To wonder what the housewives of yesteryear would have thought of this....

[Comedycook]

I'm a sahm of school age DC so probably more of a housewife than anything else

Thanks to the pandemic, obviously dh is working from home. Ds is isolating. There's is permanently someone under my feet getting in my way when trying to do stuff.

Even during normal times, in school holidays for example, kids are constantly around as it's not the like the old days when they'd play out all day and come in for their tea.

Honestly, I find it really quite unbearable despite loving my family obviously. I wonder how housewives of previous generations would have coped? I reckon having their men home all day whilst they tried to cook and clean would have sent them potty!

I'm talking about families where mum and dad both work full time yet mum does everything round the house. That is a far worse example to children imo than my set up.

Why? Either way, Dad's doing nothing domestic. At least with a working mother you're demonstrating that women can do both even if men apparently can't. That's not a dig at SAHMs, just pointing out the flaw in your logic, since you're now doing the "best example for children" stuff.

And you think it's "not good for men" to be home and blathering about "men going out to work since time immemorial". Is that something children should be imbibing?

Thank you. That's exactly how I feel.

Well, forgive us for misunderstanding, but in your OP, you said that this was how you felt:

"Even during normal times, in school holidays for example, kids are constantly around as it's not the like the old days when they'd play out all day and come in for their tea. Honestly, I find it really quite unbearable despite loving my family obviously. I wonder how housewives of previous generations would have coped?"

But weekend still involves
Breakfast / lunch / dinner
Washing up or dishwasher
Wiping up and cleaning kitchen after making meals including a quick hoover or mop depending on meal eaten and how tidy or old your children are
Kids bedtimes - bath every night? Settling them to sleep and going through their routines
Maybe getting kids dressed?
Potentially a load of washing unless you prefer to do it all from a Monday

So whilst I don't expect the bathroom needs scrubbing on a Saturday there's still things he could do which ultimately would give you some slack at the weekend and also show a good example to your children that he's not incompetent or a man child (unless sadly for you he is)

Children probably had far more fun out with their friends rather than at home with their mums.

I used to take my ds when he was 9 in the school holidays to the park...he'd want to stay their all day but I also had stuff to do and errands to run which couldn't get done because I couldn't leave him there. Yes, I did wish it was the old days so he could have stayed and had fun and I could get shit done

Children probably had far more fun out with their friends rather than at home with their mums.

Like at nurseries and out of school clubs?

@1940s

But weekend still involves Breakfast / lunch / dinner Washing up or dishwasher Wiping up and cleaning kitchen after making meals including a quick hoover or mop depending on meal eaten and how tidy or old your children are Kids bedtimes - bath every night? Settling them to sleep and going through their routines Maybe getting kids dressed? Potentially a load of washing unless you prefer to do it all from a Monday

So whilst I don't expect the bathroom needs scrubbing on a Saturday there's still things he could do which ultimately would give you some slack at the weekend and also show a good example to your children that he's not incompetent or a man child (unless sadly for you he is)

You sound ridiculously over invested in my life. My children don't need settling to sleep. They're not babies. Making a meal and wiping down the side doesn't take me long. My DH does DIY and fixes stuff and I do the other stuff. We're perfectly happy. It's hardly an unusual lifestyle choice

@DrSbaitso

Children probably had far more fun out with their friends rather than at home with their mums.

Like at nurseries and out of school clubs?

Nurseries are expensive and after school clubs operate in term time. I'm talking about school holidays

'We're perfectly happy'

Says OP who started a thread to moan about how unhappy she is

@Twickytwo

I agree with *@kindaclassy*. My mother with a large family worked until her seventies then did childcare for grandkids. I remember her doctor telling her that work keeps people young. It is so much better for mental health for people to work. She didn't die until well into her nineties and with a very active brain. I can't believe there are still women who maintain that the house is their sole domain and husbands have to go to work to provide. It's certainly not the pattern for most people. More women , including mothers, are working today than ever before in the UK It shows that misogyny is alive and well on MN

I can't believe there are women out there that work full time, do all the childcare and all the housework. It's those women I feel sorry for. And god knows how they got themselves in to it. How they will get themselves out of it and how their children will grow up to think it's normal.

There's nothing wrong with being a house wife. What's more worrying is women who do it all and hate their husbands. So so many of these women on MN.

Like at nurseries and out of school clubs?

Noooo of course not! Didn’t you know it’s better for children to have a mother waiting indoors? Not for them to be raised by ‘strangers’!

Nurseries are expensive and after school clubs operate in term time. I'm talking about school holidays

Well forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, but if your husband could still do a bit of domestic stuff in the holidays EVEN THOUGH HE HAS A JOB AS WELL, you might not find it so "unbearable", as you describe it.

On the one hand you're complaining about how awful it is even in normal times during school holidays when kids don't fuck the fuck off anyway. On the other you're telling us how much you love taking full charge of all domestic stuff and, you imply, be way more present for the kids and set a better example than if you worked. And it's manly to go out to work or whatever.

