking today off of work just to have a few hours to myself before the summer ramps up and the kids are home everyday.

We don't have extra money to pay for cleaners nor would I want to. And, quite honestly I love cleaning and doing the hard work to get our house in shape. I just feel like most of the time the demands outweigh my capacity and it all leads to me wanting to break down and cry at every moment because I literally can't do it all.

I don't even know if this will all make sense to anyone else of if it's just a brain dump of my random thoughts but I guess just looking for solidarity.

I have a male coworker who I'm constantly having to temper myself around his temper tantrums. He's not my supervisor, but we work for the same division and he's slightly higher than me within that division. That said, he often is wrong in what he tells the people and companies that we serve. So I get to go to my supervisor and request assistance in correcting him to avoid his tantrums. It's so frustrating. I already have a man child at home that I have to put emotional effort into keeping the status quo with– I shouldn't have to do it at work as well.

All I can do is hope I am raising my son with enough emotional intelligence to not be like these man-babies that I have to deal with on a constant basis.

A rant/vent/dump of what’s going on. TL;DR— only working 2 days/week this summer, using the time to support my teenager and catch up on a million things.

I work at a nonprofit where I’m (in practice) a director of one of the core departments. Tons of projects, emails, expectations, responsibilities. I’m managing it all fine as-is but work continues to pile up.

My teenager was just released to us from residential care after a 90 day stay following threats of suicide. I qualify for FMLA / PFL and am planning on only working 2 days a week (Tuesday/Thursdays) and using PFL + sick leave to cover my salary so we don’t take any financial hit. I’ll have enough to cover me on a 2/day week salary until September starts. HR and my boss (C-level) are thankfully very supportive so I don’t think this’ll be an issue. Work is going to suffer, but fucking… whatever.

My toddler will be in daycare 9-5. We qualify for a lot of mental health services through our insurance, so we’re going to have about 5-6 different mental health providers helping us with our teenager. Some will be coming to our house, some will be remote, and some will be in person appointments. The school district has also shown up in a good way— we had an ERMHS assessment and have an IEP meeting on Friday with about 6 different district employees. My teenager starts public high school in the fall and will be fully using all of the resources our district has available to us (of which, they’ve offered us a great many).

This summer is going to be a lot of administrative coordination, transportation, phone calls, paperwork, emails, keeping my teenager occupied, calling in our village, activities, supervision, extracurriculars, chores, bonding, home projects (fixing up her room, the toddlers room, etc.)… The to-do list stretches on.

I don’t even have a nice way to conclude these thoughts. I’m just metaphorically barfing into a Reddit post. Thanks for reading.

I'm not sure what this is even about. I'm not really looking for any responses except for maybe solidarity. I have an office job that requires me to work 9 hours in office with a 1 hour commute each way. So minimum 11 hours outside of the house every dang day. They took our hybrid away, I think I cried for a month straight. I'm at my wit's end. It's so hard to balance it all. I want to be a good mom but I also need to just be an employee but I also just don't care about my job. Sometimes I feel like I'm failing on all fronts and I think it's because we're not supposed to do it all but somehow we are managing it all so of course we just feel like we're failing at everything. my husband's great, he does a lot too. He's also super burnt out. We're all just trying to survive. I started feeling really sick last night, I woke up so crappy this morning. I ended up taking a day off. I've done nothing but take my kid to daycare and just lay on my couch all day. Just really in the dumps and feeling like a failure sometimes

I am a WFH mom with in home care. We are on waitlists for daycares. We have one 20 month old and I’m almost 7 months pregnant with our second.

Sometimes our sitter will need to cancel and she does a pretty good job of letting us know ahead of time. At that point I will ask my in laws who live close because they’ve offered in the past and I get lectured about never asking for help. So I get it.

But every time I ask they’re not available. Sometimes they will say yes, but 80% of the time they cancel as well. They are retired and financially comfortable, they travel a lot and keep busy.

Both of us work a lot and we keep busy on the weekends, they travel most weekends to see SIL. We just don’t have any free time. But the in laws want to see our baby more and I just can’t imagine how we would be able to make time for them without taking PTO or something??

Any ideas welcome! We will be on leave soon after I give birth but they will be traveling after the baby is born.

I've been in my current role for 3.5 years. Had a brilliant maternity leave with my son, but now 6 months in back at work and I'm struggling to pull myself together. I work in a corporate role, and it just isn't fulfilling any more.

I used to get a real kick from doing good work, but generally have always had to put on a performance at work, pretend I'm interested and invested. But now I'm barely managing to be convincing. I just don't care about the work and the corporate jargon has me constantly suppressing eye rolls. It's all so meaningless compared to my life/job as a mum.

Do other people feel like this? I'm contemplating whether I blow up with life with a complete career u-turn, or if this is just a normal feeling that will pass with time.

