Division of labour...

[Coolaschmoola]

I work full time, 40+ hours a week.

DH is currently a SAHP to one dc, aged 6 who is at school 9am to 3.30pm. DH does the school runs.

We have a cleaner 2 hours a week, and a gardener once a fortnight.

What should the housework split be?

That'll teach me to post in the middle of the night!

I would say the onus is entirely on him. As he doesn’t go out to work at all, has days off and also has a cleaner once a week.

Do the washing up after he’s cooked the meals yes, but I’d say he has it pretty easy compared to other SAHPs who don’t have cleaners or who have kids at home or mums who work part-time and still do most of the housework.

Tell me, as you’re asking, is there an argument as to what he should be doing?

I'm hoping to gauge opinion before clarifying the situation.

I’d expect the person at home to be doing it all to be honest

I should do it in the week. You both do a share of whatever needs doing at the weekend

I'm hoping to gauge opinion before clarifying the situation

Does that mean that there's going to be a huge drip feed that changes the initial impression that he should do pretty much everything while you are at work and you should just be 'co-operative' by not making his life harder than it needs to be, ie tidy up after yourself, put your things away, washing in the basket (keep anything delicate separate if you don't want any accidents).

If you have a cleaner and a gardener, he should easily be able to manage cooking, shopping, tidying, DIY and most things really so you can spend quality time together in the evenings and at weekends.

He could look at the organised mum method if he's struggling to keep on top of things.

I would say the same if you were the SAHP btw. If one person is working full time and the other is a SAHP of one school age child with a cleaner and a gardener, the SAHP has plenty of time to keep the house running well and have time to themselves during the week.

Maybe you should cook at the weekend a bit or something. Maybe he should look for some part time work, lunchtime shifts in a fast food restaurant, self employed handyman, whatever he is good at?

No, no major dripfeed. Situation as described - I work, he currently doesnt.

In that situation I’d probably say SAHP does most of not everything, as child is at school and there’s already a cleaner picking up a lot of the slack. If the child was preschool age I’d say it should be split.

So he has 6 hours a day, 5 days a week? Unless you live in a 15 bed mansion surely that's more than enough time to manage all household affairs, clean, cook and prepare meals, and sort any admin etc for your 6 year old?

Other than shared parenting in the evenings/weekends and maybe a few chores like a load of washing at the weekend when you're both around and should split things equally, I don't see why you should really be doing any housework. That is essentially his job. Otherwise what does he do all day?!

Morning. I'd say given what is in your OP the stay at home parent should do the majority. I can't imagine there will be too much to do on top of the cleaner's efforts. At the weekend I think it should be shared.

I work full time and my dh works part time 16hrs broken up into two 5hr shifts (on my days off) and three 2hr shifts during nursery hours, I do school drop off and he does pick up, my dh also does all cooking and about 75% of the cleaning. So I do 0% cooking and 25% cleaning and 50% school run, if that's any help to you in dividing it up? We don't have a cleaner though.

Depends what you include in housework. I would say

He does bulk of drudge work (washing, ironing, tidying, changing beds, meal planning, shopping, cleaning in between cleaner visits) but you should take full responsibility for one large or two small drudge tasks.
He cooks 4-5 x, you do 2-3. Share washing up.
He does all the school runs, school admin and after school clubs;
You should take dc to one weekend club if/when they have one.