To ask if you think there's a difference between being tired as a SAHM and tired as a WOHP?

[dampmorninginspring]

I don't work, although I do the odd day if it coincides with DHs time off, but it's generally about one day a month.

I was talking about possibly going back to work when youngest is in nursery (not for a couple of years) and DH was saying "you'll be tired." I pointed out jokingly I'm tired now and he said there was a big difference between being tired and staying at home and being tired and having to go out to work.

Is he right?

I work 2 days per week and I love it. I have bags of energy, get loads done, job is more intellectually demanding than physical but when I get home I am shattered and can end up in bed at 8pm. I don't think I could manage to work more days.

Really depends on how demanding your job and your dc is!

OP it does sound to me that your DH doesn't want you to work. Do you do most of the childcare/housework? Perhaps he feels if you go back to work he will have to pull his weight more around the house, which he doesn't want to do?

To be honest, Banana, I agree with you - I'm a SAHM who used to have a very highly paid job. If I could find something "professional" again that broadly fit with school times, then it would definitely be beneficial for me.....but I can't. So we are probably on the same page.

I think the tax system is more at fault than the lack of a SAHP allowance - certainly in my case. Sadly, it's unlikely to change as it's not politically attractive!

There are too many variables to give a definitive answer but as your H has never been a SAHP, I wouldn't be looking to him for expertise on a situation he's never been in. The cynic in me feels he's less concerned about your tiredness and more concerned about being expected to share a more equal portion of the domestic burden.

I'm assuming you worked before being a SAHP and given his lack of SAHP experience, I'd find his comment deeply patronising.

I'm the same Natalia. We don't get much more financial advantage from me working as opposed to being a SAHP. I would love to work full time & apply for a promotion, but my dcs would hate it & dh doesn't want to cut his hours/apply for a less demanding job.

It depends on a lot of things.

If the children are small and demanding and don't nap, plus don't sleep through but you do all night wakings because you are a sahp, and all housework and all grocery shopping and all cooking and all laundry (all with toddlers in tow, especially multiple toddlers or children of a range of ages all with different schedules to juggle) because you are a sahp, then being a sahp can be more tiring than going to work.

It also depends on the work - sitting at a desk all day is brain tiring and might give you back ache but is nothing like nursing or care work or manual labour in terms of how tiring it is.

Commute is also relevant - how long and what mode of transport etc.

It depends on 101 things, but I have worked full time in an office job before children (50-60 hour weeks) whilst doing a masters degree (over 2 years instead of one) in my 20s, worked full time as a secondary school teacher pre children and with one child, been a child minder, a teacher and a care worker all post children, and been a sahm to various numbers of children, finally to 3, before going back to work again.

Having done all those different combinations I would say the absolute most tired I have ever been is when DC3 was a sleep refusing small toddler still young enough to be quite feral who climbed everything and had to be watched constantly, woke multiple times a night, and had older siblings who had to be got to and from school and preschool on a schedule so that I had to haul us all out of the house before 8am and couldn't just snooze on the sofa while older kids played/ watch beebies if the youngest happened to have finally fallen asleep at 5am and be inclined to wake naturally at 8:30am...

On the other hand being a sahm to two preschoolers who both slept through, and one of whom napped in the afternoon for a couple of hours, was one of the easiest and happiest times of my life - I felt for a brief window of a couple of years that I was doing everything properly and was well rested and my life really was easy even though I still did all the domestic work.

Working can be easier or harder, more or less tiring than being a sahm - it depends and is a how long is a piece of string question.

Also, as lsetan says "The cynic in me feels he's less concerned about your tiredness and more concerned about being expected to share a more equal portion of the domestic burden."

Do you currently do everything at home? All the grocery shopping, all the kids' clothes shopping, all the cooking, all the laundry, all the cleaning, all the night wakings and early waking, the lion's share of bedtimes and baths?

Mat leave with a fantastically sleeping baby was a breeze. Being a SAHM to a toddler with additional needs is much tougher than going to work, IME.

I think he's right.

I had a really busy job with lots of travel and interacting with different people before having children and being a SAHM. when working I remember the tiredness as being mental as much as physical: even though I loved it, I was absolutely drained by the end of the week just from being 'out there' so much, having to communicate with so many people on different projects as well as all the traveling. By Friday I was ready to put my head under a blanket and ignore the outside world! And yes, knackered but mostly mentally, and able to recover after a good nights sleep or a restful weekend.

As a SAHM I was blessed with a completely dreadful sleeper of a baby, and had 3 yrs of crappy awful nights, and just the baby for company during the day. It was utterly draining, like wading through treacle every day. I couldn't string a sentence together, the world looked permanently blurred round the edges, and I was sleepwalking through the days. The only good thing was that I didn't have to get up and 'perform' in a workplace every day, I would not have been able to do that.

So yes, it was very different for me. In all honesty, while I have come to appreciate the benefits of being a SAHM I think that working OH was much easier and less tiring!

Work is much harder imo, I don't even have to commute regularly and its tough, I do all the drop offs and collection from childcare as DH works difficult hours. We have all had coughs and colds since Christmas and its been tough.

I find working much more tiring than looking after kids, but my DH works from home so he does a lot of the day to day child care stuff.

Prepared to be flamed but I do think it would be a bit ridiculous to expect the WOHP to suddenly share equal child/home responsibilities because the SAHP had decided to go out to work, surely the time out of the house would have to be subsidised by paid for child care?