I am going back to work in September. My daughter gets out of school at 3:10 and I can’t be at pick up until 315. The aftercare in her school is one rate no matter how long you stay. She will likely still be walking to the after care room when I get there. That’s how short her time there will be. She needs this 4 days a week. It seems insane to spend 400 dollars a month for this 😩. Has anyone been in a situation like this and come up with a good hack to avoid it? Are schools lenient for a few minutes. She will be in Kindergarten so this is my first time dealing with a k-12 school pick up. Thanks!

I'm 5 months postpartum and my filter is gone. Work is bonkers and I took on a little light leadership responsibility when I returned a few months ago. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. The part of me that cared to control what I say is gone. I'm a kind person, thankfully, so I'm not insulting anyone, and a stoic, but I also have a cynical side and she is fully present. I'd describe my default attitude as devil may care.

Meanwhile I'm loving being a mom, so thankfully I have all the sunshine and rainbows at home. Thanking my lucky stars.

My current strategy, if you could call it that, is to go ahead and see what I can get away with. I was such a careful teachers pet before, I'm sure there's plenty of stuff that will fly. When I learn what doesn't I just have to hope to adjust, I guess. My work is not corporate but it is professional so there are some standards.

I need to hear from the working mom's who have been through this before. How did it go? What went wrong? Am I good, or do I need some tough love?

Please at the very least state your country of residence when asking for advice or information where this info is relevant. There are so many posts here where the answer depends on currency, laws, healthcare systems etc. Not asking anyone to reveal personal information just a general location would help commenters to provide relevant answers and also for readers to know if this info is applicable to them. I know the majority of active posters here are US moms but this is a global group, so we shouldn't assume this to be the default.

My youngest is now 2.5. With my first, I remember starting to feel like myself more around this age, and starting to (slowly) take on challenging projects at work again. This time around, my mom brain is still in full effect, and I just don't have the intellectual capacity that I used to. I keep thinking to myself "I used to be smart and now I feel dumb all the time." There are some differences this time around, sure; my youngest had colic and was a terrible sleeper for the first year, and I'm still recovering from the brutal sleep deprivation. I had thyroid cancer in February and surgery to remove my thyroid, and I'm still adjusting my levels and dealing with chronic fatigue, and life is just that much busier now with 3 kids (also have a 5 yo stepson who we have half the time.) But still, the level of decline in my cognitive abilities is staggering. There's no way I could ace law school now like I did 15 years ago....I'm grieving the loss of who I used to be.
Anyone dealing with the same? Is there any hope of having a functional brain again?!

Hi everyone! I am returning to work at the end of September after having my friend little one. I want to acknowledge I know how lucky we are in Canada to have a year of maternity leave but I still feel so daunted and overwhelmed with the thought of having to leave my year old daughter all day, 5 days per week.

I am just looking for some coping strategies other parents found helpful with the transition back to work and insight. Does it eventually start to feel normal? Do you actually enjoy being back to work and away from the home?

Thank you!

In our district, budget cuts resulted in the public elementary school nearby getting closed. It was the best school in the district and it resulted in my address being directed to the worst school in the district. Worst as in, lowest funded, highest ratio of children to teachers, highest turnover in the state, the building literally is in constant repairs because things are falling apart (I used to work for the consulting firm that reviewed their building efficiency), I volunteer for a reading program and this was one of the few that didn’t even have a projector in their library. The schools’ students assessment was also way beneath the nationwide average.

My oldest is going to kindergarten this fall and my youngest is in daycare. The preschool my oldest went to was fantastic and he’s learned so much and developed way beyond I thought possible. The daycare is just okay, but not enriching. The daycare teachers are fine.

I have the opportunity to enroll both kids at a nearby Montessori that is 2 mins from my work office. It’s much more enriching for the toddler and so much better option for kindergarten. The only drawback is the monthly cost for this is more than our mortgage.

Is it worth it? We have some savings but it will drain us out. I just changed to a lower paying job to spend more time with the kids but I have an offer to go back to a higher paying job that pays for everything but I’ll be missing out on a lot of the kids’ things.

TLDR: switch from low paying job that affords me time with the kids to high paying job that doesn’t but affords the private school that is so much better for the kids? Or just use savings and have nothing for kids college or retirement?

Looking for advice from other working moms on splitting childcare sick days without it turning into long-term resentment or me spiraling with guilt.

We have a toddler in daycare in a big city, so someone always brings home a bug. Both of us work full time, but my job is very deadline driven and client-facing. If I have to cancel or drop out of a meeting at the last minute, people notice. My partner has a bit more flexibility, so he ends up taking most of the daycare pickup days and staying home when the fever hits.