@FloconDeNeige

Like at nurseries and out of school clubs?

Noooo of course not! Didn’t you know it’s better for children to have a mother waiting indoors? Not for them to be raised by ‘strangers’!

I'm just interested in how it's great for kids to play with their friends away from Mother, until it's a designated childcare setting with legal obligations and trained adults and then it's bloody Dotheboys Hall.

@MagicSummer

My DH has been wfh since the whole thing started, so since March 2020. I used to have my own daily routine and the freedom of the house all week. I do not like having him round the house all the time; he is terribly untidy, he is forever eating or making cups of tea and coffee, he makes a HUGE mess on both worktops when he makes a sandwich (I really don't know how he manages to make such a mess), he mumbles when he talks so I have to ask him to repeat everything he says, and lately he has started making puffing noises all the time! It is driving me nuts - I wish he would go back to the office.

It's his home too, you know.

I'm just interested in how it's great for kids to play with their friends away from Mother, until it's a designated childcare setting with legal obligations and trained adults and then it's bloody Dotheboys Hall.

Because childcare settings are extremely expensive and why would I pay for that when I'm at home

@1940s

'We're perfectly happy'

Says OP who started a thread to moan about how unhappy she is

Having a job wouldn't make me anymore happier.

@Fairyliz

I don’t want to scare you, but just wait until your DH retires and is around the bloody house all day with no chance that he will be going back to the office in the future.

It’s driving me mad. I go out everyday but never ever get time on my own in the house. It seems most men become boring stay at home people when they retire.

Buy him a shed, a flask, an armchair and a portable tv for his birthday. Tell him it's so he can get away from you for a few hours each day.

The housewives of yesteryear had other things to contend with - wars, rationing, waking up every day not knowing whether they were going to get the telegram...

I work ft, as does my DH. We are lucky enough with hours and holidays and our children get a lot of time with both of us. However I do often think of my childhood , where my DM was at home, while my (v hands on with us and housework) DDad worked. I think that it would be lovely for my DC to stroll home from school to their own house, where things are a bit more organised than the Mon - Fri arrival home here... I do sometimes think the idea of 'having it all' wasn't so wonderful after all. And yet I value my financial indepenendence, enjoy my job, did a few years at home when they were small etc. It's just something I think of now and then and I do think it benefits DC.

I’ve not read the whole thread, but I think what the OP is complaining about is the shift in the atmosphere in her house that’s caused by the DH working from home. She is not moaning about the “division of Labour’ in her house.

I can relate OP ad I’m a SAHM and have been for many years (all kids teens now) and the BEST thing about it was the “me time” or “space” when DH was at work and they were all at school. That’s not to say I don’t love them being around - not at all - but it’s a different dynamic now that DH is WFH. To put it bluntly, I don’t have Netflix days very often (honest)! But it was the thought that I could have done, if that makes sense? Now, I’d feel guilty (not massively so, but guilty enough).

Previously, I had busy days, sure, but also days of doing sod all. This balance was fantastic! Now I feel as if I have to be appearing “busy-ish” or otherwise be out. He hasn’t said or done anything to make me feel this way - to be honest, he’s just glad I’m here for the kids and everything else outside his job. But it’s a change nevertheless. Also, I feel obliged now to make him lunch which is “another thing.” So I see where you’re coming from (I think).

I get it BZoma, makes sense.

Yes I totally understand @BZoma. For me getting time to myself actually made me a better mum and wife...now I feel like I operate at a level of low irritability constantly

And yes I actually get little down time nowas I also feel the pressure to look busy...like you, my DH doesn't say that but I just feel that way

That's something to wonder about OP, why is that I wonder? I'd be heading out for a walk/a coffee regularly over the day.

I find it actually painful to never be alone
I could sympathise if you were in a tiny flat but you're in a big house, three levels! Surely it's not that hard to isolate yourself from your working oh. You even have the garden when the weather is nice.

It's an extreme need of self isolation. As for children...well yes, they do tend to need company. You can't be cross with them for just being...children?

Yes the thing is, we have quite a few kids and my husband is very, very busy - always! I feel as if my whole life is doing stuff for them. I don’t mind at all because I don’t have to juggle a job on top - but, in some ways, a job can also act as a mental break from home (even though it can bring a whole host of stresses, dramas, boredom etc etc of its own). As they say, “a change is as good as a holiday.”

I’m not saying I want / need a job, but everyone needs personal space - physically and mentally. So the time in the day when nobody was about and I could just focus on me and go what the hell I want, made me a better mum and wife, yes.

And yes I actually get little down time nowas I also feel the pressure to look busy...like you, my DH doesn't say that but I just feel that way
Well here we go, it did come out in the end. You clearly have a very leisurely life, but don't like your husband to see how easy you have it compared to him.

After all, now that he sees how easy your life really is, he might start to think that maybe it's time for you to get a job and help support the family, and that would be your leisurely time gone!