If you were a sahw, would you expect your husband to contribute to housework?

[Idrileena]

If you were a stay at home wife with grown up children who don't live at home anymore. Would you expect your husband to contribute to housework/cooking etc... after work and/or on weekends? If so, how much?

Thank you

Well, obviously it was in response to your posts - I'm not bothered at all about your life choices though, I'm not funding you!

You really should learn to recognise sarcasm...although I'd have thought the laughing emojis after me stating I'm 'out spending my partners earnings', in response to a particularly goady poster, would have been a big clue to anyone with a brain.

I spend a lot of my time running an animal rescue, funded by ourselves and donations. So although I don't go out to work as such, have no earnings and make no profit doing this, I'm a bit busy to be out 'spending my partners earnings'. A big proportion of OUR money is spent on what the animals need, including usually thousands of pounds a month on vet bills and food. My partner would much rather me spend my time with the animals than cleaning the house and cooking his dinner. 😉

And for what it's worth, my partner wouldn't care if I was out 'spending his earnings' (as the goady poster wrote), on things for me.....it just so happens I think animals need it more and it makes us all happy.

People should think before they say stupid goady shit. 😊

Good on you for running a rescue 👍. Like I said up thread something about the subject of SAH makes some people really pissy 🤣. I do have a small business about 2 days per week but I am a SAHW I do more in the community than I ever did while employed.

Good on you for running a rescue 👍. Like I said up thread something about the subject of SAH makes some people really pissy 🤣. I do have a small business about 2 days per week but I am a SAHW I do more in the community than I ever did while employed.

Thank you.

Yes, I've noticed the issue some people have with those who SAH, both online and IRL. This thread has a few examples of those people, they can't just answer the question, they have to get their digs in about living off someone else and spending someone else's money. 🙄 It doesn't occur to them that it may be something that suits both partners and other things going on in their life as well as being able to do stuff like get involved in community and charity.

Yes drives me absolutely mad, this idea that unless you are working for money your contribution is worthless. I dread to think what would happen to our community if all the SAHP’s stopped volunteering.

I’ve done loads of volunteering over the years and plenty of people who WOH also volunteer - it’s certainly not confined to SAHP.

No. I would wonder why you aren't working though tbh.

Did I say it was confined to SAHP?!

Did I say you did?

Well by saying “it’s certainly not confined to SAHP” implies that someone asserted it did.

Good for them, its not a competition.

For me, the fact is, I don't need to work and I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I worked. I also have other things in my life that means me working isn't the best thing for our family.

The OPs question was about whether people who don't work, expect partners who do work, to do things in the house. As usual, there's the usual ill thought out and goady comments from posters who do not know others circumstances, judging people who SAH.

This.

Exactly. It also isn't a given that SAHP volunteer.

I concur. Paid work isn’t the only valuable work.

I think it’s a semantics thing and really depends how someone decides to answer a question around what they do with their time. If someone spends a significant chunk of their time “volunteering” then are they really a SAHP? Same as those who say they’re a SAHP but are doing a university course…. They’re a student surely? SAHP suggests you are staying at home looking after children for the bulk of your time. I’m not sure when “housewife” became “SAHW” as per the topic of this thread.

SAHP = not in paid work, looking after children

SAHW = housewife = not in paid work, looking after the home

Student & volunteer = self explanatory

Someone who isn’t looking after children, not doing the bulk of the housework, not studying, not regularly volunteering = unemployed

I think in reality most of us do a mix of those sorts of things anyway. I can see why people are salty about those who aren’t doing much of any of them. (FWIW, I’m not, I’m fortunate enough to have a good balance in my life.)

No it doesn’t - and if you’ve interpreted it that way then that’s your choice. If people generally stopped volunteering then communities would suffer.

But you are okay with one person contributing absolutely zero financially and putting every single expense on one person? Why is it okay for one adult to shirk all responsiblities in one area and leave 100% of it to the other, but not the other way?