I think it's unreasonable to accept the level of "help" the working parent can give whilst they are the only one working, and then expect them to magically have exta time to pick up the slack in house when the other parent starts working.

Everyone is different. Me and my close friend are both SAHMs but our routines are very different even though our DCs are the same age.

Her main job is keeping the house clean and tidy. Her DH is obsessed with having a neat and tidy home. Her DC do no after school activities and she never gets involved with PTA stuff or helping out at school. Her evenings are calm and organised and she usually has a nice glass of wine in her hand by 6pm. Lovely!

I ,on the other hand , am constantly driving here there and everywhere and rushing in and out of the house , squeezing in cooking meals and housework in the times when I'm not being a chauffeur for the kids or volunteering at school.

I have two days a week where I have to be up at 5am to take DS to swimming. Then he has other activities after school that finish at 8pm and 9:30 pm three nights a week. Then there are DD's activities to juggle too!

I'm lucky if I can sit down and relax by 9:30 and then I'm falling asleep at 10!

I'm not moaning about it - I do have a couple of hours in the middle of the day when I can chose to take it easy if I want to.

And I know a few mums who work full time and also have DC with crazy activity schedules.

In my experience working is so much more tiring! I have to get up at 5am, get ready for work, get the children ready for school and do as many household chores as possible before leaving the house at 7.45.

I don't get home until 5.30pm. I then make dinner for myself and my husband, finish the household chores and do as much ironing as I can before getting the kids showered and ready for bed.

Repeat this five days a week and I can definitely say I think I would find it much easier as a SAHM but my children are in school for six hours a day so that would be my free time to get things done!

I can only give my opinion but I can honestly say I would love to be able to sit down in my pajamas on days when I am exhausted but it isn't going to happen for me!

It really depends on your current schedule and how much your partner will support you. His comment suggests you would be responsible for housework/kids even if you worked full time.

I am a working parent. I wake up at 4am, get dsd and neice's stuff ready, get their breakfast ready, get myself ready, wake the kids up before I leave for my commute at 6. Dh will then get the ready, feed them, then drop them to school. If there are emergencies it's usually easier for him to come home to deal with them. He also does the day to day cleaning (no deep cleaning or laundary).

I return home at 8pm, we'll have a family meal that dh would have cooked. I do bathtime and storytime and put them to bed. Weekends I do more.

I think it entirely depends on the age of your children and if they are at school or not and how much housework you do if you also work. Also depends in whether or not you work full or.part time.

Personally I am more tired when I'm working (I work full time in a high level job) than when I'm at home.

I echo the posters who say it depends on the child and job, it will be different for everyone.

I was off for 8 months with DC1 and it was a doddle to be honest. 13 months with DC2 and then I went back to work and I have found it much harder.

Mornings are chaos regardless of how organised I am (I make packed lunch the night before, lay out uniform and clothes for us etc)
I find doing the morning drop off, often the evening pick up too then going home and trying to help with homework, do baths, stories, dinner/snacks, prep for the next morning, even with help from DH, totally exhausting, trying to also hang out washing, sort a load on for the next day, any hoovering/wiping down etc that needs doing too is all just a bit much to fit in on top of a full time job.

My job is quite consuming too, mentally, so I find it difficult to switch off and it does feel like I don't stop.

Different for everyone, and even different from day-to-day. Sometimes (not very often!!) I'll have a great day at work where everything has gone right and I'll come home energised, but mostly I've been up since 6am, had a load of sh*t flung at me and come home at 7pm totally done in, then have baths, homework, dishes, etc. to do.

I used to work FT with compressed hours, so I'd be in work three days a week on 12-14 hour shifts, so I could get days home with DCs while DW was at her PT job - I found days home with DCs much less tiring than being at work.

I don't think being a SAHP is that tiring, but it can be very boring and relentless, and by 6pm-ish I have had enough and want a break from it.

I think working outside of the home full time, AND juggling kids, housework, house admin etc would be exceptionally hard/tiring.

I can't remember what it was like just working full-time without kids but I guess it's easier when you're working and someone else is taking care of all the other stuff that goes with running a home & family.

Part time is the perfect balance I think, unless you have a very involved partner you can rely on.

I've done as close as I can to both. I was more physically knackered from rushing around when I was WOHP, I had to literally run to and from work for school pick ups.
SAHM can be more mentally draining and although you can take lazy days sometimes that makes you more lethargic. When I was working the act of getting up and out could snap me out of being tired IYSWIM.

Now am a SAHM with 4 school age DC and it's fab. I have a small nap most days.

Perhaps your DH was assuming you'd be continuing to do the lion's share of parenting/domestic work in addition ? Or perhaps he was referring to a particular kind of mental / physical tiredness from meeting the demands of people / job challenges at work.

cory of course you do.
I still had to clean the house, change all the beds ,wash up, cook, do the kids appointments, walk the dogs, sort out homework, iron, washing, reading, sort out arguments and injuries, parent evenings, SEN meetings and admin, shopping, birthdays, Christmas etc etc etc.

You just have to do it after working all day.

Crafts and messy play is just a side issue and its optional.

I work part time and I'm far far more tired on my days with toddler DS than on my days in the office, even with two hours commuting.

I work part time and I'm far far more tired on my days with toddler DS than on my days in the office, even with two hours commuting.

Yep this. I have a 4yo and a 2yo and office days are a break. Even the northern line commute is downtime in comparison!

IME at home you are more tired physically from running around with the children, errands etc. At work (office work) you are more tired mentally, stressed, lots of things on your mind.