Childcare equals work?

[CurlyHurlyWurly]

I've just had a row with DH, where he came home from his work, and I was tired from looking after DS all day. After having put DS to bed, I cooked dinner and started hanging up laundry, and asked DH to help folding his clothes that have been sitting there for a week. "I'll do it in a bit, I just want to sit because I've been to work all day," he said. "So have I!" I said. "Bo**ocks!" he shouted.

So AIBU in thinking me looking after DS all day is the same as DH going to work?

I also have my own business, and have to juggle working from home with childcare and household chores. I'm fuming, and feel the lack of respect is unreal.

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So what's his job?

Why does it matter what op's dh job is? Is it so that posters can decide whether it qualifies as 'hard' enough to get him out of the house work? OP may not want to overshare and I'm sure if her husband job was very long hours and extremely high pressure to the point he would require a pod cleaner if lived alone than she wouldn't have asked him to pitch in.

paid

Looking after your child is very tiring, doing household chores is tiring but it is parenting/looking after your house not work. Moaning cos someone won’t fold washing immediately after coming home from work is a bit shit isn’t it? Yes to chipping in with the household chores and being a parent but all he asked for was 15 min to unwind.

I thought OP said they had dinner first and that it wasn't right after he got through the door?

To the OP. Yes it does.

It amazes me how men's job suddenly become so difficult and tiring once they have kids, and they always work "very hard" of course. How many women have jobs so hard that they can't possibly cook for themselves, take the bin out or care at all for the kids they decided to have? Not many I'd bet...

If the lazy bastard had done it a week ago, because that's how long his clothes have been sitting there, then he wouldn't have to do it now. Mind, he's not just rushed through the door having been battling dragons all day. He's had a sit down and a dinner cooked by the OP, who has done her own wfh, plus childcare and housework!

Housework and childcare is work because people get paid to do it.

Yanbu, childcare is utterly exhausting! Some days I'd rather be at work where I can at least eat a sandwich in peace and go to the toilet solo!

Jesus Christ, someone asking why YOU left his washing out for a week?! God forbid he put his own fucking washing away. And as for those saying that the stay at home parent should do all childcare and housework, why are you ignoring the part where OP says she also runs her own business from home? Or is that just her hobby for pin money and not real manly work like her husband must do?

I think childcare is easier in a way than my job, but it was also more isolating and I found it a harder life overall.

RTFT people, or at the very least the OP. This is a woman on maternity leave who is still BFing a small baby that wakes in the night, runs her own business, and gave her DH dinner before she asked him to put away his washing which has been sitting waiting to be put away for a week. OP YADNBU. Men do not get a free pass from housework when their wife is on maternity leave. If things need to be done in the evening they need to do their share.

Maternity leave is a bitch, you get dragged away from your usual support network (I knew no-one in this town apart from my workmates before we had the kids and DH was out of the house from 8am until 6.30pm) and are severely sleep deprived and have hormones going crazy (I use to get hot flushes all the time) and left in sole charge of a small baby that does not behave in the way all the so called parenting experts claim they do (DD1 did not believe in naps, she didn't nap from 10 weeks, every day felt like groundhog day on speed). You have to drag yourself to mother and baby activities in the hope of meeting other parents you have something in common with and yet when you get there you are all so shattered you are incapable of making interesting conversation. I swear I went slightly crazy every time I was on maternity leave. To go back to an interesting, challenging, worthwhile job and be able to mix with intelligent adults again was bliss. Your DH has no idea of the hell of maternity leave so of course he thinks he's doing the hard work. If possible express some milk and go out for a few hours alone at the weekend. Or suggest he takes some paternity leave so you can return to work sooner. Is he going to go PT when you return to work? I would encourage it to get this daft notion out of his head that looking after a child is not hard work.

Even if OP wasn't also wfh, being a sahp does not mean you should do everything while the wohp does nothing.
A sahp's primary responsibility is looking after the dc. If there is time, then yes, do some housework. But when the wohp gets in from work, responsibility reverts to the them both for parenting and domestic work.
And certainly bring a sahp does not make you default responsible for another functioning adult's personal tasks, like putting their washing away. He'll be wanting his arse wiped next!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mom.me/kids/39578-sahm-depression-real-and-no-one-warns-you-about-it/amp/

Some posters may need to read the above article regarding SAHM and depression due to lack of recognition for what they do.

Weekends are family time, when we go on holiday it’s also family time." Well that's a non answer! At weekends and annual leave where you don't leave home (people don't always go away, eg sometimes one partner has more leave than the other) there is STILL things to do, childcare, laundry, feeding people, general cleaning and tidying - if you don't find the need to do those at weekends I'd LOVE to know how.

It is BLOODY DEPRESSING reading this thread, it's bad enough men undervaluing/dismissing childcare and "wifework" which is ACTUALLY LIFE work - without women doing it too! and yet there's people idiots who say we no longer need feminist campaigning! I despair!

@graphista I agree...I can't believe some of the thing I am reading. Like you say, these things coming from a man is one thing, but from woman to woman is beyond depressing. It seems to be the way things are these days though, may mil asked recently if I was "enjoying my time off"...time off what!

Hippy I have a slightly different take from my mum, she campaigned in the day (70's) for equal pay and enployment rights, she feels we're going backwards in attitudes to women's worth.

I don't understand in what way the husband is allowing the OP to "have a break" from work while he has the "pressures" of being the main earner..! The OP has stated the baby is a few months old. Some people get paid up to 6 months or more leave or fund their maternity themselves. I took 12 months leave and had half of it in full pay and paid for the rest from my personal savings. Even if he were suffering the pressures of being the main earner, what exactly does that even mean!

PPs are right, this thread is fucking depressind and offensive.

I don't understand in what way the husband is allowing the OP to "have a break" from work while he has the "pressures" of being the main earner..! The OP has stated the baby is a few months old. Some people get paid up to 6 months or more leave or fund their maternity themselves. I took 12 months leave and had half of it in full pay and paid for the rest from my personal savings. Even if he were suffering the pressures of being the main earner, what exactly does that even mean!

PPs are right, this thread is fucking depressind and offensive.

Indeed unihorn. He isn't allowing OP to have a break from work because OP isn't having a break from work, and we have no idea whether he's the main earner or not. It's depressing because of the attitudes but also the comprehension skills.

Fed op is not opting out of working or is a sahp. She is on maternity leave. Yanbu op

That was ffs. See I am cross on your behalf ok and I haven't even read whole thread yet.

Even if she was a sahm it doesn't make her his skivvy.

Agree