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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

268 replies

CoffeeDog · 01/07/2011 08:36

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?

OP posts:
joric · 02/07/2011 08:42

Housewife/ homemaker- do we become one of these when the children are at school and a woman stays at home ( not working?) - can get a bad press... See thread 'To wonder what people do all day whose children are at school and who don't work' - not everyone is knee deep in washing and cooking all day long..from what people have said ( lots of meeting friends, horseriding, Internet, reading, crafts when chores are done). The difference is you are a SAHM - big difference, your job is childcare first with everything else second.
Sounds like your DH is getting the two muddled up !

salcol · 02/07/2011 09:34

what do all these abbreviations mean!?
YANBU?
YABU?
MNHQ?
AIBU?
????

fedupofnamechanging · 02/07/2011 09:46

YANBU = You Are Not Being Unreasonable
YABU = You Are Being Unreasonable
MNHQ = Mumsnet Headquarters
AIBU = Am I Being Unreasonable

jadziadax · 02/07/2011 09:53

Enjoy your weekend away OP.

One of the best things I've done since DD was born was go back to work when she was 1 (she is now 2).

I'm a nurse and took a casual job available weekends. Sometimes I worked saturday mornings, sometimes evenings, sometimes both sat AND sun.

I enjoy my work, and that has been good. And DH gets 1:1 time with DD, and knows just how much work it is to look after a small child. I definitely plan to do the same when/if DC2 comes along.

edam · 02/07/2011 10:44

Housewife is such a horrible term. No-one's married to a flipping house. It belittles what a stay at home mother actually does, which is care for the children. Housework should be shared - it's not one person's job. No working parent works 18 hours a day 7 days a week. In the time when they are home, they should muck in.

edam · 02/07/2011 10:46

And I'm currently working outside the home full-time with a long commute - I still don't expect that the sodding fairies will have ironed my clothes when I get back. Have done pretty much every combination of full-time, part-time at home and outside the home since ds was born. Only thing I haven't been is a SAHM but that doesn't mean I think people should play down what SAHMs do or show them any less respect than anyone else.

MrsKravitz · 02/07/2011 10:49

There must be something in the bloody air. My dh told me yesterday that i have "semi retired" as I work part time. I earn the same amount as he does working ft and work my butt off. Cheeky bastard.

Liluri · 02/07/2011 11:00

If I worked in the home ft then I wouldn't be annoyed at being referred to as a housewife.
I would, however, be extremely annoyed if a fully capable adult expected me to iron his shirt and stated it to be one of my duties.
In our house, if something needs doing, then someone does it.

Nobody tends to rant, as that is not a productive way of persuading someone that they might like to help you.
Tantrums in children are hard work enough.
Tantrums in fully grown men with archaic ideas are extremely irritating.

I would suggest that perhaps he should take care of his own ironing requirements until he apologises and drags himself into the current century.

M0naLisa · 02/07/2011 11:03

My husband irons his own clothes. He sometimes does his own wash too.

Just because we are SAHM it doesnt mean to say that we are slaves.

Kewcumber · 02/07/2011 11:23

I once ironed a shirt for my then army partner. He never let me do it again.

Blindcavesalamander · 02/07/2011 11:39

Now my DD2 is in reception I work part time, and although I'm still a housewife really I was a full time housewife before that. However, the term annoys me and I never really liked it because I think your job (paid or unpaid) is the most important, time consuming, demanding and major thing that you do. Therefore my main job, or role, is Mother ... I am proud of that and it is a lot more weighty and worthwhile than 'housewife', which sounds as if you are married to the actual house or never leave it, and spend all day doing nothing more meaningful than housework (sorry to any cleaners, but obviously you are earning money to support your families, which is a higher cause, rather than the housework itself) wheras, as mothers, the work of caring for and devoting our lives to other human beings who we love, we have a lot to feel proud of and fulfilled by.