Logically we agree it makes sense for him to cover more because the impact on his job is smaller. Emotionally, though, I feel terrible. I feel like I am failing at parenting and like I am offloading the hard stuff onto him. When I do stay home, I spend the day stressed and then try to catch up on work at night, which makes me cranky and not very present either.

How do you approach this so it feels fair over time, not just practical on paper?

Specific questions:

1) Do you track sick days at all, or does that just make things worse?

2) If one job is less flexible, how do you compensate the other parent so it still feels fair to both of you?

3) Any phrases or ways to bring this up with your partner that do not come off as scorekeeping?

I am not looking for tips on working while also providing childcare. I just want to stop feeling like the default bad guy when work has to come first sometimes.

Just another vent post about how much the United States hates mothers and families. I work for my state government and as of right now, the most amount of time I’m allowed to take off is 6 weeks. I haven’t been with my department for a year yet so don’t qualify for the 12 week paid maternity leave. Instead I must exhaust all of my annual and sick time and can then, thankfully, use the long term disability I signed up for at the start of my employment. I am so distraught about the thought of returning to work after 6 weeks. I know others have it much worse and I’m so thankful that I get to work from home, but I just can’t believe that this country and our politicians wonder why birth rates are plummeting.

For context, we're both in our mid-30s. We have a 2-year-old and another baby due next month. My husband works in acquisitions and I have honestly never met someone who thinks about work as much as he does. He talks strategy constantly, replays conversations with coworkers, obsesses over deals, and spends a huge amount of mental energy on his job.

When we were dating and first married, it didn't really bother me. We both worked hard and it was interesting hearing about what he was doing. But now that we have a family, my patience for it has completely disappeared.

I also have a demanding career and make about the same amount he does (sometimes more), so it's not like I don't understand. But at the end of the day, I want to come home and be present with our family. I don't want our entire evening to revolve around whatever happened at the office.

Last night was kind of the breaking point. It was our son's 2nd birthday. I was looking forward to a family evening opening presents and FaceTiming grandparents. Earlier that day, I had also learned that my uncle had passed away. It wasn't unexpected (he had been in hospice with cancer), but it was still sad.

Meanwhile, my husband had lost a big deal at work and could not stop talking about it. The entire evening felt overshadowed by his disappointment. It was like no matter what else was happening, work was still the main character.

I've talked to him about this before. I've asked that he not launch into work discussions the second he gets home. I've suggested waiting an hour, or ideally until after our toddler is asleep so we can actually have an adult conversation. But it never really sticks. What bothers me even more is that his mood rises and falls based on what's happening at work, which affects the entire household.

So I guess I'm looking for perspective. Does anyone else have a spouse like this? Did it get better? Were you able to help them create boundaries with work, or is this just how some people are wired?

My son seems to have a red spot on his nose. I have the herpes virus (yeah yeah I got it when I was a small child) anyway, I noticed my son has a red spot under his nose. I’m not seeing any blistering but this is the EXACT spot that i get mine atz I haven’t had a breakout since last year so I don’t know if it really is it or not. But I’m panicking.
He can’t sleep right now and when I get mine it’s sore and hurts. I’m wondering if it is herpes for him. He goes to daycare and now I’m terrified. He is 3. I got mine when I was older so I know you can get it at anytime.
Anyone have any advice on what to do? Should I take him to the doctor? I’m just nervous it hurts him IF it is herpes

The other day my 5 year old was home from school for a holiday and I was WFH. I’m trying to set aside time for her on these days so she doesn’t feel super bored/lonely.

While I was trying to wrap up a work task she comes up and starts asking about death and heaven. I thought oh wow what a serious moment, I have to give this the proper amount of attention and immediately closed my laptop for a serious 1-1 conversation. She’s been to a few funerals for my grandparents/her great grandparents so I started asking questions assuming she might have been missing one of these family members.

Anyway after some probing questions, I finally asked “is there someone in heaven that you’re thinking about? Do you miss them?” She immediately replies yes in a forlorn tone and follows up with “George Washington”

😂 I guess they learned about him at school and she’s bummed she won’t meet him. This is one of those little stories I will always think about with a smile. Kids are so unpredictable and I just want to soak up these sweet moments.

Would love to hear any other stories of almost poignant moments with kids

I don’t even know if this is the right place for this but I’m slowly unraveling and not sure how to proceed with my current situation.

I’m even more embarrassed because I posted here a month ago saying I made this exciting career move, including these extra opportunities, etc. Shocker, it of course was not made clear to me that it came with a cost.

My husband and I found out we were expecting in January. I was in a Director role at a well known brand/ company and really making strides in my career including having a lot of opportunities to grow my network and create real value.

We decided we needed to move and the decision was essentially made that I would change roles while he kept his and commuted. I had some real apprehension with staying with my previous company long term, but nonetheless I LOVED the workload and the clients and knew I wanted to stay in the same field and industry but OK with a different environment.

