Is husband being unreasonable?

[IsItWine0ClockSoon]

I'm a stay at home and my husband is unhappy with the lack of work I do around the house. I make home cooked meals every day for us and our children, take son to preschool and look after baby at home. I fit in my exercise when I can but it seems that nothing i do is enough. He gets annoyed that there is still laundry, cleaning etc to do when he gets home and wonders why it so not been done during the day.
Is he being unfair to ask this? I would rather enjoy my children than spend all of my time cleaning/ironing etc.

It doesn't matter what you're doing or not doing, it's about trust and your dh is behaving really badly in his distrust & interrogation. You have to respect your partner, particularly when they are doing a job that is unpaid & undervalued, but essential to your family. Carry on doing your best, op. Don't justify or explain, get on with it & hopefully he will give up being a dick.

But I appreciate the argument for a Sahp, I have been one, and still am really as I only work 1 day. But the fact is, without the working partner the sahp couldn't not work. Of course it is symbiotic, the sahp SHOULD make the working parent's life easier so both parties benefit. But to ignore the input of the working parent is a little sly. Why is the sahp's daily activities more important than a working parents? Why shouldn't the sahp factor in time to their very flexible day to do some basic looking after of a the home, instead of treating their day's activities as immutable but the working parent can't? There's nothing wrong with a balance, isn't that what most people do?

I can't imagine anything worse than being out all day, every day and coming home to a bun fight. So I factor in being home at a reasonable hour most days to allow the kids to wind down, me to get the washing in and start dinner. I don't like to go out before 0930,10 ish so we can have a proper breakfast and tidy down afterwards etc. When the working parent gets home they step in 50/50 with the kids. One does bedtime while the other tidies down and clears away from the day, so both parents get to sit down at the same time and have a few hours chill.

newnameoldme no one has expected the OP to become a 'Stepford Wife'.

What they don't agree with is her thinking that she shouldn't bother to clean and tidy as she wants to enjoy her kids, while expecting her husband to work, clean, tidy and do laundry before he can also enjoy his kids.

By her own admission the OP cooks a meal each day and does the nursery run.
By her own admission her husband works, cleans, tidies, does laundry, helps with the kids when he is home and then gets to do the nice stuff.

Yes, she is being unequal and no it is not because she isn't a 'Stepford Wife'.

Jesus Christ I got to page 8 and t was turning into the yorskshiremens' sketch from monty python with some mners getting up at 5 to scrub and peg out for their 17 kids before striding off to their corporate 70hr a week job with a smile and ne'er a word of complaint. Good for you, you smug things!

What is never said but seems perfectly obvious is that being a sahm and domestic goddess are two highly skilled jobs in one. Some people are naturally amazing with kids, brilliant at organising and executing housework - i take my hat off to them, we should respect them. Others are sahm because they think it's in the best interest of their kids and they muddle through but fuck me it is phenomenally hard, boring, repetitive, disrespected, low in social status, neverending drudgy work. The housework bit at least not necessarily the childcare . Some sahm may just be lazy wagons.

I personally fall in the middle camp, I think it's been good for my kids to have me around for a few years but I really struggled. I recently started back at a very complex senior job on a massive, multi-strand, multi-year infrastructure redesign/rebuild project with tons of money and jobs at stake for which I am using all my experience as a director and from my top-five global mba, and frankly I find it a piece of piss as I personally found looking after two preschoolers really hard work. Maybe I'm just not very good at housework but I hear they've stopped dragging women out to the village green and flogging them for that.

And I've NEVER heard of someone saying to a childminder, nanny, or nursery worker, 'but what do you DO ALL DAY?!?'

I think being sahm is really difficult. Some may find it easy: good for them. But I really hate people, especially working parents, saying 'oh I would find it easy, so why don't you???' Fuck off and be a domestic goddess on your own watch them and stop castigating other women.