Living off someone else entirely is usually called a lot of names like cocklodger, moocher, user, freeloader, sponger, parasite etc.

Hard to imagine that far ahead but yes, a bit.
I'd assume there was a reason I wasn't working - health issues, my career massively impacted by supporting his etc., and that we were both in agreement. I wouldn't assume it means he can walk in, drop his pants in one corner, how plate in another and lounge on the sofa whilst I iron his pants.

So probably washing up after dinner with me (one wash, one dry or alternate loading the dishwasher), tidying up after himself, cooking once on a weekend, doing the garden together etc

I would imagine in a 40 hour a week SAHW role for a household of 2 adults, there would be very little left over to do. You could easily fit home repairs, home maintenance, gardening, lawncare etc on top of all the housework, cooking, cleaning, laundry etc into that 40 hours. I don't even know how one would fill 40 hours to be an 'equal' contributer.

I find this seriously offensive.

Last year I was working 5 days a week (Monday and Wednesday's were my days off, and I attended driving school here in Japan on those days so I was effectively doing 7 day weeks - you have to go to an actual school here with lectures and everything to get a driving license, and it takes months).

I got exhausted and depressed mainly due to the unsociable hours of the job (Thursday's for example was from about 11 am until 10 pm, and Friday's until 9 pm followed by both weekend days) and my work put pressure on me not to get pregnant, so my husband suggested just quit and marry him. Which I did, and moved to live with him in the countryside.

I looked to open my own English language school but the population is in such decline in this rural area (it's still a town of 40,000 but there are more people aged over 100 than under 1) that it's not possible, and my Japanese isn't yet good enough for the scant mainstream work that is available.

When we married I gave him all my savings - a few thousand pounds as we knew I might be out of work for a long time (below the tax threshold - there's no such thing as joint accounts here and money transferred between husband and wife is taxable above a million yen). We also planned for me to get pregnant anyway (which I now am) so work would have to be paused anyway.

As we moved into an old family house belonging to a dead relative there was an enormous amount of work to be done to make it livable (husband was sleeping and living in the floor of just one room) so I did all of that, and do all the general cleaning, cooking etc. If the weathers bad I go to pick him up from the station, help shovel snow etc, and will be taking my next Japanese language exam in December of this year.

I am in no way a 'freeloader' or an f*ing 'parasite'. I don't know why people on mumsnet have an overly negative view of women who stay at home but there are A LOT of situations which can result in that circumstance.

The language on here makes me feel ashamed to presently find myself a SAHW, which is felt more acutely by the fact that I have been financially independent in the past, and currently, as much as I'd love a job, I simply can't right now.

My husband loves and supports the situation we're in so that we can be together, I don't see why people like you have a right to judge our life set-up. He certainly doesn't feel I'm a 'freeloader'

But you are okay with one person contributing absolutely zero financially and putting every single expense on one person? Why is it okay for one adult to shirk all responsiblities in one area and leave 100% of it to the other, but not the other way?

Exactly. and some people think it's a privilege. I'd see it as a burden.

It has nothing to do with women. It is the same as men who contribute nothing financially, don't work, and live entirely off their wives.

And I didn't judge your set up. You chose to take it personally.

Listen, this entire place is packed with people with a serious chip on their shoulder. You don't owe them an explanation and their judgement is entirely incidental to your life, your values and the love and respect of people you have in your day to day world. Don't give them this kind of space in your head.

@saffronsoup

I also never specified women

Living off someone else entirely is usually called a lot of names like cocklodger, moocher, user, freeloader, sponger, parasite etc.

This is judging my set-up

@Desecratedcoconut

Thanks, yeah you're right. Jealousy maybe...

Very insulting and I think you meant it to be .

It's not necessarily jealousy. Just a rigid world view that benefits from denigrating the decisions of others that don't chime with their own. Sometimes it still affords a useful perspective and sometimes it's just an articulate shit-fit.