AIBU to not want to cook dinner if I'm a SAHP?

[CraicWhore]

Since having DS 23 months and DD 6 months I absolutely hate cooking and I'm not that great at it anyway. I'm a SAHM through circumstance not choice. I want to go back to work but can't until DD gets a nursery place and DH refuses to take time off work to help with childcare.
If the children are fed and I'm happy to have a bowl of cereal for tea is it unreasonable if I tell DH he has to sort his own suppers out?

slithy if the WOHP does a job where they are home in time to be involved with the dinner prep then that works. My DH has been home about 5 minutes and he left the house at 6.45am this morning - that is nearly 13 hours out of the house. How does that work in your world?
Damm right I take control of the whole household.

tyaca but you don't have to start cooking again If you've made chicken casserole, or slag bol, or shepherd's pie, or just some sauce for pasta or whatever then it is as easy to make 4 portions as 3, and then the person who is home later can just reheat their own and do fresh pasta or veg if they want to.

Really, people make this sound so much more effort than it is.

slag bol

I think it's reasonable to not want to be cooking a full blown meal at that time every night after you & the kids have already eaten.

TBH I'd be inclined to rely on decent quality ready meals for half the week and simple, batch cooked stuff the rest of the time, along the lines of:

Fish & chips & peas (freezer)
Spag Bol (batch cook)
Pie, jacket & veg (freezer)
'Breakfast for dinner' (fry up)
Chilli con carne/curry & rice (batch cook or ready meal)
Sausages, mash & veg
Roast dinner

That's only three 'proper' home cooked meals a week - two of which are quick & easy. If you make large batches of curry, chilli & bolognese you need only do it once a month. Shove some salad in bowl with the veg free meals if you want to make them a bit healthier.

I cook twice every night. Kids need to eat before DH gets home. If I do fish or shepherds pie then I cook once. Kids have theirs and the rest stays in the oven. I don't want to eat at 5 but on a weekend we always have lunch together and depending on what I am doing for tea we might eat together. Kids don't suffer because we don't eat tea every day together. DH will always cook if I have had enough. He would also never say he would rather be dead than stay at home to look after his own children. I think you have bigger problems than who does dinner.

have a look online for sites that give you both freezer meals - like this one and slow cooker/crock pot meals, like this one

Plan to spend a day each month doing meals for the month, get them all in the freezer and then, every evening, take something out for dinner the next night.

Ali - as I've said, there are ways to make it work.

I tihnk it's fair that some household stuff is shared. Let's assume that one of those things is dinner, which of course it won't be in all households.

The wohp could come home to a home cooked meal, and once finished, prep for the next day and put it in the slow cooker before leaving for work. They could batch cook on their day off.

Before I was on mat leave I worked 70 hour weeks and still managed to achieve this.

I'm astonished at some of these replies

It's right that you should make dinner for your partner when he's at work and you're at home. That's not a gender thing, that's a respect thing. Whoever is at home has more opportunity and time to do it. YABU unreasonable and selfish.

And bear in mind I only said that things should be shared once the wohp has returned from work. I wouldn't expect the sahp to be chilling out while wohp is working, but then still expect them to come home and cook.

Equally though I dont think it's fair for sahp to be running around like a blue arsed fly till bedtime because wohp clocks off upon arriving home.

There has to be compromise and give and take so both get lie ins, both get to relax of an evening etc.

That's not a fact talisa - no one can say that another household has x amount of time or opportunity.

You don't know how household jobs are broken down, it might be that the wohp only has to help with cooking.

Well you can't 'make' him be a SAHD so you can go back to work.

Did you not talk/think this through before you had your second baby? I can understand your frustration and resentment if you're itching to get back to work, and can't yet, but simmering resentment for the next year or two is going to have a seriously bad impact on your marriage.

I agree with the posters who say just do something really easy like fish fingers. Apparently my mil once gave this with chips and beans to fil every day for a week when children were small. They are still together!

Otherwise maybe pasta and pesto from a jar? Reasonable quality pizza? Even beans on toast better than cereal I guess. Baked potato also a good one.

Yab massively u! You've been at home the whole day, a meal can take 30 mins max, it's just being selfish to have this attitude. I don't expect my DH to come home and start cooking and cleaning. After work is quality family time.

I cook maybe 4 evening meals a week, more for DC.

But they are home cooked from scratch lots of effort.

When DH cooks, he does fishfingers, or reheats something frozen ive cooked etc. This is our compromise. Less effort for him, but time chilling on the sofa or in the bath for me.

We are also both flexible in times of illness, or more demanding DC, or heavy workload etc.

It works for us, OP you and DH just need to find a compromise which works for you. And once you've cracked the dinners thing, address the working thing.

YANBU.

Dp cooks most days despite me being the SAHP. I'm a stay at home parent, not a stay at home maid. Dp also enjoys cooking more than I do, it's his unwind time when he gets in.

YANBU.

after work is quality family time

Agreed. So if that means that sahp has just finished feeding, bathing, and putting DC to bed, just tidied toys up, just cleaned kitchen, after a day of washing, ironing, tidying, nappies, shopping etc, that might mean that to get that family time, they take it in turns cooking, or cook together.

It doesn't automatically mean that sahp straps the pinny on yet again.

I don't think it's right that we judge how other people do things in their homes - just offer our experiences and hope one of them suits.

Did you discuss any of this before you had kids?

I think you are being a bit mean too. It's a bad idea to get into this type of resentful behaviour if you want to stay married. I am not saying you are right or that your DH is right just that you might be better off looking at the bigger picture.

If you don't want to cook in the evening during the witching hours when you are feeling tired then it's easy enough to work out meals that can be prepared in advance. I have a whole repertoire of 10 minute meals.

It's not a gender thing, but if one partner is out doing a physical job all day until 8pm, then of course they ANBU to want a decent, full meal when they get in. I can't believe that people think otherwise.
Doesn't mean you have to cook 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, but it is reasonable to expect well balanced, filling meals on a regular basis. I think YABU. That's from someone who doesn't really like cooking either, but it's part and parcel of being part of a family that you (as parents) work out a way of putting decent meals on the table on a regular (if not daily) basis.

It's different if the WOHP wants to cook Deputy - this isn't the case here though, is it?

And slithy - give me a break, I work full time and so does DP, but one or the other of us makes dinner every night after we get in for the family, and we have 4 kids. And I've got a lazy streak a mile wide, I can assure you.

You just get on with it. That's your job when you SAH.

Oh well since ds fed at nursery and baby on mush or whatnot yanbu

Confused. If you sahm how hard us it to do extra of what dc are eating or put a quick ready meal in. Your dh is working...

Ps - in our house we all eat together and if dh is lat he warms his up when he getsin. This means only cooking once. On re reading wondered if your beef is cooking twice - if so yanbu.

At the moment I am on mat leave but when I am at work, if I am late, dh cooks and I warm it up ( or grab something on way home).

Slithy I didn't say anything about the op putting on her 'pinny'. Why can't she make something like a stew, cottage pie, or a million other meals that only needs reheating? I just could not imagine making my DH make his own supper after a 13 hour day, after being at home the whole day.

That's your job when you SAH.

I thought 'parenting' was the daytime job when you were SAH, not skivvying doing ALL the domestic chores. For those advocating a ready-made pizza or 'simple pasta' dish, if it's so quick and easy it won't hurt the guy to shove it in the oven himself, will it?