To Be pissed off hubby just called me a housewife....

[CoffeeDog]

SO yes i dont have a 'paid' job but we have 3 kids (5) and (twins 2) DH is rarther annoyed to find his favorite shirt is not ironed for his work piss up tonight and had a rant when i suguested he iron it himself.... including that ironing is part of my 'duties' as a housewife. TBH he's bloody lucky it was washed!!!

AIBU to suguest the various things he can do with said Iron?

YANBU - I have no objection to the term housewife per se, but my DH wouldn't dare moan about something not being ironed - he has a pair of hands and can do it himself. He's aware that whilst I want to be at home with the kids I'm never going to be a domestic goddess and that I get frustrated by the mundane and monotonous nature of being a SAHM, and is happy to help. It's the thing about your 'duties' as a housewife which would really rile me. My DH wouldn't dare say that!!!

YANBU AT ALL! My DH is exactly the same. I'm a SAHM but have started working from home very recently. While the business gets going and I get some work done, the housework has sipped a bit. He came in from work, starting ranting that the dishwasher hadn't been put on. Told him if its so important to do it himself (probably a bit unfair, but he'd pissed me off) he said "Why should I, I've been working all day" I saw red then, and lost it just a little bit! Told him that if he wasn't going to support me I'd have to stop working from home cos its just not going to work. I got an apology AND he cooked tea, while I finished the job I was on!

well yanbu to think he is being an arse having a rant about you not doing the shirt but yabu to be upset he called you a housewife because you are a housewife.

My dh rarely moans that something isnt done (hes not very observant the house would have to be decaying underneath him for him to think it needed attention) BUT if he does moan about something not being done i normally just tell him to either do it himself or get over it and wait until/if i get round to it.

YANBU I got called a housewife by a BBC producer! I had just started work for a radio show and when discussing how varied his team were he said "They're not all Oxbridge....one of them is a housewife!"

What fernier said.

YANBU about the shirt episode but YABU getting upset at being called a Housewife.

You are a Housewife. I'm a Housewife too, unless we have to use some funky new PC name now like 'Home maker'

What DrGrunt said.

I would have to restrain myself from lamping him one tbh. I hate that attitude. I'm a "housewife" too. I do have to point out to DH that that doesn't mean that I will be on top of everything every day. He will have to occasionally iron, vacumn, put away his own laundry etc...

However if I was going out to work every day too he'd be spending most of his evenings and weekends doing household stuff - as would I.

I consider myself to be a housewife because that makes up the most part of what I do but I'm juggling 2 kids and pregnant with a 3rd and I work 2 days a week as a therapist yet I'm still expected to do most things including getting up in the night to our youngest. I get an average of 3-4 hours undisturbed sleep a night. I don't think YABU about being reminded of your duties. It should be obvious to your DH that you are not sitting on your @rse. It's pretty insulting actually that they think you are there to serve them. Pick the shirt up put the iron on and do it yourself...

If DH says anything about duties as a housewife I say I am not a housewife, I am a stay at home Mum, to our children not you.
However calling your DH Hubby does put you in housewife territory.

Well you are a housewife if you stay at home with children and don't have paid employment.

But that is not the issue here, the issue is your husband's expectations of you and what you do. Referring to "duties" is insulting and unreasonable.

But everyone has duties and responsibilities at work, don't they? Your DH will have duties he has to fulfill, otherwise he'd get the sack.

I am a housewife, is DP gave up work he would be a househusband. Or homemaker, same difference.

The ironing thing is a seperate issue. I don't find the term offensive - I'd be more offended if my 'official' title was "unemployed"!

I have no problem with the word housewife, but I wouldn't like dh telling me what my duties were. Luckily dh is very laid back and so I'm a slatternly housewife who sits and plays on the computer instead of doing housework.

Dp tells people Im a shit housewife.

"Duties"? What fucking planet is he on?

He is unreasonable to say that it is your job to iron his shirts.

I don't mind being called a housewife but was very pissed off that DH put my occupation as housewife on DS's birth certificate. I am on maternity leave but will be going back to work part time.

But if you work in the home then you do have 'duties'. Just like your DH does at work.

My DH does have expectations of me. The expectations are that if he goes out to work at 6.45am and returns at 5.30pm then I will have ensured the house is clean and tidy, the dinner is prepared and he has a clean shirt ironed for the following day. I expect that he will go to that job, do it well, get promotions and provide for us.

And I think that's fair enough!

I am NOT a housewife, I am a Stay at home mum. The emphasis being on mum.
I am not a bloody domestic staff, I have no "duties" expected of me apart from looking after our children.
The running of the house is shared between myself and partner.

Wonder what century a lot of posters are living in on here.

I think your 'job' is to look after the children. Anything else you do is a bonus. Really housework should be split 50/50 once the person in paid employment gets home from work. Okay, the reality might not work out like that, but he shouldn't take it for granted or expect you to do it.

In our house, I will iron my DH's work shirts. He works long hours and I am doing the rest of the ironing anyway, so it isn't a big deal to me. I don't iron anything else of his. My husband is grateful that I do his work shirts. I would not iron his clothes so he could go on a piss up, and if my husband dared to suggest that this was my job, he'd be wearing the fucking iron.

The way I see it is that I am my DC's mother, not his!

I feel aggreived that on my marriage certificate it says 'home duties'. I didnt notice the registrar had put it down as I was so excited and nervous about getting married.

I agree your job is to look after the children and to some extent the house. It's not to be his personal servant or maid. Capable adults should by default be doing their own personal care such as feeding themselves, dressing themselves etc.

If you choose to iron his shirts and cook his dinner for them, then that's very nice of you. And it's good to do nice things for each other in a relationship. It is absolutely not 'your duty as a housewife' though. I mean, WTF? .

We always have this conversation on MN, and it's always about ironing or lunchmaking for the WOHP. And that's because the 'duties' thing can be split into three categories.

Caring for the children
Caring for the house
Caring for the husband

The top one comes first. If you have twin two-year-olds, it's pretty close to being a full-time job. Whatever time is left goes to caring for the house. How we all balance those two is always up for discussion and debate, obviously - I know some posters are a lot happier to use television than others, so that the housework gets done, and of course some children are happy to play independently and others aren't - but really, they're non-contentious.

The third one is contentious. I can't see any reason at all for a parent at home to be doing personal tasks like ironing and lunchmaking for a working parent, unless the working parent is, in order to support a SAH, working absolutely insane hours that wouldn't exist if they were both working. Most couples choose to have a SAHP if they believe it's important for the children and/or if it works out financially better than paying for childcare. So why, once the arrangement is in place, does the WOHP, who's always done his own personal tasks before, feel like he's entitled to a PA? Is it a belief that the SAHP has an easy life? Because that's clearly bollocks. Or just a general sense that working for pay makes your time more valuable, and therefore delineated better?

I have one 2.5 year old, who doesn't nap anymore, and I spent a 10 hour day with her today. We ran some errands, and I got breakfast and lunch made and cleaned up after, dinner done and a load of laundry washed and hung up, and that was it. I didn't sit down except to play with her, I certainly didn't take a break or have any time for myself at all, the entire day was entertaining her, setting up games and clearing them up, providing and clearing food, and the little bits of housework I could fit in around that. There is no possible way I can do more housework without doing less mothering. It's absolutely a zero sum game. If my husband thinks his shirt is more important than his daughter, he can whistle for it, frankly.