Wife's SAHM attitude is getting too much

[DesperateDanny]

My wife's been a SAHM for the last 9 yrs but both our kids are now at school with the youngest about to finish P1 and i feel like I'm having the piss taken out of me. We both had careers before kids and agreed that my wife would give up for parenthood - cost of childcare, wanting to be there for the kids many of the reasons. We didn't discuss what happened after the kids went to school though.

I work full time with a bit of a commute on either end so i'm out of the house 5 days a week, my wife drops the kids off just before 9, picks up after 3 and essentially has 6 hrs/ 5 days a week with no kids. despite this household chores, food shopping, etc get divided exactly 50/50 at the weekends and any time i mention it i get shouted down with a barrage of "you'd have me chained to the sink" arguments. during the day, as far as i can tell her time is spent, going to the gym, shopping, meeting friends, getting haircuts etc. the thing that's really got to me was that during an argument about it last weekend she said that she's earned time to herself after looking after the kids for so many years.

I'm now so frustrated and bitter about it almost anything on this topic really gets to me - how come if you use the milk at breakfast it takes me to go and get some more in the evening? why if the bin is emptied at 9am is it still at the bottom of the drive when i get in, all of these petty things are really getting me down. What's more it seems she's got a group of very like minded SAHM friends who seemingly encourage her to stand her ground.

I don't know when she became so entitled or how she manages to tell me she's really too busy during the day to do x,y, and z with a straight face but I'm at my wits end, i thought that as our youngest got settled in P1 that she might think about maybe returning to PT work or at the very least do some of the work we do at the weekend to free up family time but it's getting worse and I'm really struggling to see a way out of it.

I'd really like to hear from other SAHMs r.e. when their kids went to school.

*Perhaps both could work 3 days a week and put their kid into nursery 1 day.

Many companies now offer flexitime and are family friendly! It does seem many women are quick to go "1 person should stay at home.....ah guess it has to be me"*

I haven't read all of your comments yolo but you sound a bit like me before I had children. My DM worked FT since i was 5 months old. I had loads of nannies/childminders etc. and i've always admired her. However, she was knackered and irritable and i desperately missed her being around. She has always said that i was a very easy child and that allowed her to go back to work.

Pre-kids my intentions were to work PT at the same company for next few decades. Totally unrealistic. Unfortunately, I got made redundant along with alot of other peeple.
Quite often after maternity leave you can go part time upon return to the same company, but not when applying for new job in new company. Not all jobs are suitable for PT work. This is very true for mne and DH's industry.
When anyone goes PT the sad fact is that they are setting themselves up for no promotion for the foreseable, getting the sh*t tasks and redundancy. So if both of you go part time, you are putting both earners in a risky situation.

Even when i went PT after mat leave, I was the one who was struggling with everything else at home - housework/admin/bills etc.

Both of our kids had problems (medical/SN) and I knew that being made redundant was actually what i needed to focus on them. I spent the first few years of their life being pushed into the ground by sleepless nights and relentless problems. This has an impact on my health and psychological well being.

I not work very PT from home, earning very little but it works around the kids. It's not great for my ego, pension or my future career prospects. But it's what i currently need to do to make things work. There is a FT mum who made snarly comments at me when i was a SAHM. Most FT mums i know are not like this but maybe they think it but don't say to me ???

I think we need to accept that people decide what to do based on their particular family situation.
Some mums go back to work as they need to or feel it is the best for their family situation. This is ok.
Some mums choose to stay at home. So what if they go to the gym ? Lots of people who work go to the gym at lunchtime. Dh works and is quite frequently goes out to lunch with friends or work colleagues. He also works bloody hard. But I also work my socks off too and have very little time to myself. We have alot less money now which isn't great, but for US it was more important for me to be at home to pick kids up from school and look after them and medical appts/administering over 10 meds a day/SENCO/Occupational therpapy exercises/admin etc. whilst doing my very incy wincy flexible job.

I think maybe some of us need to adopt a more "i'm ok, you're ok"
attitude. We don't need to justify our own positions by attacking those doing the opposite.

Yolo - it is a luxury but it's a reality and I'm trying to explain to you why the whole flexi job 50/50 family set-up would just never work for many families.

But lots of people work in Central london, commuting from Home Counties with lots of good schools. You are choosing a luxury lifestyle.

Also, I am amazed at the number of people that have a comfortable lifestyle on just one salary. I thought this was a 1% thing - most people only "get by" on 2!

@bungle - that's a really interesting perspective. It's a shame that going PT in a lot of places is basically like handing in your notice to future promotions.