Also, Helloklitty, what a pompous and ignorant BBC producer to assume that being a housewife/MOTHER means you can't also be highly educated, as if it wasn't a choice but due to lack of other options.

scottishmummy · 02/07/2011 11:46

housewife better than homemaker.thats a ghastly made up term

MrsFizzywig · 02/07/2011 12:09

Looking after twins is a full time job in itself even without your eldest. Plus, I presume your 'duties' include being on call 24/7 for the next 16 odd years with no annual leave!! Therefore I suggest you and your DH divvy up the household duties evenly between the two of you. He'll soon see what a cushy number working outside the home is and should stop complaining!!! :)
Btw, I also HATE the term housewife simply because of the lack of respect that title (wrongly) affords.

scottishmummy · 02/07/2011 12:18

no being mum is not a job.dont be daft.not comparable.at all

edam · 02/07/2011 12:22

It's a role, a ruddy important one, and far more important than being in charge of the housework.

scottishmummy · 02/07/2011 12:23

role,yes.important one.yes very.as is parenthood

issynoko · 02/07/2011 12:44

I think I prefer house wife to the sickeningly twee 'homemaker'. I am a wife, I do live in a house. Broadly accurate. I never iron anything. As far as I know this status never had a job description attached. DH is also at home - we work from and in the home. I have many descriptions - it's only form filling that narrows you down. I do put my title as a variety of different things for mailing lists though. The postman thinks I'm a Wing Commander.

VoilaAnotherGimlet · 02/07/2011 13:22

I object to 'housewife' for the reasons given by other posters, I am not home to look after the house. But I find 'homemaker' worse - are wohps not making a home? Full time parent is also implying wohps stop being a parent while at work. But how to describe myself? I am taking a career break to do full time childcare. Not very catchy. Also doesn't imply any love, but I wonder if that is good (shows it is a "job") or bad (belittles why I want to be at home with ds).

What is this ironing of which you speak? ;) Op, do you iron anything else? I don't get the iron out for anything else so dp does his own. I am not home to look after him.

garlicnutter · 02/07/2011 13:30

Housekeeper's good. As a career post, it carries a £20k salary with board & lodging AND supporting staff.

Maybe you'd like to point this out to DH?
Grin

Becaroooo · 02/07/2011 13:37

As far as I am concerned I am in full time unpaid work.

Simple.

ThisIsJustASagaNow · 02/07/2011 13:50

I have been in your situation coffeedog. There are three yrs between my dts and my older child. At that age it was very very demanding and hard.

If anyone had complained about their shirt not being ironed or said anything about duties there'd have been the heated debate row to end all heated debates.

Nothing wrong with being a housewife. Everything wrong with being treated like a skivvy. Especially when you have so much on your plate. I really feel Angry for you.

RatherBe · 02/07/2011 14:29

I think that people misunderstand the term 'housewife'. Historically, 'wife' was a term use to describe a mature woman and did not necessarily refer to marital status, hence its usage in the term 'fishwife' - any negative connotations are irrelevant here as they are not to do with the 'wife' part. (Incidentally there is similar use of the term 'husband' in that we talk about 'animal husbandry' to mean looking after livestock or 'husbanding resources' to mean taking charge of resource allocation.)

'Housewife' just means 'a grown woman with domestic responsibilities' and is nothing to do with being 'married to a house'. It's the term I use to describe myself because I don't feel comfortable using any of the alternatives. To me they smack of a need for self-justification which I certainly don't feel, but I do think we should all have the right to describe ourselves however we like - so each to their own.

The term 'housewife' is not a job description though and how chores are handled is for each couple to agree. Mr Ratherbe would not dream of telling me what he considers to be my duties not least because he knows what my reaction would be! So 'housewife' = NU, 'duties' = VU!

Waspie · 02/07/2011 14:38

YABU. being called a housewife is far less offensive than calling your partner "hubby"

gallicgirl · 02/07/2011 14:55

I'm inclined to bullet point my day so DP knows exactly how much I do (says she, mumsnetting while DP is asleep Grin).

As much as my DP appreciates what I do, he ain't doing a lot to lift the load at the moment, ggrrrr.

If I were the OP, I'd be inclined to find out the cost of all the things you do, write it on a large stiff piece of card and then shove it where the sun don't shine.

Just an idea..........

amicissima · 02/07/2011 15:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.