Should my DH high salary exclude him from doing jobs at home

[Shout]

I am at stay at home home Mum with 2 DS my husband has quite an important job and his salary reflects it. Everytime he has to work weekends or evenings he says that is what I am being paid for.

My biggest grip is that he is getting lazier around the house, meal plates left at the table coke cans around the house, cuff links ties left out and gets more out,gets changed from work, suit and dirty washing left on bed for me to clear wet towels ,floor. The kids get 10 mins of play fighting then he watches his programs/or is on the computer.If he doesn't want to do anything he just ignores it or says its not a problem eg tyres are not flat, toilet isn't blocked!

When ever I get cross that he doesn't do his fair share he says in a jokey mannner but I get paid so much.
I asked him several times to make an appointment to discuss situation he kept avoiding it, I wrote him a letter explaining how I felt, it took him 3 days to get round to reading it and never responded.

I am back to comfort eating putting on weight and feeling crap about myself, hence all physical contact is virtually non exsistent.

Any advise out there?

And I think this thing about Xenia spending two hours a day between 5 children is also rather a pathetic line. Xenia's oldest is 22. When I was 22 I lived in USA and my Mum lived in England - we saw rather little of each other.

Agree with inthegutter. Hard to generalise about people and also it's appalling to me that all the posts, all the threads, all the press stuff is all about women and what they should be doing, women the whipping boy of the world, the slave of man, the root of all evil from the time they tempted Adam with the apple. We need to lose that status. In this transitional period to regainig the equality we probably had from when we began to about 5000 years ago it's important we don't lose our nerve, read Martha Stewart, bake cookies, leave the board room and have our breasts enlarged for the pleasure of men. Hold your nerve and stay at work so your daughters have choices and those in power don't say - women tried work and didn't like it - they prefer serving men and domesticity.

But on a more day to day level women differ, yes. I am on here because today I'm working at home and at this point in my life after my divorce and without a boyfriend but needing to be around and at home because of the children etc, I just happen to have the time. I also think it's when people talk to each other who have different views that important understanding is achieved and changes are made.

And I didn't say there was a divide in general. I said the say SAHMs sometimes write is vitriolic and personalised in a way the working mothers tend not to post.

bozza - read her earlier posts just before 9am, she was expressing views on SAHMs that I would just hate my daughter to overhear.

if my company didnt employe working mothers (ones with babies), and there are at least 9 or 10 at the top level here, with up to 3 babies, the products you bought for your babies would be conceived, created, developed and delivered to you by men.

what type of baby products do you make?

wouldn't want you to not buy our products based on my opinion

are you not proud of them?

but there is a lot of motherly input here on the product, and its what makes the product truly safe, beneficial, and something which mothers can actually use

just guessing you judge me differently on mn and when you see my product on the shelf

wouldnt want to mess that up, it would be unprofessional

Acutally despite working 3 days a week I think I do just talk about things like that.

Snap TMJ. I find the vitriole in Xenia's posts quite disturbing. I am A sahm, but have worked in the past in a well paid profession. I have a degree so certainly not stupid. My life is very full my children have no issues with me not working, and I don't feel I am letting my daughter down in anyway. My husband isn't going to divorce me and run of with a 20 year old leaving me destitute. There is some rel bitterness there .

I agree with some of what Xenia says but my personal issue is partially along the same line as custy. If all SAHMs did go out to work and employ cleaners etc somebody has still got to do the job of mopping the floor, even if it is a paid somebody. Housework does not just disappear. So some of these SAHMs would ineveitably be in the low end jobs wearing overalls and rubber gloves rather than glammed up in the office.

It interests me that some people think there is more vitriol from me than from stay at home mothers. If you look at the kind of posts made I think it's quite the opposite. We see an awful lot in the press about damage to chidlren by mothers working and very very rarely anything the other way round (although there was a recent survey the other week which was pro childcare but that is rare). I think it's helpful for parents trying to decide whether or not to stop work to see how some working parents manage fine and I think the 20 point list which I rushed off after 11 last night may go someway towards helping people see that side of things. There are plenty of people (usually older men with a hidden agenda to keep women down) giving the opposite view.

I don't think there's really much more to say except that most women with under 5s work and that's how things are and increasingly will be and that's a very good thing.

I don't understand recoveringmum. I am very proud of all the choices I have currently made and have no problems revealing them on this thread for discussion. If you are, say, a designer for BabyBjorn or Bonpoint or Maxicosi or one of the other great baby products companies, it will much easier for me to understand your arguments. I might feel quite differently towards you.

agree Anna, we do live in a "nice" area.

might feel differently if we didn't, also at 9 my eldest isn't yet bringing home friends we don't know.

stand corrected!