Yolo, you do make some sweeping statements about the nature of children who attend nursery versus those with a sahp and wrt how families should work. You are not in a position to make sweeping judgements about the behaviour of children. You do know that children are all different, that sahp/wohp are not neatly divided into two groups, with each group being an homogeneous mass, raising their children identically to either share/not share the toys ?
Children of sahp go to nursery too, you know. And dc of predominantly wohp often have extended periods of time at home, if parents are on mat leave for example.

I'd also like to know where all these flexible jobs exist, that don't penalise you in career terms if you opt for the flexibility and that also pay you enough money to live.

That's true, sorry.

I can PM you my company's hiring page if you want 😉 (Don't work there tho, it's so boring it's the reason I got addicted to Mumsnet....)

There are plenty of SAHMs in the Home Counties too Yolo. I know loads of people who moved out to the likes of Esher, etc. Now the hedge-fund or whatever DH's have a commute either side of the day as well, so actually even less time with their DC.

In my DC's primary class of 20, 2 mums work full time and a few others part-time. We all had professional or quite good jobs before DC as far as I know. Many are expat, admittedly. But it is what it is.

I find the biggest challenge is holiday times and unexpected sickness
As a single parent that works I've had many stressful times ringing round trying to arrange someone to look after my daughter when she's sick.
When I don't go in work I do not get paid.
Luckily I have a good family that helps but if you do not have that I can imagine it's hard.
What I do find depressing is the amount of posts on here that say there OH earns so much more than them which is why they are the SAHP.
Even in this day and age it seems women are still earning far less than men.

Actually living in commuter belt makes things harder if both of you work away as then you have the worry of "how do we get back in time if needed". I work in central london and one guy lives on the Kent coast but his wife has been sahp because they couldn't both be a big distance from nursery and now school

What I do find depressing is the amount of posts on here that say there OH earns so much more than them which is why they are the SAHP.

Quite. It's sad that so many have said "we did this because H's earnings were 3x higher". I am waiting for the day that women are hedge fund managers and men are waiting at the school gates.

user

I left work in 1990, earning less than dh, work wouldnt give me two long part time days just three shorter ones and they didn't give me my promotion....purely because i had a baby

I like to think that things are getting better but obviously my experiences and mindset at the time are nearly two decades old

Thats a world away...

On a lighter note

My phone went off last night when i got into bed

And i was too afraid to get it in case a predator got me

(I womaned up eventually as two out of my three children were out and it might have been them trying to get hold of us in an emergency....it wasnt them)

Not everyone wants a high flying career and would happily choose to stay home with the children instead. Not sure what is so 'sad' or 'depressing' about that.

I bet there would be outrage if I said that I found it sad and depressing that some parents feel they need to spend all hours of the day working whilst putting their kids in wrap around care and holiday clubs for up to 10/12 hours a day.

I don't think that by the way, at all. But why is it okay to be derogatory about one choice a parent makes but not the other? Working or not, people do what works for them and their families, it's not a difficult concept to grasp.

The choice to stay with your kids is fine, if it is made freely.

If it is not a free choice, or not what you wanted, but you are forced into it because of work circumstances - that is sad an depressing. For lots of people, this is the case.

Like PPs saying their husband thought 1 parent should be at home, and as they earned less, they had no choice but for it to be them. That does sadden me, yes.

So it would be OK for me to say that I find it sad and depressing for those parents who are forced to working full time when they don't particularly want to?

From what I can gather most sahp's on this thread are doing so willingly and yet the vitriol they have received for their choice on this thread has been unreal.

I find it patronising to be honest, no one needs to feel sad or depressed on my behalf.

It's equally depressing though if you are forced to leave your DC before you're ready and return to work because you have to survive. Life isn't perfect and we all have to make choices.

So it would be OK for me to say that I find it sad and depressing for those parents who are forced to working full time when they don't particularly want to?

Absolutely. Anyone being forced to do things they don't want to is sad and depressing.

To be fair men working an unskilled job will still earn more than most women working unskilled jobs so it's not even about the pay gap for high flying career women.

Like PPs saying their husband thought 1 parent should be at home, and as they earned less, they had no choice but for it to be them. That does sadden me, yes.

Don't think anyone said they had no choice. Just that they made the choice to stay home and that they were in a position to do so due to their partners high earnings. They could have worked if they'd wanted, but after weighing up the pros and cons, they decided not to.

Yolo - if you are someone who values your career above all else, then obviously don't marry a man who requires you to follow him round the world and who will work days, evenings and large chunks of the weekend as if it's standard. I coped with this because once the DC came along, leaving them with anyone else felt akin to leaving a limb behind or something. So the balance we have has worked for us. I hope you find what works for you.

After reading this thread I have come to the conclusion that despite the many exscuses being used for the woman staying at home the bottom line is a lot of women enjoy being at home and would much rather do this than work no matter if they were better/worse of for it.