The other question is, who does the work? If it is left to the weekend, surely that still involves 'ignoring' the kids? Or is 'enjoying' the kids the preserve of the weekday alone? Does the sahp parent do it at the weekend so the working parent can 'enjoy the children', or does the working parent have to do it? Or do both do it in the name of fairness so neither is 'enjoying the kids' and the working parent gets no unadulterated kid enjoyment time?

Am I the only one whose DH genuinely wouldn't give a shit if he got home and there was laundry in the basket? Assuming he has clean shirts for work, why would he care if I hadn't done all the laundry that day? Does everyone else keep an entirely empty laundry basket at all times?

Of course not. But there is a difference between an empty basket and an overflowing one with ltd clothes available. Or clothes all over the place and not in a laundry bin.

Neither of us would come home and pick holes in the other, but then neither of us would leave the house a tip.

If you don't like it, get a job and share the work equally.

Part of the deal of being a SAHM is that you do the housework, so that both parents can have family time in the evenings and at the weekend.

Part of the deal of being a SAHM is that you do the housework

Sorry, is there an official rule book for being a SAHM? Didn't realise we all had to follow the same formula.
Me doing all the housework certainly wasn't what DH and I agreed when I became a SAHM.

eyespydream
Presumably the partners of nannies, childminders and nursery workers understand that they are working and are therefore not sahp?

Two out of the three groups mentioned probably don't even work in their own home.
Childminders are also capable of tidying as they go and maintaining a clearly acceptable level of cleanliness in their home, as it is required.

So who does the work and when?

Maybe you will like this op?
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1143680875736558&id=100002839695661

Was that addressed to me?
I do bits and bobs throughout the day, depending on what else we're doing. Everything else gets split 50:50 when the children are in bed/at weekends. So for example they're in bed for 7, we'll both spend half an hour whizzing round doing anything that needs doing, then both sit down and relax together at 7.30. Obviously it's flexible, he works away sometimes so I do it all then, the nights he's at his hobby I do more, the nights I'm at mine he does more.
At weekends we'll both do things when we get chance. I've just mown the lawn, he's cooking lunch.
Equal leisure time. Works for us.

But that's it isn't it, op and her dh aren't getting equal leisure time because he comes home from work and has to clean and tidy.

Ecureuil

I don't think anyone has an objection to that or has said that isn't fair.
You do what you can during the day and then husband helps at night. That is fair.

In OPs post she has made it clear that she cooks and sometimes puts on a wash.
Her husband then does the cleaning, tidying, laundry and ironing when he gets home.

Very different circumstances.

The deal wasn't that I wouldn't do any housework, just that I wouldn't be lumbered with all of it.

Ecureil didn't you? You are clearly a shit sahm, it's okay though because I am too since I had a cleaner, someone who did ironing and on occasions a gardener too

I did really weird things like interact with my kids rather than park them in front of CBeebies while I scrubbed the kitchen floor - every day - with a smile - and a sense of how LUCKY I was. What a shit sahm I was

I also 'outsource' the ironing

Bulk of housework should be done by sahp. They can do it while at home, whop can't as they are out. Massive bone of contenting in my house because I work full time and dh is a sahp to a school age child four days a week.

But a child at school is a COMPLETELY different scenario to a baby and preschooler, surely? Of course if a sahp has several hours a day at home where they're not working they should do housework?

ecu you utter slattern, bet your DH is secretly 'seething'

You are being rather obtuse there eyespy, surely you can see a middle ground between parking the kids in front of cbeebies while you scrub and actually just doing what most adults do and finding a happy medium? You would have to be pretty incapable if that is incomprehensible.

Otherwise all these men who claim not to see dirt or just 'not be good at it' may have a point despite having been shut down for years on here.

sailorcherries

'By her own admission the OP cooks a meal each day and does the nursery run.
By her own admission her husband works, cleans, tidies, does laundry, helps with the kids when he is home and then gets to do the nice stuff.'

Did you forget op has a baby? 😂

And? That doesn't render you useless in the main

Most babies nap for a few hours a day. It's not fair that a wohp has to come home and do a load of housework when the sahp can pull their weight while at home.