This led to me finding another role in what I thought was the same industry 10 minutes away from our new home. It was a smaller company so I assumed there would be flexibility if needed, workload would be even lower stakes, etc. it was shared to me I would be working on similar, high value, projects and clients. It was also shared with me that I’d be able to earn commission but I reached out to my contacts that shared with me that they wouldn’t want to work with this company, I should move on, etc.

I feel blindsided and upset. It was a 15k pay cut, demotion in title but “optimizing our life for baby” my husband and I kept saying. I am very unhappy with what I’ve been asked to do, and feel like the last 7 years of my career mean nothing as I do incredibly menial tasks and have to answer to somebody I quite frankly don’t respect nor their business practices. I’m trying to be a good sport but when can that stop?

I completely resent my husband over this as I feel he really rushed me to make this decision before we moved and now I’m stuck here so I can qualify for any aid/PFL. He has been wildly supportive and amazing throughout our entire relationship but it’s like he’s hitting a wall here being able to understand me and my feelings right now.

I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or what, but I’ve rushed into a new role/environment before and feel like I saw this coming and showed apprehension and I just kept listening to my partner that it would work out.

I feel vulnerable, ashamed, mad at myself and stuck. I don’t know what to do, but he keeps saying “you probably won’t even care once the baby arrives.” Sure that might be true but then how am I supposed to drop my new baby at daycare knowing this is just not the long term commitment for me? Appreciate any understanding as I don’t feel like he is the person I can talk to about this at all.

My son is struggling a bit with reading at the end of first grade. His teacher (who is absolutely wonderful) recommended a woman for summer lessons. The tutor is an older woman who was her student teacher this year. I talked to her and she doesn't have a set rate, she just asks parents to pay what they feel is appropriate. We're in a moderate cost of living area. We're doing fine financially but I'm the main breadwinner and as a federal employee I'm not getting a raise any time soon. He goes to public school. For added context he's in a Spanish emersion program and she is a native Spanish speaker.

I guess I just need a bit of a reality check, or pep talk, or both. Because I’m about to start a fight with my husband and I don’t know if it’s warranted, lol.

I work as a senior city planner, full time. Got tons of meeting and numerous projects I’m juggling. We are in the middle of moving. Everything’s a mess. I am 30 weeks pregnant. I have. 2.5 yo whose always been high needs and emotional, now in his terrible twos. He screams, cries, hits, throws things, has an attitude, tantrums all the time. Not potty trained yet, not even close. Have multiple appointments I need to go to and need to bring him to. My husband works full time and he just started school as well (yesterday) which is 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday, from 6-9pm. Two of those days are zoom, two in person. Regardless, now I’m single parenting those nights.

That is all. I want to be mad at my husband for starting school right now, but also a big motivation for doing so was to make more money for us. He’s using his GI Bill from the military and gets $2k+ a month while he’s in school full time (while attending at least one class in person) to help pay for housing. And with moving, we upgraded from a 1 bedroom, 630 sf apartment to a 3 bedroom townhome that is much more expensive so we could use the money.

Maybe I’ve been lucky to always have his help and also have daycare during the day, but it’s so hard single parenting a toddler, while also being pregnant and having other things going on as well, with work and moving. I don’t know how I’m gonna get through this pregnancy with this schedule. I already feel huge and uncomfortable, not sleeping well, exhausted, stressed, back pain.

And to top it off, my husband can only take 2 weeks off when I give birth. Last time, he was still in the military and got 3 months off. We also have zero family or friends that lives in our state. So no family help either, until one of our parents can come for short visits.

While I was out on maternity leave with my second baby, the company I am employed at underwent several changes including an acquisition followed by a merger. They’re about to move buildings and we will be cohabitating with another agency that’s also within the same holding company. I’ve returned to work and was surprised to be taken off the team I was on prior to leave and put onto a new team that is really slow. This team barely does anything as the client is currently not requiring a lot of work to be done. On one hand, I’m thrilled to have hardly anything on my plate cause with pumping milk and just overall still feeling quite postpartum I’m welcoming the reprieve. But on the other hand I can’t deny how ominous this feels, to not be busy at a place that normally expects 50+ hour weeks, it’s weirding me out. There’s been a vibe shift that’s palpable, and everyone I’m friendly with has admitted they’re applying for other places fairly openly, my boss is MIA and frazzled. I’m technically an individual contributor as in I don’t have direct reports, but I’m in a leadership role at an associate director level. I was planning to resign at some point anyway because I disliked it before I went out on leave, but now I’m wondering if I should sit tight and wait to be laid off? They’re increasing the office requirement in a month which tells me they’re gonna see who that weeds out first, right? What would you do in this situation? Anyone know what to make of this?