Is the OP's question not about MALE responsiblity in the home - WHEN are we going to EXPECT men to have some?????

Forget about the women at home/at work issue for a minute.

Men are quite willing to participate in the home based activities that result in children, so whether the women WORK OR NOT men need to recognise that during the times when BOTH adults are at home, the children, the house - in other words, the family life, is the RESPONSIBILITY OF BOTH ADULTS!!!!!!!So men need some wind down time and so do women - the issue here is the OP's husband's chauvinism, not the OP's personal choices.

Xenia, I loved your list - Im going to print it off and leave it around the house under the nose of my smug sil. Thank you!!

I have to agree with alot of what Xenia and recoveringmum have said - I believe (correct me if im wrong here Xenia) that the reason Xenia is so adament in her hopes that mothers begin to go out to work is for our childrens future - I have recently posted a thread regarding the attitude towards me being a mother while also having a career - as a brief Synopsis - I have found that on many occasions, when meeting people I do not know they tend to ask dp what he does for a living and listen with interest while the majority dont even attempt to enquire about my career - probably as most assume im a mother - I couldnt possibly work! - I have found this quite insulting as my career is just as important/interesting as his but seems not to be valued by many as this. The possible reason for this is because many mothers do stay at home and maybe all mothers are being stereotyped as house wifes, carers, cleaners etc.. I hope by the time my little girl is of age for her own career and children, this will not be - I hope that her career will be as accepted, recognised, important and accepted as her partners and that she does not have to put up with this rubbish and bashing for just being ambitious while also being a caring mother. This probably will not happen while many continue to stay at home and maybe this is why Xenia wants things to change (perhaps Xenia? - dont want to put words in your mouth)

Also, in regard to children blossoming in nursery or childcare - of course they do! it does not mean they prefer this to being with their parents but don't we all thrive on a change of scenery?, different atmosphere? communicating with other adults and children? surely this would be fabulous for development as opposed to staring at the same four walls? (im not saying that sahps dont bring their children places and outings etc.. but from my experience I know some sahms that dont bring their children outside the door day in, day out)

Recoveringmum, I can completely understand about the "divide" - I find quite alot of this where I am.

ssd - that's all right.

We are trying to move stepsons from state to private school - not easy here as most private schools here are Catholic (stepsons are Jewish) - to avoid truly ghastly children. There is a huge move from state to private school in France for this reason.

i think an awful lot of people feel it's important that a vulnerable pre-school child gains a huge amount of self worth through the nurturing, irreplaceable love and care of having a parent at home.

Most people aren't SAHM's forever, some for just a few, pre-school years. They then work.

I think it's providing a hugely beneficial example for children to see that their parents think THEY are important enough, for the parent to want to spend time bringing them up.

It's not forever, it's for such a short time in an adult's life, but it's a chance the child will never ever get again in their life. I'm glad I've given it to my ds; now that he is at school, I work; so I give him BOTH examples, rather than one, which patently makes for a blinkered, narrow minded, approach as evidenced so much on here by Xenia.

I agree Barbielovesken.
Sometimes I think it is all about social conditioning. We as women are conditioned at an early age to believe we are in some ways unequal to men.
SAHM's say it is what they want to do, and it is their choice, but given this conditioning can they be sure?
I think we should all question our choices and truly know why we make them and where our opinions come from.

sunny, I was enojoying that to the last line, except anyway they don't remember who was there. What child says - mother I am so grateful you stopped work in those 5 years. But I certainly agree with you that small children need love, care, time, attention. Working parents provide that too. Not all stay at home parents manage it sadly and not all working parents either but it's not a simple divide. Some women are at home and very depressed (see multitude of mumsnet other threads) and other shout at their children and really aren't happy. Some working parents are always irritable and nasty to their children too. I think those things matter more than whether the parents work or not.

don't really recommend a holiday in italy, full of loud, deprived children, whose formative years are being ruined by too much time at nursery

Yup agree sunny - i have decided to stay at home til kids are in school then I WANT to work. I love being at home and doing stuff that I wouldnt otherwise be able to do such as taking my ds to various groups and watching him interact. Selfish? Maybe. Beneficial to my ds? Maybe, maybe not. Completely personal and informed choice for me? Yes. Supportive and helpful husband? Yes. Financially difficult? Yes. Will I look back and regret the time out? Never.

I loved my job before ds, and I will enjoy working again when it happens. I also love what I am doing now. Guess I am very lucky.